Environmental Defense Hails Victory For Yellowstone Wolves

Environmental Defense hailed today’s federal court decision allowing reintroduced wolves to remain in Yellowstone National Park and nearby environs. Today’s decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver reversed a 1997 trial court decision that had ordered the removal of the wolves. That order was held in abeyance pending an appeal. Today’s decision makes clear that the wolves were lawfully introduced and can remain.

“The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone was the greatest conservation success story of the past decade,” said Environmental Defense wildlife attorney Michael J. Bean, who filed a “friend of the court” brief urging the very result reached today. “Wolves have regained their place in Yellowstone more quickly, at less expense, and with fewer conflicts with livestock than even the most optimistic forecasts when this process began.”

The narrow legal issue that had imperiled the reintroduction effort was whether the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had acted lawfully in establishing “experimental populations” of wolves in Yellowstone and in Central Idaho, where there were scattered reports that a few, naturally occurring wolves already occurred. The American Farm Bureau Federation and several of its state affiliates argued that the presence of these few naturally occurring wolves meant that the government could not introduce other wolves there and treat them as an experimental population. The Court of Appeals today rejected that argument and upheld the government’s action.