Tribes: No more harassing wolves after federal ruling
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PABLO — A recent U.S. District Court ruling reinstating gray wolves to the Endangered Species List means stockowners on the Flathead Reservation will no longer be allowed to harass or kill wolves that are harassing livestock.
“We go back to the interim control plan that we had before (wolves were delisted),” Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes wildlife manager Dale Becker said.
The Flathead Reservation lies within the Northern Rocky Mountain Recovery Area, which includes parts of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Gray wolves in Montana and Idaho were removed from the endangered list in April 2009, leaving Wyoming to improve its wolf management plan before it could be again considered for delisting. Several conservationist groups immediately sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and on Aug. 5, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled in their favor on the grounds that a biological population can’t be split into separate parts.
Thus, “the rule delisting the gray wolf must be set aside because, though it may be a pragmatic solution to a difficult biological issue, it is not a legal one,” Molloy wrote.
While the tribes have a wolf management program separate from the state’s program, Tribal Council will take Molloy’s ruling into consideration and will likely revise the wolf management plan within the next month, Becker said.
“When these things happen, there’s some ripples that take a few weeks to settle out,” he said.
CSKT’s current wolf management plan can be found online at www.cskt.org on the Wildlife Program page. Under the plan, stockowners were able to defend their animals with lethal force, but “they won’t be able to do that,” Becker said. “That’s really the only change I foresee.”
