Wolf hunting season lies in doubt
Matt Unrau
The possibility of a Fall wolf hunt in Montana now lies in the hands of the court. On Thursday EarthJustice, a coalition of wolf advocates, filed an injunction in Missoula District Court to block wolf hunting seasons in Idaho and Montana.
“We filed an injunction, because hundreds of wolves are likely to be killed in the coming months before a lawsuit can be resolved,” says Michael Robinson, Center for Biological Diversity.
The lawsuit mentioned by Robinson was filed earlier this year to stop the federal delisting of wolves as an endangered species. Robinson says they filed the lawsuit because they maintain that the “wolves in the Rocky Mountains are not yet recovered.”
EarthJustice had been waiting to file the injunction until they learned of Idaho’s wolf hunting plans. The state had just recently announced that their quota is set at 220 wolves.
Because the Idaho wolf hunting season is scheduled to start on September 1 and the Montana season on September 15, Carolyn Sime, statewide Wolf Coordinator for Fish, Wildlife and Parks expects the legal situation to move very quickly. “Things are in a very dynamic state,” says Sime. “Things are expected to move very quickly.”
At this point, the defendents along with the state of Montana and the Attorney General acting as an intervener in the case will be allowed to make their arguments against the injunction.
At the end of 2008, FWP showed a minimum number of 497 wolves in Montana. The hunting quota for the state is set at 75 wolves, which is a "conservative start" for the first wolf hunting season says Sime.
In order to win their injunction, Robinson says they will need to show the courts two things, “show likeliness of success on the lawsuit overrall” and “show the liklihood of irreperable harm.”
This is the third round of court battles between The Center for Biological Diversity and the effort to delist the wolves. In 2003 they sued the Federal Government over the moving of wolves to a “threatened species,” and in July of 2008 the group filed an injunction to stop a wolf hunting season. EarthJustice won both cases.