Central Idaho Wolf Litigation
December 31, 2009
Complaint Introduction
1. This Court, per Chief Judge Winmill, held in 2002 that wolves within the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA) of central Idaho are wildlife protected by the SNRA Organic Act; and that livestock grazing is a secondary use that may not “substantially impair” wolves or other wildlife in the SNRA. See Western Watersheds Project et al. v. Sawtooth National Forest, No. 01-cv-389-E-BLW, Docket No. 50 (June 13, 2002). Based on these rulings, the Court entered interim relief prohibiting federal agencies from undertaking wolf control measures due to livestock conflicts in the SNRA during 2002. Id., Docket Nos. 79 & 93.
2. Regrettably, the federal government has ignored these rulings by the Court. Over the last several years, the federal government has continued to kill wolves in and around the SNRA due to livestock conflicts, without imposing livestock management measures to prevent those conflicts. As a result, several more wolf packs that have occupied the SNRA since the Court’s rulings have been unnecessarily exterminated or dispersed, thereby causing the substantial impairment of wolves on the SNRA in violation of the SNRA Organic Act.
3. Most recently, the federal government – acting through APHIS Wildlife Services, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) – used a helicopter hovering on the outskirts of Stanley to gun down several members of the popular Basin Butte wolf pack during the Thanksgiving holiday this year, because of alleged predation on livestock in and around the SNRA. Yet even though APHIS Wildlife Services continues to eradicate these and other wolves and wolf packs throughout central Idaho, including in and around the SNRA, it lacks any current or valid environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); and is thus acting unlawfully.
4. At the same time, Defendant U.S. Forest Service – its sister agency in USDA – continues to authorize livestock grazing in and around the SNRA irrespective of the conflicts that such grazing causes with wolves, and irrespective of the fact that such conflicts have and will continue to cause further wolf killings – again without adequate NEPA analysis and in violation of the SNRA Organic Act and other statutory mandates.
5. In addition, the Forest Service has just authorized helicopter intrusions into the nearby Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, so that wolves can be darted and collared in the Wilderness by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) – which claims it needs to use the helicopters to “research” wolves in the wilderness. This highly controversial action was approved without any environmental analysis under NEPA, even though the federal government has previously acknowledged that a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) would need to be prepared to evaluate such a proposal and alternative courses of action; and even though federal agency managers have recognized that the 1964 Wilderness Act prohibits such use of motorized equipment in Wilderness Areas.
6. Moreover, the Forest Service approved this action without even considering the fact that the Nez Perce Tribe – which managed wolves in Idaho for a decade after their reintroduction in the mid-1990’s – trapped and collared approximately 30 wolves within the Frank Church Wilderness, without using helicopters. Yet the Forest Service never even mentioned this fact in approving IDFG’s proposed use of helicopters now, even though it reveals that helicopters are not the “minimum tool” needed to monitor wolves in wilderness areas, as required under the Wilderness Act.
7. Because the Forest Service and APHIS Wildlife Services are thus violating the SNRA Organic Act, the Wilderness Act, NEPA and other federal statutes in these wolf-related actions, Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief from this Court.
Read the Opening Injuction Brief
WWP Board President: Kelley Weston Declaration
WWP Board Member: Ralph Maughan Declaration
WWP Data Specialist: Dale Grooms Declaration
WWP NEPA Coordinator: Kenneth Cole Declaration
