Why am I howling? From RL Miller’s DailyKos diary, news that a federal judge has decided federal laws are to be applied equally to all states by the federal government:
The judge’s opinion (50 pg pdf) decries the politics of the original delisting. As background, the wolf was placed on the Endangerd Species List in 1974. The animal recovered to the point where the Obama administration delisted the wolf in May 2009 in Montana and Idaho, but not Wyoming. The first two states had what were supposed to be good plans for wolf management; Wyoming’s plan for wolf management remained one step above “exterminate ‘em all,” and thus the wolf remained on the Endangered Species list in that state alone.
That states-rights friendly “two out of three states ain’t bad” is what the judge rejected:
The Endangered Species Act does not allow the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to list only part of a “species” as endangered, or to protect a listed distinct population segment only in part as the Final Rule here does; and
the legislative history of the Endangered Species Act does not support the Service’s new interpretation of the phrase “significant portion of its range.” To the contrary it supports the historical view that the Service has always held, the Endangered Species Act does not allow a distinct population segment to be subdivided.
I’ve been an advocate for wolves since 1987, and given to wolf protection groups in the past. There is absolutely no good reason for Wyoming’s stance on this. None. Worried ranchers can get a donkey.
