Yesterday, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation, along with Safari Club International and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, filed to intervene, again, in two refiled lawsuits seeking to relist wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountain region under the Endangered Species Act.
In February, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) denied two petitions to relist wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountain region – Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, the eastern third of Washington and Oregon, and a small portion of northern Utah. These wolves were previously delisted by an act of Congress. The petitions alternatively requested that the delisted Northern Rocky Mountain wolves be incorporated into a western states population, comprised of every state to the north and west of and including Colorado, and relist them under the Endangered Species Act.
The Center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society of the United States, Western Watershed Project, and the Sierra Club filed a pair of lawsuits challenging the denial in April. In May, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation and partners were granted intervention in those cases.
The plaintiffs, however, had to dismiss their lawsuits because they were prematurely filed under the Endangered Species Act’s 60-day notice provision.
“The Endangered Species Act requires that you notify the government that they have violated the act and wait 60 days before you file a lawsuit,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel for Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. “It gives the government an opportunity to correct the situation before it gets taken into a courtroom, and the parties become adversarial. The plaintiffs jumped the gun when they originally filed.”
Now that the plaintiffs have refiled their lawsuits, Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation have refiled its motion to intervene to be the voice for sportsmen in these cases.
About the Sportsmen’s Alliance: The Sportsmen’s Alliance and its supporting Foundation protect and defend America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. The organization accomplishes this mission through several distinct programs, including public education, advocacy, litigation and research. Stay connected to the Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
