From today’s Missoulian . . .
Conservation groups are asking Congress to hold off on pending legislation that would lift federal protections for endangered gray wolves.
The groups sent a letter to lawmakers Monday asking them to give a proposed settlement agreement on the issue time to work.
This interesting article was posted to the Daily Inter Lake. Apparently, wolf counts are usually minimum estimates. This new technique could be more accurate . . .
Monitoring wolf populations has never been easy and it’s gotten more difficult in recent years with an expanding wolf population in Montana, but now there’s interest in putting a new method to work, possibly as soon as this year.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials have been working with the Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Montana for the last few years to develop a “patch occupancy modeling” for wolves . . .
From an AP article posted in yesterday’s Daily Inter Lake . . .
Lawmakers in the West said Friday they will keep pushing to lift federal protections for gray wolves despite a proposed settlement between environmental groups and the Obama administration.
The settlement would end a decade of lawsuits over the animals. But it faces significant legal hurdles that leave uncertain whether court approval will come before lawmakers act.
For those of you staying on top of the wolf-related stuff going on in this corner of the country, here are a couple of tidbits that appeared in the Missoulian earlier this week . . .
From Tuesday’s Missoulian: Feds recommend approval of Bitterroot wolf kills
And late Monday night: Gray wolf caught on camera above Missoula’s South Hills
From today’s Missoulian . . .
Carolyn Sime was honored recently as Biologist of the Year by the Montana Chapter of The Wildlife Society for her decade-long effort to develop Montana’s wolf conservation and management program.
Today’s Missoulian made a valiant effort to summarize yesterday’s hearing before Judge Molloy regarding the recently proposed deal to return wolf management to the states of Montana and Idaho, as well as other related matters. It’s a bit of a mess. Settle down with your favorite beverage before diving into this one . . .
Wolves faced two kinds of hunts during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy on Thursday.
A proposed settlement between wolf advocates and the federal government could open up public wolf hunting in Montana and Idaho, if Molloy supports it.
But he’s also considering an older case that considers how federal and state authorities could kill wolves while they’re still protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Complicating matters, the settlement has fractured both sides of the wolf delisting case, resulting in a courtroom Thursday with almost two dozen lawyers representing different factions.
The recently announced deal to return wolf management to the states of Montana and Idaho faced its first court test today . . .
A proposal to settle years of litigation and allow public hunting of wolves in parts of the Northern Rockies faces its first legal test on Thursday, as it goes before a federal judge who has twice rebuffed attempts to lift protections for the predators.
The hearing before U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula follows a settlement agreement last week between the Obama administration and 10 conservation groups.
Here’s a new chapter in the ongoing Idaho-Montana-Wyoming wolf management soap opera . . .
The head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that federal officials are resuming negotiations with Wyoming aimed at turning over control of endangered gray wolves to the state.
Federal officials have said for years that wolves were biologically recovered across Wyoming, but the species has remained on the endangered list there because of a law that allows wolves to be shot on sight across most of the state.
U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne last year ordered the government to reconsider its rejections of Wyoming’s wolf management plan. The Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday dropped its appeal of the judge’s November order.
Lots of (ahem) howling about wolves in this year’s session of the Montana legislature . . .
As the Montana Legislature moves into the second half of the session the gray wolf is proving to be one creature with few friends in the Capitol.
Lawmakers are advancing a slate of bills that call for decreasing protections for wolves, while Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer encouraged killing the animals last month in defiance of the federal Endangered Species Act.
From today’s Missoulian . . .
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., has inserted language into the Senate’s Continuing Resolution – the bill that funds the entire national budget – declaring the gray wolf a recovered species in Montana and Idaho.
The $1.077 trillion, seven-month spending bill is expected to reach a full Senate vote on Tuesday, and then return to the House of Representatives.