Defenders' Wolf Settlement All Bark, No Bite

This past Friday, Defenders of Wildlife and nine out of 13 other plaintiffs in one of two ongoing legal cases in relation to wolf recovery in the northern Rocky mountains filed a settlement agreement to bring to a close these cases in which Defenders and other organizations sought protection for wolves in Idaho and Montana, as well as Wyoming and other surrounding states. This agreement appears to be on the heels of proposed legislation in Congress to undermine those very protections. However, Defenders of Wildlife, when asked for comment on this, indicated their "wolf experts" would respond today. And despite contacting every organization in the lawsuit, only Ed Bangs of the Fish and Wildlife Service had responded by late mid-day Monday.

A review of the settlement agreement reveals some interesting facts. If this is an effort to thwart Congress from enacting legislation to delist wolves, then this settlement agreement is all bark and no bite. It's true that the settlement stipulates that the agreement and all of its conditions are void if Congress does enact any such legislation. But Congress is not a party to this lawsuit, nor this agreement, and thus is not legally beholden to this agreement or its terms. In other words, if Congress does enact any legislation, nothing will have changed.

And, interestingly, this settlement agreement was filed before the the same judge, Donald Molloy, was expected to decide that the current status of the wolves in the recovery region, that of "experimental non-essential," was void because it was a designation given to the actual wolves transplanted into Idaho, Montana and Wyoming in 1995 and 1996: individuals who have long since died.

This settlement derails that and prevents Judge Molloy from coming to a decision with the potential to seriously embarrass the Fish and Wildlife Service as the opinion would state that Fish and Wildlife didn't follow their own rules in continuing to declare all wolves as experimental non-essential. The very nature of these lawsuits is limited to questions about Fish and Wildlife and the Department of the Interior following their own rules and the laws that oversee them.

And far too much was given in this settlement that didn't need to be. For one, the agreement overturns the previous decision of Judge Molloy in this case. In August 2009, Molloy ruled that wolves were wrongfully delisted in Idaho and Montana after Fish and Wildlife improperly changed their rules to allow wolves to be delisted without also delisting in Wyoming, which has yet to provide an acceptable management plan. This means wolves will be hunted again in Idaho and Montana, despite the opposition of most wolf supporters.

And if supporters of the organizations that are parties to this settlement agreement weren't hit with enough bad news of this settlement, their support of these will apparently not be needed in the future, as the parties to the settlement have agreed not to sue over wolf delisting for five years. Defenders of Wildlife and the other parties of the settlement agreement have muzzled themselves, and their supporters along with them.

The settlement is not yet binding. Judge Molloy must approve it. And with four of the plaintiffs abstaining from the agreement, and with the agreement stipulating that the Judge overturn his own prior decision, it doesn't seem that it will be accepted without contentious debate among the parties, especially considering one of the abstaining parties is the Humane Society of the United States -- no small organization.

It seems likely that even if the agreement is approved and its terms take effect, and even if Congress doesn't pass legislation to undermine the Endangered Species Act protections for wolves, other non-profit organizations would take up the legal challenges and act as the checks and balances to the power of the Department of the Interior. But even if the agreement isn't approved, Defenders of Wildlife and the other plaintiffs who joined in the settlement agreement are likely to face some angry donors and doubts about their commitment to helping wolves.

As of late Monday morning, followers who are upset about the settlement agreement have reported that Defenders of Wildlife have been deleting some of their comments from the Facebook entry on the settlement agreement. I monitored the page for 15 minutes and noticed comments were in fact disappearing. It seems that Defenders of Wildlife's way of addressing the concern of wolf supporters is to simply pretend it doesn't exist.

Disclosure: I previously participated in the legal case in question here. I filed an amicus brief in 2008 related to the content of the official reintroduction plan and its outcome prior to the final decision and appeal. I do not financially or otherwise support any party to the lawsuits in question. My brief was as a neutral observer, and is a matter of public record.

Sources:

Settlement Agreement From the Center for Biological Diversity

Defenders of Wildlife Facebook Wall for Settlement Agreement