Lawyers for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho and representatives of several sportsmen and agriculture groups met in a teleconference to discuss their options in response to last week's ruling by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy.
Molloy issued a preliminary injunction restoring endangered species protections for gray wolves in the Northern Rockies. Environmentalists sought the injunction as part of a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the agency's decision to remove the wolves from the endangered species list in March.
“Therefore, while each of the participants expressed its views regarding the pros and cons of either path, no final decision was made,” Salzburg said.
Bob Lane, chief legal counsel for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said about 15 to 20 people participated in the conference call.
“Really it could be characterized as preliminary discussion among the parties about their initial views on strategies of where to go from here since the decision of Judge Molloy was adverse to us,” he said.
Salzburg said earlier this week that the 9th Circuit Court is currently taking between 15 months and 32 months to issue decisions after an appeal is filed.
“So unless the court were to advance this issue in the calendar, an appeal now would put it in limbo for at least 15 months,” Salzburg said Wednesday. “In the meantime, we could get this case to hearing on the merits in a much quicker time frame.”
Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal has said that appealing the injunction may not be the best strategy in this case.
“The best strategy, both in terms of time and outcome may be for us to go through these deliberations and decide, let's just get to the merits (of the case),” Freudenthal said Wednesday.
Lane said Friday that the various interveners in the case, including the three states and 10 other special interest groups, would like to reach a consensus on their next course of action, but there's no requirement that they act in unison.
Don Peay, who participated in Friday's meeting as a representative of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, said his group hasn't decided whether to support an appeal of the preliminary injunction, but that the “time bomb's ticking.”
“I know this much, that every day that wolves aren't managed there's a greater destruction of elk herds and deer herds,” he said. “It just has an increasing devastating impact on game populations and license sales for game and fish agencies and the whole hunting industry.”
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