Wolves Gone Wild

Is this a WWF Style Owl Slugfest? 

Spotted Owl populations continue to decline even with the closing and stopping of logging. The biologists and environmentalist still blame the loggers and people but with no logging in some areas for 20 years what is the problem? Now it is the spotted owl being pushed out by barred owls.

In a recient story called “So much for saving the spotted owl” it is clear that logging was probably not the reason that spotted owls were loosing out.

Two decades after the wrenching drive to save an obscure bird divided Oregonians, reshaped the economy and tore apart the political landscape, the northern spotted owl is disappearing anyway.

Even the most optimistic biologists now admit that the docile owl — revered and reviled as the most contentious symbol the Northwest has known — will probably never fully recover.

Intensive logging of the spotted owl’s old-growth forest home threw the first punch that sent the species reeling. But the knockout blow is coming from a direction that scientists who drew up plans to save the owl didn’t count on: nature itself.

The versatile and voracious barred owl is proving far more adept at getting rid of the smaller owl than the Endangered Species Act was in saving it:

Fewer than 25 spotted owls remain in British Columbia, the northern fringe of its range — and where barred owls first moved into the West. Biologists say the best hope for Canada’s spotted owls would be for zoos to capture and breed them, and perhaps someday return them to the wild.

Spotted owls are vanishing inside Olympic National Park, where logging never disturbed them. A biologist looking for them says it sometimes seems like searching for the long-lost ivory-billed woodpecker. Barred owl numbers, though, are “through the roof.”

Researchers fitting owls with radio transmitters and tracking them west of Eugene are finding more barred owls in Oregon’s woods than anyone realized. A few decades ago, no barred owls existed there; now they outnumber spotted owls more than 2-to-1.

“It looks like we may have really underestimated the number of barred owls,” says David Wiens, a leader of the study based at Oregon State University.

Now it appears that the barred owls are going to be as maligned as the loggers of the 80s.

Because barred owls eat a wider variety of prey, they need not scour as much forest for food. They pack closer together — as many as four pairs of barred owls for each spotted owl. They reproduce faster. Spotted owls feed at night; barred owls hunt around the clock.

“It’s like they don’t sleep,” Graham says.

“They’re kind of superbirds,” Wiens adds.

They know this because they’ve fitted more than 20 of each owl species with radio transmitters and track the birds 24/7. It’s the first study examining how the two species interact.

Biologists still don’t know whether barred owls kill spotted owls, force them away from nests or stress them so they don’t reproduce. Barred owls are much more skittish and difficult to catch. Biologists usually find the more territorial barred owls while calling for spotted owls.

But Wiens and his team looked specifically for barred owls, using recorded barred owl calls. They found far more barred owls that way, suggesting that earlier studies had missed many.

The wide appetite of the barred owls also makes biologists think they may be causing trouble for species beyond the spotted owl — frogs, for example, or other owls.

“I think they’re really having much more of an impact than we realize,” says Rocky Gutierrez, a professor of forest wildlife at the University of Minnesota.

Biologists need to know much more about barred owls, he says, perhaps identifying places where spotted owls might have some competitive advantage. If it comes time to shoot barred owls, marksmen could go where it will make the most difference.

If there’s hope for the spotted owl in the Northwest, biologists suggest, it may be in some such barred owl-free zones.

Biologists say barred owls must, at some point, fill up the available landscape. And then what will be left for spotted owls?

Read more of this three part series.

So was the “science” about logging hurting the owl wrong?  Do these corporate raiders deserve to be sued because maybe it was barred owls and nature all along?

You can read more about the issues of barred and spotted owls at SOSForests.com where even the recommendation of killing barred owls has been recommended by some.  SOSForests.com has many articles dedicated to the issues of barred and spotted owls. 

So interesting when it is dead trees standing around and threatening to take down a mountain side with fire the environMental hide behind the leave alone let nature take its course policy.  Now they push for a species of owl to be “swimming with the fishes“. 

So which is it nature take its course or the heavy hand?  No mater what I bet in a few years we will hear how again the “science” was flawed and we did not understand that it was not the barred owls at all yet many bared owls would be blasted out of the woods for no other reason except for a few environMental groups to make headlines and line their pockets with your do-gooding money.

Now this does pose the question to the environMental.  If man is so bad and pressuring these species will shooting of us to preserve the forests and animals commence?  If so I say the environMental should volunteer to be first.

By John Miller
Associated Press writer

BOISE - Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter and U.S. Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo on Monday took up the cause of ranchers on the Idaho-Nevada border who blame federal grazing restrictions for allowing grass to grow tall on public land, which they say exacerbated the 1,030-square-mile Murphy Complex wildfires.

That puts Otter and Craig, both ranchers, and Crapo, a lawyer, at odds with environmental groups that have fought in the courts to reduce livestock grazing in the region to help species such as the sage grouse.

The Murphy fires were 98 percent contained Monday, said fire information officer Bill Watt in Castleford. Managers began releasing some of the 1,100 firefighters who were assigned to the blaze, touched off by lightning July 16.

In all, 15 wildfires were burning Monday across Idaho, the most of any state.

Two years ago, a federal judge ruled that half of the 1.7-million-acre Jarbidge resource area where the Murphy Complex has burned was no longer open to livestock grazing because the Bureau of Land Management didn’t adequately determine the impact to sage grouse habitat in 28 livestock grazing allotments used by 11 ranchers. The ruling came after a lawsuit from Hailey-based Western Watersheds Project, an environmental group.

Now the three Idaho Republicans say the resulting grazing reductions led to heavy fuels - something that wouldn’t have happened if the judge hadn’t intervened.

“I can’t remember the last time we called out the fire department to put out a manure fire,” said Otter. “But we have called out the fire department with grass fires.”

No serious injuries have been reported, but much grazing area has burned and an unknown number of cattle have died.

Otter, Crapo and Craig, who spoke at a news conference at the Boise Airport after flying over the fire in an Idaho Air National Guard Blackhawk helicopter, also criticized BLM fire managers for not acting quickly enough to put out the blaze when it was still small. They said ranchers told them Mon-day that bulldozers were ready to start digging fire lines on July 16 - but that federal rules prevented the equipment from being deployed more quickly.
full story

POSTED: 17:27 MDT Monday, July 30, 2007

by Brad Carlson

Response to the 600,000-acre-plus Murphy Complex fire near the Idaho-Nevada border was good but could have been better, Idaho’s U.S. Senate delegation and Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter said at a news conference in Boise today after touring the fire area.

“We need to have much faster reaction from the federal government,” Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said at the event at Boise Airport.

Federal bureaucratic delays prolonged the fire and enabled it to grow, officials said.

“The person on the ground should make the decision,” Otter said.

Electrical power was lost, then restored, at the Duck Valley reservation.

“There was no manual for the tribal government to get through what I quickly learned was a difficult maze to get through,” said Shoshone and Paiute Tribal Chairman Kyle Prior, a participant in the news conference.

Sen. Larry Craig,R-Idaho, said federal policies have limited grazing and contributed to the buildup of fire fuels.

As for getting through the current fire season, potential solutions include arguing for more streamlined government decision making, and granting ranchers a waiver to graze animals on some current set-aside ground, officials said.

“The key is flexibility of response right now,” Crapo said.

Otter said the number of Idaho cattle lost to the fire is not yet available, and that surviving cattle will be affected. One rancher told him that he expects calf weights to come in at 40 percent of normal this season.

Orginal Story

ID lawmaker blames grazing restrictions for wildfire’s size
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho state lawmaker-rancher is blaming federal grazing restrictions for the size and ferocity of a giant wildfire on the Idaho-Nevada border, a contention dismissed as baseless by the leader of a conservation group.

The Murphy Complex fire has burned across nearly 975 square miles, burning up grassland and killing at least one cow that couldn’t escape the flames. Two small communities were briefly under evacuation orders.

Meanwhile, a northern Idaho man says firefighters set a backfire that destroyed his $1.2 million guest ranch, including an indoor riding arena.

And another northern Idaho resident reported that his home was looted after he fled a fire near Waha.

The Murphy Complex fire killed at least one cow owned by Rep. Bert Brackett, R-Rogerson, although officials say more dead cattle will likely be found.

“This didn’t have to happen,” he told The Times-News as he stood over the charred body of a cow. Had more cattle been allowed to graze, there would have been less available fuel, he said.

“I think we need to take a hard look at basic (grazing) policy issues because what we’re doing just isn’t working,” Brackett said.

Jon Marvel, executive director of the Idaho-based conservation group Western Watersheds Project, disagreed.

“There is no scientific evidence that cattle or sheep grazing prevents fires at any time,” he said. “If ranchers have evidence that grazing prevents fires, they should produce it.”

Rick Vander Voet, a field manager with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management based in Jarbidge, Nev., said BLM offices are assessing grazing allotments to determine how the land is being affected by grazing regulations. He said the assessments are expected to be finished in the next two years.

The fire was about 30 percent contained, said Mark Wilkening, fire information officer, noting rain on Wednesday was helping.

Some buildings were being defended by firefighters, and power has been restored to Murphy Hot Springs and Jarbidge, Nev., which had been the subject of evacuation orders.

Meanwhile, the owner of Boulder Creek Outfitters, about eight miles north of White Bird in northern Idaho, said a backfire started last Thursday by firefighters in their efforts against the Poe Cabin Fire was left unmonitored and, when winds came up, burned over a mountain and down the other side to destroy the six buildings at the ranch on Friday.

“The backburn is what burnt us,” Tim Craig told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “There was no monitoring it and the winds came and brought it over the hill.”

He said he sent six employees out of the area when he saw flames approaching and then used heavy equipment to try to build a fire line around the ranch, but was forced to flee.

“I had to jump in a vehicle and drive through a bunch of flames,” he said. “It killed deer right in the road. They weren’t burnt at all - just no oxygen. The fire took all the air.”

He said he is considering legal action.

Jodi Kramer, a spokeswoman for the Poe Cabin Fire, said the cause of the fire is under investigation but she had no information about any backfires that might have been started.

Laura Smith, a spokeswoman for the Nez Perce National Forest, said the Poe Cabin Fire was at 59 square miles and 20 percent contained on Wednesday, with about 400 managers and firefighters assigned to the blaze.

“We’ve got most of the flanks protected, especially up in the northern area, so that’s either defensible space or structure protection, so we’re focusing now on the southern flank,” she said.

At another northern Idaho fire, the Chimney Complex south of Waha, an area resident returned from a mandatory evacuation to discover that about $9,000 worth of items had been taken between Friday and Saturday, according to a Nez Perce County sheriff’s report.

The report said two computers, 200 DVDs, elk and deer meat, a case of red wine, a generator, five leather jackets, clothing, two chain saws and a wood splitter were taken.

Sheriff’s officers say they are investigating.

On Wednesday, the Chimney Complex of fires had burned across about 80 square miles and was 65 percent contained, officials said.

About 13 large fires were burning in the state and had consumed about 1,400 square miles, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, based in Boise.

Original Story

CATRON COUNTY COMMISSION
PO BOX 507
RESERVE NM 87830
Ed Wehrheim, Chairman
Contact: Ron Shortes, Catron County Attorney FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Phone 505.533.6265
Email: shortes2@gilanet.com

CATRON COUNTY SUED BY ENVIRO GROUPS

Forest Guardians claim injury due to County’s Ordinance

RESERVE, N.M. On July 25, 2007, a Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief was filed against Catron County in federal district court by the environmental groups Forest Guardians and Sinapu, who are claiming injury to themselves for violation of the Endangered Species Act by the County, and for the Countys enactment of a Mexican wolf related Ordinance.

This suit is a gross misrepresentation made in bad faith which distorts the facts and law, Ron Shortes, Catron County Attorney said. It is a cheap theatrical trick used to lie to the public about what is actually going on in Catron County, about the failure of the wolf program and the great danger it poses to human beings.

Catron County, as of the opening of business offices on Friday morning, July 27, had not yet been served with the lawsuit.

When Catron County is properly served with the suit, which Forest Guardians has not bothered to do - another indication of bad faith - we will have the chance to address the issues, Shortes said. When we answer this within the time required by law, we will tell the judge and the public the truth about the facts and the law.

We are the county where they’ve released most of the wolves, so we’re the ones whose children are endangered the most, Shortes said. The Forest Guardians and Sinapu are composed of people who don’t even live here - Sinapu is a carnivore protection group focused on the Southern Rocky Mountains. These organizations aren’t suffering from the problems with the wolf program - we here in Catron County are. Even the wolves here are suffering more from this poorly managed program than the Forest Guardians and Sinapu are. # # #

I am glad to see some real talk on the wolf program in a recient blog post on “Wolves: good with teriyaki sauce” by Michael Swickard, Ph.D. This program is a mess of money ill spent when it could have been spent on camping and hiking areas.

The Endangered Species Act was about preserving animals that interbreed when mature. This is about protecting important gene pool not animals like wolves that will mate with dogs, and coyotes. How does this preserve an endangered species to spend millions of dollars to “re-introduce” a predator that is not only not genetically pure wolf but will cross breed with other animals. This is not only a misuse of the Endangered Species Act but Swickard gets it right when he says this is about restricting people from land use. 

Some humans say wolves have the constitutional right to be in our backyards. In fact, using the government as their muscle, these people impose this right of animal over human upon us. Though illegal, some humans say the solution to varmints, even protected varmints, is the “three S” approach: shoot, shovel and shut up.

Most of us get our animal fix with domestic dogs, cats and horses. I rescued my cat Grumpy 15 years ago. I voluntarily have a dog. I was not compelled by the government to give these animals the right to my family habitat. They pose no danger to me and I accept their cost without complaint.

There are 702 official wilderness areas in our country. Every day we hear of more areas being considered. The major areas of wilderness were secured many years ago. A wilderness designation makes the land no longer accessible to many citizens, especially ranchers who already did not want development on the land since they use it for grazing.

The land is already protected, but environmental groups want no one on the land. This makes the land no longer any value for tourists, ranchers or recreation.

The government, under intense pressure from environmental groups, is considering expanding the wolf reintroduction and wilderness designations. We end up with land we can no longer use and find that animals have rights over us humans.

The wilderness designation is used to lock out people. No matter how the law reads this is what has been done in practice. Parks are taking away trails, trails are poorly maintained yet volunteers are fired from helping.

So no matter how the ESA was written what it is being used for is to lock people out of land use and harass families.

These habituated wolves are dangerous and are hanging out in people’s yards and stalking kids coming home from school. These people talking about Michael Swickard, Ph.D. marbles in comments to his article discussing wilderness and the Mexican gray wolf recovery program.

• I wonder if they could keep their cool like a 14 year old boy did when wolves circled him from 5 to 10 minutes?
• I wonder if they could handle being stalked coming home from school by 3 wolves?
• I wonder how they would feel with wolves coming into their campsites?
• I wonder how they would feel if they had to strap a gun on their child so that child was safe in their own yard?

The answer is these people would not tolerate a dangerous predator animal or human in their yard. Yet these hypocritical people are fine with paying and using your tax dollars (if you do not agree with their environmental extreme views) to impose dangerous predators me and then attack people when they speak up and say this is not acceptable.

I say it is their turn. I will make their back yard a wilderness area and drop in a few wolves.

I am bothered that there are now threats to scientists that disagree with the climate change science.    Some of the science is good some is badly done but all scientists should be allowed to investigate and not be threatened.

The wolf biologists all told us how wolves would behave.  Now these biologists are back peddling and saying it is ok for wolves to stalk or be curious about people and deny this as prey testing.   Next I am sure they will blame or threaten a person when they are attacked.

I am glad the letter and threats will be investigated.

Getting hotter

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency says he will investigate a threatening letter sent by the leader of an EPA-member group, vowing to “destroy” the career of a climate skeptic.

During a Capitol Hill hearing yesterday, Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, confronted EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson about the strongly-worded letter written July 13 by Michael T. Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) that was sent to Marlo Lewis, senior fellow of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

“It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar,” Mr. Eckhart wrote. “If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on.”

CEI does not dispute climate change, however it differs with certain environmental groups, including ACORE, on the causes. After Mr. Inhofe read Mr. Eckhart’s comments, which were first reported by Inside the Beltway two weeks ago, the EPA chief promised to probe the matter.

“Statements like this are of concern to me. I am a believer in cooperation and collaboration across all sectors,” Mr. Johnson assured. “This is an area I will look into for the record.”

When Mr. Johnson confirmed that EPA is a member of ACORE, Mr. Inhofe asked if “it is appropriate to be a part of an organization that is headed up by a person who makes this statement.”

Late yesterday, Mr. Inhofe announced he will send letters to the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, and EPA, urging them to “reconsider their membership of ACORE.”

Orginal Story from Inside the Beltway 

In a paper by L. David Mech (the grand old Dean of wolf biologists), “The Challenge and Opportunity of Recovering Wolf Populations“, (Conservation Biology,1995) he recognizes that environmental awareness in the late ’60s brought favorable media coverage for the wolf. There has, since this was penned, been substantial increases in wolf-favorable outreach by program partners aimed at teachers, schoolchildren, the general public, and special interest groups.

Mech observed that with increases in population, the wolf would begin to occupy semi-wilderness and agricultural land, thereby causing increased damage to livestock. “Because of the wolves high reproduction rates and long dispersal tendencies the animal attempts to..[colonize]… these areas. Mech also realizes that in most such areas control will be necessary. He also recognized that “favorable” (wolf biased) public information campaigns were developing a culture of public sentiment so extreme (in ‘95) that it was rejecting wolf control, even that which was seriously warranted, and necessary to the success of the program.

He stressed, back in ‘95 that this culture of “no control” which was forming from biased (wolf favorable only) public education needed to be addressed immediately, as control is an important tool for the success of wolf recovery.

His suggestion to the increasing prevalence of this developing sentiment for no wolf control, so contrary to goal of program success, sounds quite reasonable all things considered. Mech observes that, “If wolf advocates can accept control by the public rather than the government, wolves could live in far more places”.

“The use of large or small-scale zoning for wolf management may help resolve this issue. [Balanced]…Public education is probably the most effective way to minimize the problem… [of the growing and threatening “no control” culture]… and maximize recovery, but the effort must begin immediately.” He suggested permits be issued for control within these agricultural zones.

Has this program threatening problem of extremist “no wolf control” advocacy been resolved yet by the use of balanced public education, which Mech stressed as being so important to recovery success? I think that the current furor over Mexican wolf control, and advocacy to abandon SOP 13 illustrates a failure to deal with this important problem. Instead continual re-releases of conflict prone animals are sabotaging the recovery effort, seemingly for the sake of ever increased and controversial impacts on ranchers and others here, their personal lives, their pets and their livelihoods and the regional economies here.

Unfortunately, unbalanced public education continues to suggest that the entire so called recovery area is available for wolves- contrary to the reality that the entire area is actually designated agricultural, with some “wilderness” designations not replacing, but superimposed on top of the agland. It is this agricultural land, as pointed out by Mech, that would need special control measures. It is obvious that Mech takes for granted here that a recovery required a real (not imagined, as it is here) core recovery area outside of ag areas.

The recovery-area-less BRWRA lacks any place for all the habituated and proven problem wolves which are constantly being reinserted into the pre-utilized rural aglands in the area. Irresponsible agency and NGO advocacy continues to refuse to recognize the short-sighted and inaccurate initial evaluation of the land here as suitable for large predator introduction. This agricultural landscape based and ungulate dependant region is NOT, and never will be, suitable core recovery area for large predators. It absolutely defies that description and requires substantial protections and control for problem animals.

Female 924 Durango Wolf Near Homes and Harassing Children

As all historic evidence attests, protection (non-control) of large predators leads to increasing conflict with humans and livestock in close proximity. As Mech points out, control of problem animals is the tool of successful establishing populations of non-depredating wolves in the wild.

The grotesque scenario being pursued by the current “no SOP 13“, “no control” advocacy will do nothing to help, but will indeed work against recovery success and instead develop a wolf culture that finds only reward in preying on the innocent human cultures. Every negative impact to the people and their livelihoods will be encouraged and accelerated. Endangerment of children, pets, mother cows, calves, increase in grief at ever increasing attacks on pets and livestock and the heartbreaking time spent dealing with accelerating numbers of these in detail, and the depressing knowledge that all this war zone-like reckless endangerment on us by others is on the increase, for all intents and purposes forever - emphasizes just how very callous, cruel and unjust is this treatment of rural innocents. They are not the guilty ones who committed the initial mistake (or crime) of so tragically misinterpreting the true reality of this landscape, so disastrously unsuitable for large scale predator recovery.

There is no core recovery area here (Ed Bangs, Northern Rocky Mt. Wolf Recovery). The continued abuses of the people here are criminal. Are the words terrorism, rural cleansing and cultural genocide too strong to describe what’s happening here? Did the people in the World Trade Center have a right, stolen, to carry on their lives and livelihoods? Are the deadly effects of the extremist positions of agencies and advocates, being experienced here at ground zero in the so-called “Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area” is no less an agenda commandeered to our destruction?

By Congressman Steve Pearce
special to Mountain Mail

SOCORRO, New Mexico (STPNS) — For the last 10 years, New Mexico has been home to the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program.  This program, which purports to restore Mexican Wolves to the communities surrounding the Blue Range Recovery Area, has not only failed, but it has become a detriment to the surrounding communities.  I believe, the time has come to stop squandering taxpayer dollars on this wasted effort. 

Recently, I offered an amendment that would remove funding for the program entirely.  Given the overwhelming evidence, I have concluded that we cannot successfully reintroduce wolves in New Mexico.

Beginning in 1998 captive bred habituated Mexican grey wolves were released into areas of Catron and Grant counties. In almost a decade, 58 wolves have been reintroduced at a cost of $14 million – over $241,000 per wolf. Of those, we are currently on pace to remove 12 in 2007 for being “problem wolves.” That means for every five wolves released into the wild, the Fish and Wildlife Service will have to spend additional resources removing one for multiple attacks on pets and livestock and threatening people. 

This is not the kind of track record that deserves further investment.  More importantly, the problem has expanded beyond the control of the Fish and Wildlife Service. I continue to receive complaints from constituents who have witnessed wolves just yards from their front door. I have pictures of horses eaten to the bone by a pack of wolves in corrals. I have received a letter from a father who insists that his 13-year-old daughter carry a pistol while doingher chores. 

As long as the Fish and Wildlife Service cannot keep the wolves in the wilderness areas the wolves represent a danger to farmers and ranchers, their families, and pets and livestock.  We should not be funding a program that presents a significant threat to people’s lives and livelihoods. 

Unfortunately, there are those in Congress and elsewhere around the country who blindly support this failed program.  They say wolves are not a danger to humans despite recorded wolf attacks on people that go back decades.  At one point, I even suggested that if they find this program so important they are welcome to have the wolves released in their states.  As you might expect, there were no takers. 

Supporters of the recovery program have a misguided romantic idea that these wolves behave like the cuddly creatures we might see in a movie.  But the reality is far different for the people who actually live, work, and raise their families in New Mexico. 

Read the Full Story

Typical cast of characters want to force the families of New Mexico to live with habituated wolves in their back yards.  Seams like a taking of lands and rights to me.   The sheriff and county laws trump federal laws on county lands.

1. The 9th and 10th Amendments to our Constitution

a) Re-enforce the limited rights and powers to the Federal and State Governments.

b) Any other powers are left for the states (if not limited) and us people.

2. This says

a) The State Police (if more than traffic control) and County Sheriffs hold jurisdiction over Federal Agents.

b) The Sheriff can force all Federal Agents to get his permission before contacting anyone in his county.

I guess these environmental groups forgot to study the Constitution when they were in school.

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - A federal court has been asked to strike down an ordinance that asserts Catron County’s right to trap wild Mexican gray wolves that the county deems a threat to people.

Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians and Boulder, Colorado-based Sinapu sued the County Commission yesterday in U.S. District Court in Santa Fe.

A Forest Guardians attorney, Melissa Hailey, says federal law trumps state and local law when they both deal with the same issue.

The lawsuit alleges the county ordinance violates the federal Endangered Species Act and that the ordinance is invalid.

The lawsuit seeks a court order halting the commission from taking any further action under the ordinance.

County manager Bill Aymar says he can’t comment on the lawsuit because the county hasn’t seen it yet.

Orginal Story

I ask you is it fair for these extreme environmetal groups to tell you what you can do with your home and your property on your land?  Is it fair for them to put your children and anyone visiting a national forest at risk of being attacked by habituated Mexican Gray Wolves?