Second Lawsuit Pushes for Wolverine Protection Under Endangered Species Act
In August, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided not to push for an endangered species listing for the wolverine. That decision has spawned two big lawsuits: one by 12 national environmental groups, and another that will drop next Monday. Staff Attorney Matt Bishop with the Western Environmental law center says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “failed to see the forest through the trees.”
"They focused so much on wanting certain predictions, and understanding some of the fine-scale data and precise mechanisms, for instance, how, loss of snow pack in the future may precisely impact denning habitat for wolverines, that they really loss sight of the big picture and the larger cause and effect principals at play."
Most of the groups involved in Bishop’s lawsuit hail from Montana.
"We anticipate filing our case on Monday, October 20," Bishop said. "We are representing Wild Earth Guardians, Friends of the Bitterroot, Friends of the Wild Swan, Swan View Coalition, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands, Alliance for the wild Rockies, Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, Kooteni Environmental Alliance out of Northern Idaho, Footloose Montana, Native Ecosystems Council, Helena hunters and anglers, and George Werther, an individual."
Bishop says that the best science available indicates that a warming climate will lead to a decline in Wolverine habitat, but a U.S. fish and wildlife release claims that wolverine populations continue to grow and that warming is not a threat for the “foreseeable future.”
When asked how this lawsuit would differ from the case filed today, October 13, Bishop said that although he had not yet read the case, he believed his client's case would be "broader."
Matt Bishop: