Idaho Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch are asking the U.S. Department of the Interior to appeal a district court decision that ended Idaho’s sanctioned wolf hunt and put gray wolves back on the endangered species list.
The two GOP senators sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, who was the lead defendant in the lawsuit to end Idaho’s wolf management and hunt. The Interior Department oversees the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which delisted wolves.
Crapo and Risch said in their letter that the judge’s ruling earlier this month should be challenged. “This ruling entirely ignores the successful recovery of the gray wolf in Idaho, as well as our state’s strong wolf management plan, which, as you know, has been approved by the FWS and has demonstrated Idaho’s role as a responsible and effective manager of gray wolf populations within our boundaries,” they said. “It is vital that Idaho be permitted to manage its wildlife populations.”
It’s up to the Department of the Interior, not the state of Idaho, to appeal the court ruling.
A spokesman for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) told IdahoReporter.com that the Department of the Interior has been in talks with state wildlife managers on how to manage the legal effort and wolves in Idaho.
Salazar represented Colorado in the U.S. Senate, serving alongside Crapo and Risch, before President Barack Obama appointed him to lead the Department of the Interior in 2009. He said last year that he was pleased with the decision to delist wolves in Idaho and Montana.
Appeal and lose? Establishing even more firmly the legal underpinnings of the somewhat inevitable ruling under current law? Or maybe Crapo and Risch should get on the phone to their Wyoming colleagues to come up with a reasonable approach in the state that’s the real problem.
The main problem here is the politics of it all. This will be a never ending battle, with hunters screaming that they will kill wolves anyway(Like that really helps their cause), and the conservation groups such as Defenders of Wildlife generating enough money to fight this forever. Whether one like it or not, wildlife advocates, and in the same breath, wolf advocates, love the wolf across this country. far and wide.They far outnumber the hunters and those that simply want to kill them by more than ten to one.
There is a more simple solution here and that is to sit down and listen to these extremely intelligent biologists and work with them on restoring the wolf to a suitable population number that works well for the ecosystem. I fully expect this reply will be followed by others that will use vulgarity and name calling, for that has been the way. And that is too bad because this issue could be resolved but the states will have to bend in their thinking quite a bit, and I am not sure if that is possible when you have a Governor like Butch Otter of Idaho who wanted to shoot the first wolf during the 2009 hunting season. I know enough Senators and Congressman that will effectively block such measures touted by Crapo and Risch, and such legislature will never be passed.
Under Salazar wildlife is being wiped out in the West. Finally a ruling to list the wolves back to endangered…after hundreds and hundreds (w/pups) killed. Along with the wolves, the wild horses and burros are being *brutally rounded up, chased by helicopter, to near extinction. Injured, ill, dying, due to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Put in captivity with @ 38,000 captured wild horses. And all at taxpayer expense. Rancher Salazar is going against a 1971 law and an unprecedented public, scientific and Congressional outcry. Salazar does as Salazar wants.
You can not expect Otter, Crapo or Risch to come up with a reasonable solution. They will spend our tax dollars fighting for the people who get Federal Farm Welfare payments and cartel controlled grazing rights to federal lands B4 they support the citizens who pay their salary.
[...] judge’s decision to end state management of wolves, but are responding to it differently. While Idaho’s senators asked Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to appeal the decision, Tester and Baucus asked Salazar for the [...]
[...] Idaho Reporter [...]
[...] Risch and Crapo have asked the U.S. Department of the Interior to appeal the federal court decision putting wolves back on the endangered species list. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy sided with conservation groups who argued a federal decision splitting the management of wolves in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming had no scientific basis. [...]
Ask the Feds??? Thats the whole problem. Quit asking and start telling. Ever read the 10th amendment boys? The last time I read article 1 section 8 of the U.S constitution, managing wolves in Idaho is not one of congress’ 18 enumerated powers. The states need to get a spine.
[...] congressional delegation backed several efforts to delist wolves last year, following the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Donald [...]