July 27, 1999 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For More Information, Contact: Doug Honnold, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, (406) 586-9699 Dave Gaillard, Predator Project, (406) 587-3389 Stephanie Tidwell, Sinapu, (303) 447-8655 Gary Macfarlane, Gray Wolf Committee, (208) 882-9755

Conservationists Argue to Protect All Wolves, Whether They Arrived By Planes or Paws

Starting at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 29, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado will hear oral arguments regarding a longstanding dispute over the fate of wolf recovery in the Northern Rocky Mountains. Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund attorney Doug Honnold (Bozeman, MT) will argue that the court must reverse a lower court's decision to remove all reintroduced wolves in Yellowstone and Idaho, and remand the reintroduction program back to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) for revision. Honnold represents conservation groups Predator Project (Bozeman, MT), Sinapu (Boulder, CO) and The Gray Wolf Committee (Lenore, ID).

"Wolf reintroduction has been a tremendous biological success within Yellowstone, but outside the Park wolves have had a hard time surviving," said Honnold. "It's time to move beyond photo-ops and enter the next phase of wolf recovery - to protect wolves when they leave Yellowstone."

Honnold will also be arguing for reinstating protections for wolves in Idaho that made it south from Canada on their own. FWS estimated that 6-15 lone wolves naturally migrated into Idaho from Canada. Those wolves were stripped of their legal protections under the FWS reintroduction plan. "Once they dropped the reintroduced wolves into the area, the government illegally reclassified all the wolves as experimental. That represents an end-run around the Endangered Species Act," Honnold said.

In December, 1997, U.S. District Court Judge William Downes granted the Farm Bureauís request and ordered the removal of all reintroduced wolves from Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Conservationists were stunned by Downes' unprecedented ruling. "Judge Downes' order compounds the injustices already wrought upon America's wolves," said Predator Project's Dave Gaillard. "The Fish and Wildlife Service should be directed to come up with a solution that protects wild wolves without endangering this successful reintroduction program."

Honnold's clients contend that the government should be doing more to ensure the long-term recovery of wolves in the lower-48 states. "Our duty is to weave wolves back into the fabric of the landscape. So far, the government has refused to accept that duty, cowering before a powerful group of livestock and timber interests," said Rob Edward of Sinapu. "We need to protect wolves, and we need to protect the wild places of which wolves are a part. You cannot have one without the other," Edward added, underscoring the fact that the government has refused to designate "critical habitat" for wolves in the Northern Rockies.

The conservation groups maintain that the present legal struggle symbolizes a larger battle over the government's commitment to protect and restore large carnivores. "The government contends that placing wolves on the ground with one hand, while systematically destroying their habitat and legal protections with the other represents their best effort. The American people know better," said Gaillard. "It's simple. We need to protect the wolves. And we need to protect the habitat where the wolves choose to live."

Honnold contends that much of the controversy surrounding the wolves' legal status is unwarranted, and unfair to the wolves. "The wolves are fully capable of achieving recovery goals on their own, if we just make room for them. It is time we learn to recognize the needs of the wolves," said Honnold.

Doug Honnold of Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund and Stephanie Tidwell of Sinapu will be available to answer questions at the courthouse following the hearing.

FACTSHEET

Trouble at the Border Wolves Finding it Tough to Survive Outside of Yellowstone Park

By the close of 1998, three-quarters of all human-caused mortalities of the Yellowstone wolves (22 of 29) occurred outside of Yellowstone National Park, even though the wolves have spent the majority of their lives within the Park's borders. Half of those wolves were killed because they preyed on livestock, while the other half were illegally shot or died in government traps set for coyotes.

The pack territories of the Yellowstone wolves have been largely confined within the boundary of Yellowstone Park as well. By the close of 1997, just one pack out of seven had established outside of the Park. Named the Washakie Pack, it has since lost its alpha male and female, and another female due to livestock conflicts.

The number of packs has now increased to ten in 1999. Many wolves, including some entire packs, have ventured outside of Yellowstone, but their forays have not met with much success.

* An all-white adult female wolf was killed in the Sunlight Basin area east of Yellowstone in March 1998. The man who shot her claimed he thought she was a coyote.

* A black female wolf was killed by a government-set sodium cyanide trap set to kill coyotes about 50 miles northwest of the park in April 1998. She was the second wolf killed by this kind of trap in this area in two years. In December 1998, a third Yellowstone wolf was killed by government-set coyote trap about 40 miles east of Yellowstone Park, north of Cody, Wyoming.

* A wolf orphaned from the Sawtooth Pack in Northwest Montana and relocated to Yellowstone was shot west of the Park for chasing livestock in August 1998.

* Two pups from the Chief Joseph Pack were killed while trying to cross U.S. 191 right at the northwest border of Yellowstone Park in October and November 1998.

* The Sheep Mountain Pack has recently established a territory north of Yellowstone Park. They have shown no sign of preying on livestock and have successfully avoided conflict thus far, but were recently hazed from their rendez-vous site due to the arrival of livestock to adjacent private pasture, on the east side of Paradise Valley, Montana.

* The newly formed Teton Pack denned in Grand Teton National Park south of Yellowstone and had five pups. The alpha male was struck and killed on U.S. 26 in late June 1999. Shortly thereafter, nearly 1000 cow-calf pairs of domestic cattle were moved onto an allotment within the national park, right under the nose of the surviving alpha female, who now must avoid them while she struggles with the task of raising five newborn pups by herself.

For More Information, including a free copy of our recent wolf report, see Predator Project's website: http://www.wildrockies.org/predproj

David Gaillard Predator Project P.O. Box 6733 Bozeman, MT 59771 406-587-3389 (ph) 406-587-3178 (fax) gaillard@wildrockies.org (email)