Judge orders wolf returned to Northeast

[LifeNRA]

Judge orders wolf returned to Northeast

By The Associated Press

Saturday, August 20, 2005 - MONTPELIER (AP) -- In what environmentalists hailed as a major victory, a federal judge on Friday ordered the Bush administration to step up efforts to restore the gray wolf to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York.

"The wolves are howlin"' in celebration, Patrick Parenteau, director of the environmental law clinic at Vermont Law School, said with a laugh. Parenteau, lead attorney in the case, said his students "did all the hard labor in the case. It's a nice victory for our students."

Judge J. Garvan Murtha, sitting in the U.S. District Court for Vermont, found that the Department of the Interior violated federal law in 2003 when it issued a rule saying no further efforts to restore the wolf were needed.

Efforts to restore wolves have been successful in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula, as well as in the northern Rocky Mountains. The 2003 rule moved wolves in those regions from endangered to threatened. The government also wanted to lump the upper Midwest states in with the Northeast in a new, 21-state eastern region, and declare that enough had been done to restore wolf populations throughout the eastern United States.

As it issued that rule, the Fish and Wildlife Service signaled that it soon would move to "delist" the wolf in the eastern part of the country, meaning it no longer would be protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The public comment period recently closed on another rule that would do just that, Parenteau said, adding that Friday's ruling likely would result in that proposed rule being changed or scrapped.

Anthony Tur, a Fish and Wildlife Service field officer based in Concord, N.H., said the agency's headquarters in Washington would decide whether to appeal the ruling.

He questioned the push to build gray wolf populations in the Northeast on two fronts, saying it wasn't clear that the public would support such a move and that there was dispute in the scientific community about whether gray wolves ever populated the region.

Gray or red in Northeast?

"There's some scientific argument about whether or not the wolf that was originally here in eastern United States was a gray wolf or whether it was a red wolf," Tur said. "There's scientific support in thinking it was a red wolf not a gray wolf."

In his decision, Murtha wrote that the Fish and Wildlife Service "simply cannot downlist or delist an area that it previously determined warrants an endangered listing because it 'lumps together' a core population with a low to nonexistent population outside the core area."

If the government had prevailed, Parenteau said, "the only wolves that would exist in the eastern United States would be those wolf populations in the upper Great Lakes. That's what the final rule (put out by the Fish and Wildlife Service) said and that's what we challenged."

Environmental groups, including the National Wildlife Federation, Vermont Natural Resources Council, Maine Wolf Coalition, Environmental Advocates of New York and Maine Audubon Society, joined in the lawsuit. They argued that good wolf habitats exist in northern Maine and in New York's Adirondack Mountains, and that northern Vermont and New Hampshire likely would become an important corridor for wolves migrating between those two habitats.

"While wolves are an Endangered Species Act success story in the Great Lakes and Northern Rockies, the administration wanted to declare total victory based on these partial wins," Peggy Struhsacker, program manager for National Wildlife Federation's wolf recovery team, said in a statement. "The administration was ready to announce the marathon over when the finish line is still over the next hill."

Even if the government is slow to promote reintroduction of the animals in the Northeast, it appears wolves may be moving into the region on their own.

'Wolves nearly here'

Parenteau said wolves are already known to be roaming just north of the border in parts of Quebec between the St. Laurence River and the United States. He said there have been several sightings in northern New England, though the veracity of some is in dispute. He also said a large male wolf was killed by a hunter in New York state last year.

John Kostyack, lawyer for the National Wildlife Federation, called the ruling a "major victory for wolves and for all the people who care so much about preserving America's natural heritage."

Kostyack and Parenteau both said wolves are important predators at the top of the food chain that could help to keep burgeoning moose and beaver populations in check and help to run noisome coyotes out of the north woods.

[Texan_Til_I_Die]

Re: Judge orders wolf returned to Northeast

I'm not going to take the time to look it up, but I'll bet you a dollar to a donut hole that Judge Murtha is either a Clinton or Carter appointee.

[VermontHunter]

Re: Judge orders wolf returned to Northeast

All I have to say is that I would like the chance to beat that judge on the head for about 5 min. We sure don't need anymore wolfs here in Vermont,,,,,man what a physco......

[JimT]

Re: Judge orders wolf returned to Northeast

Legal or not...people here will whack everyone they see I bet. Which is wrong...But it will happen.

[VermontHunter]

Re: Judge orders wolf returned to Northeast

[ QUOTE ]

Legal or not...people here will whack everyone they see I bet. Which is wrong...But it will happen.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hate to say it Jim, but thats what's going to happen around hear also.....The wife's family farm has already lost two Holstien Milkers to wolfs that were intraduced several years back..... ,,I personally have never seen or incountered one up there but they have been sighted and seen taking down deer in the fields....if they follow through with this it's going to get messy I hate to say....

[slugshooter]

Re: Judge orders wolf returned to Northeast

One of the coolest things I saw when I was truck driving was when I first started out, I was in upstate New York coming back from Montreal, real close to the border, maybe 15 miles, snow all over the ground, look over at the woods and saw a gray wolf walking amongst the trees in the snow. Beautiful sight.

[slugshooter]

Re: Judge orders wolf returned to Northeast

[ QUOTE ]

I'm not going to take the time to look it up, but I'll bet you a dollar to a donut hole that Judge Murtha is either a Clinton or Carter appointee.

[/ QUOTE ]

As much as I would like to prove you wrong TTID. Judge Murtha was appointed by Clinton in 1995. Thought you might like to know.

[wtnhunt]

Re: Judge orders wolf returned to Northeast

The wife and I saw a red wolf out the back window here once about 5 or 6 years ago. Called the game warden, he laughed and said it could not be, that it was probably a coyote or a red fox. He said I could shoot any coyotes I see and that there are no wolves so I should have shot that one. Stories go that red wolves were brought into the arsenal property not far from here years ago in an effort to control the coyotes.

Even if they reintroduce them to an area as supposedly happened here, they may just deny it.

[LifeNRA]

Re: Judge orders wolf returned to Northeast

I got one word if I see one! "BOOM!!!"