Conservation Groups Move to Renew Wolf Protection and Stop Grazing in Idaho's Sawtooth National Recreation Area

Boise. Western Watersheds Project and the Idaho Conservation League have filed a motion in federal District Court in Boise to close several livestock grazing allotments and protect wolves in Idaho's Sawtooth National Recreation Area during the 2003 grazing season.

WWP and ICL contend that the U.S. Forest Service has not met a court-ordered timetable for environmental reviews of eight allotments identified as "problem" areas for grazing in the SNRA. These allotments are primarily in the Sawtooth Valley, where sheep operators have had a long history of management violations.

Last year, sheep were repeatedly found in areas that are closed to grazing. The discovery reinforces WWP and ICL's claim that many SNRA grazing permittees violated the terms and conditions of their permits in 2001 and 2002.

WWP and ICL also want the court to renew an injunction issued last summer that protects wolves from "predator control" actions due to conflicts with livestock in the SNRA. The previous injunction, issued July 19, 2002 by District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill, expired at the end of the 2002 grazing season.

Citing violations by the Forest Service in its management of the SNRA, Winmill ruled that wolves in the area could not be killed even if predations of livestock occur.

"Now is the deadline to close these allotments or stop killing wolves in the SNRA," said WWP executive director Jon Marvel.

"Even with the judge's ruling last year, the Forest Service has done nothing to alter livestock grazing in the SNRA to help keep sheep off the wolves' dinner table and wolves off the Wildlife Services' hit list," said ICL's Linn Kincannon. "We will continue to press for wolf protection."

Recent monitoring indicates that wolves are in the SNRA and surrounding areas, despite the fact that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents in April 2002 killed the entire Whitehawk pack of 11 wolves. Winmill's decision last summer also bound the FWS to protect wolves in the SNRA.

Former FWS biologist Roy Heberger, who supervised the wolf reintroduction program in Idaho, noted that at least two pairs of wolves are known to be in the same areas occupied by the Whitehawk and other packs exterminated due to conflicts with livestock.

"It is vital that these wolves and possible incipient packs in and around the SNRA be protected from control actions, which would only perpetuate the substantial impairment of SNRA values," Heberger said in a declaration to the court. "It is certainly foreseeable that the wolves now known to be present in and around the SNRA will come into conflicts with livestock in coming months, absent significant changes in livestock grazing management on the SNRA."

"The fact that these wolves are known to have been present in and around the SNRA since the Whitehawk pack was killed underscores the importance of ensuring against future wolf-livestock conflicts that would trigger 'control' actions to kill wolves under the wolf reintroduction program," said WWP counsel Laird Lucas.

The Forest Service's own monitoring reports for the 2002 grazing season reveal that livestock permittees continued to violate the terms and conditions of their permits and allowed livestock to graze in areas occupied by wolves.

Conservation Groups Move to Renew Wolf Protection and Stop Grazing in Idaho's Sawtooth National Recreation Area

2-26-2003 See news story at bottom. 3-5-03

2-26-2003
See news story at bottom. 3-5-03