Page 33 - May2011-Finall

Montana Court Denies Motion to Intervene in Constitutional Challenge to Wolf Law SCI Considers Course of Action

On Wednesday, June 1 st , Judge Donald Molloy of the Montana federal district court, denied Safari Club International and the National Rifle Ass

constitutionality of the recently passed wolf delisting rider. This rider to the 2011 budget bill directed the U.S.

Judge Molloy denied all the motions to

This decision has essentially silenced the voice of hunters from being heard in this court.

examining a variety of options that would enable them to persist in their defense of the delisting law to ensure that the interests of hunters are represented. wolves from the endangered species list.

Safari Club International has been the leading voice for science-base management of gray wolves for the greater part of a decade. SCI has joined multiple lawsuits to defend the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's varied attempts to delist wolves including the most recent case on May 20, 2011 and has spent innumerable hours lobbying Congress to get recovered gray wolf populations delisted.

SCI and its colleague organizations successfully lobbied Congress to begin to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list. Congress inserted language into the 2011 continuing budget resolution that effectively delisted many of the wolves of the Northern Rocky Mountains. The Secretary of Interior complied with this law and delisted wolf populations in Montana and Idaho as well as portions of Utah, Oregon and Washington on May 6, 2011.

Since this law contained a provision that restricted judicial review of the delisting, environmentalist anti-hunting groups have further twisted the legal system by challenging the Constitutionality of the law. SCI has taken the lead for the hunting community by moving to intervene in this lawsuit to defend the delisting of wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains.

The effort to continue delisting wolves from the Endangered Species list it is not the end of the story. Wolf populations in Wyoming, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan remain under federal Endangered Species Act protections, despite total recognition of their recovered population.

SCI continues our fight to delist wolves wherever they are recovered. SCI Supports HR 838, Western Great Lakes Wolf Management Act of 2011 SCI Supports HR 1819, the State Wildlife Management Act of 2011

SCI will not rest until all recovered wolf populations are delisted and managed by sound science under the sustainable use strategies of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.