April 4, 2003

News Release:

Federal Court Expands Order to Protect Wolves in Idaho's Sawtooth National Recreation Area

Federal District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill on Thursday renewed an injunction that fully protects wolves on public lands in Idaho's Sawtooth National Recreation Area for a second consecutive grazing season even if predations of livestock by wolves occur in the SNRA.

Winmill also clarified the injunction sought by Western Watersheds Project and the Idaho Conservation League to include protection of wolves on private lands in the SNRA.

Furthermore, at the request of WWP and ICL, the judge accelerated by three years the U.S. Forest Service's schedule for environmental analyses of livestock grazing allotments in the SNRA. The analyses will ultimately determine whether grazing must be reduced or discontinued because of adverse effects on wildlife in the SNRA.

"Judge Winmill's decision is a great one for wolves and a necessary one for the Forest Service, which clearly needs this kind of direction to do its job," said Jon Marvel, executive director of WWP.

While the court decision stops short of prohibiting grazing on allotments, it sends a clear reminder to the Forest Service and livestock operators in the SNRA: "Wolves will not be killed, even when sheep or cattle occupy their habitat and pay the price," in Marvel's words.

"Since last year's ruling, it's been business as usual for the Forest Service," said Justin Hayes, program director of ICL. "The agency has changed nothing. With another grazing season approaching, we had no choice but to ask the court again to prevent the killing of wolves in the SNRA."

Under Winmill's latest ruling, the Forest Service must complete by Sept. 30 the first of three environmental analyses of grazing allotments in the SNRA. The agency must complete two other evaluations before the 2004 and 2005 grazing seasons, respectively. In his initial ruling in July 2002, Winmill cited Forest Service "violations" in its management of wolves in the SNRA. That decision sought to strike "a proper balance" between "the primacy of the value of wildlife" under the Organic Act and the "conditional value" of livestock grazing.

Winmill ruled that the Forest Service, which manages the SNRA, violated the Organic Act that created the area by failing to consider whether livestock grazing is "substantially impairing" wolf populations. He added that the Organic Act does not include grazing as a "historic" or "pastoral" value.

The renewed injunction continues to bind not only the Forest Service but also the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in protecting wolf populations in the SNRA.

Despite the presence of wolves in the area, some 4,470 sheep and 2,500 cattle are allowed to graze on 28 Forest Service allotments in the SNRA.

"Wolves are an important part of how nature is supposed to work in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area," said Laird Lucas of Advocates for the West, representing WWP and ICL. "They could draw thousands of people to Idaho to see them, as they do in Yellowstone. The injunction against killing wolves in the SNRA will help restore the ecosystem while jump-starting the economy in central Idaho."