Summary: The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation and partners have filed an opening brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to defend the delisting of gray wolves and advocate for state-led wildlife management.
Recently, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation, with its partners Safari Club International and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, filed their opening appellate brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case concerning the status of wolves in Western states.
The History of Wolf Litigation and ESA Success
Wolves have been the constant subject of litigation over the last two decades. And despite courts calling wolves an Endangered Species Act “success story,” they frequently reverse the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s attempts to delist and return their management to the states. That caused Congress to step in and remove wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountain region (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, north-central Utah, and the eastern portions of Oregon and Washington) from the list of endangered species.
Why Are Animal-Rights Groups Petitioning to Relist Wolves?
That wasn’t good enough for some animal-rights advocates, who petitioned USFWS to relist those wolves. The petitions used the wolves’ recovery against it. They attempted to water down the Northern Rocky Mountain population’s recovery by combining it with other populations of wolves in Western states that have not hit their recovery criteria yet. The USFWS rightly rejected the petitions.
Legal Challenges to Science-Based Wildlife Management
That lead to a trio of lawsuits challenging the petition denials in federal court. The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation successfully intervened in those lawsuits and was the first party to appeal after the district court sided with the environmental activists.
“Once again, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation, Safari Club International, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation … find themselves in federal court defending the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s … science-based decision regarding the recovered gray wolf population,” the brief reads. “Once again, the federal district court in Montana has overruled the Service—and once again, that court has erred…. The district court had no authority to overturn that science-based decision.”
Defending the Heritage of Hunting and Trapping
We will keep prosecuting this appeal and keep fighting for state-management of wolves.
The legacy of hunting, fishing, and trapping depends on our actions today. Please stand with us or donate to the Sportsmen’s Legal Defense Fund in the fight against those who are working to bully and erode our heritage and traditions.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance guarantees hunting, fishing and trapping for the American sportsman now and forever. We’re there when sportsmen need us most. We are the only organization specifically created to protect the individual hunter, angler, and trapper – no matter the threat. We will never compromise when it comes to defending our way of life in the courts, in the legislatures, in the public square and at the ballot box. We make this promise to the American sportsman: we will never give up and never give in while proudly securing our future against those seeking to destroy our values, beliefs, and traditions. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
