Re-listing: A federal encroachment

by Daily Inter Lake
| August 12, 2010 2:00 AM

If we needed one more reason to be howling mad at the federal government, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy gave it to us last week when he re-listed the gray wolf as an endangered species in Montana and Idaho.

Turns out the wildlife managers in those two states are tied in perpetuity to each other and to their counterparts in Wyoming. Molloy says the wolf is either endangered or it is not, and if Wyoming can’t get its act together, then Montana’s wolves are “endangered” — whether there are too many of them or not.

Clearly, Montana thinks there are plenty of wolves already in the wild. That’s why the state’s fish and wildlife department authorized a wolf hunt last year, and doubled the quota to 186 for this fall, with the aim of reducing the state’s wolf population.

You don’t need to take our word for it that there are plenty of wolves in the wild, and you don’t have to take the word of the hundreds of hunters who have seen wolves all over the state — and especially in Northwest Montana — but you really should take the word of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. It’s their job, for goodness’ sake, and one lone federal judge thinking he knows better than the populations of three states is just one more indication of a federal system that is out of control.

Molloy’s ruling isn’t just a nuisance; it is a threat to elk and other wildlife populations that are a valuable part of our state’s wildlife heritage. It is also a huge impediment to ranchers, who will no longer be able to legally haze, harass or kill wolves that prey on their livestock.

Notice, we said LEGALLY. It would not surprise us if Molloy’s ruling results in more wolf deaths rather than fewer. With the legal hunt now gone, Montana’s hunters and ranchers are likely to grow increasingly frustrated and take the law into their own hands.

Is it right? No. But it is understandable. Molloy, and the various “defenders of wildlife” that brought this lawsuit, may be able to manage wolf policy by judicial order, but NOT wolves — and certainly not human beings.