The Wenaha wolf pack in Northeast Oregon has produced at least two pups this season. ODFW confirmed the news this afternoon. They appear to the first pups born to the Wenaha pack.
And there’s some good news to report on Oregon’s other wolf pack. After being missing for almost three months, the alpha male of the Imnaha pack has been located.
Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf coordinator, with the female pup radio collared on Feb. 13, 2010. Photo from ODFW.
Thanks to a federal judge in Montana, Oregon’s wolves are back on the Endangered Species List.
District Judge David Molloy ruled today that the federal government made a mistake last year when it delisted wolves in four states, including Eastern Oregon, Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana – but kept them on the list in Wyoming.
Molloy says the law doesn’t allow for a state-by-state solution. According to the judge, the law only allows one choice. List all of the wolves in Rocky Mountain region, or list none of them.
Environmental groups are happy with the ruling, but admit it’s still to early to know what will be the long term impact of Molloy’s ruling in Oregon.
“This is good news,” says Rob Klavins of Oregon Wild, “but not the last chapter.”
A lot depends on how the feds decide to respond. Will they appeal the ruling? Will they try to delist all the Rocky Mountain wolves or will they try to re-list all of them.
Oregon’s only breeding pair of wolves has done it again.
Oregon Fish and Wildlife says the Imnaha pack has – at least – four new wolf pups this year.
The photos of the pups romping through a field in Wallowa County are sure to delight environmentalists, and to dismay many Northeast Oregon ranchers.
Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf coordinator, with a 97-pound male wolf collared Feb. 12th. Photo from ODFW.
Environmentalists return to court in June to argue that the Rocky Mountain gray wolf deserves to be put back on the Endangered Species List. This includes wolves in Oregon.
U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy has scheduled a hearing for June 15 in Missoula, Montana.
Several environmental groups say they’re going to court, to make sure the Pacific Fisher gets the protection it deserves.
Photo from National Park Service.Several environmental groups say they're going to court, to make sure the Pacific Fisher gets the protection it deserves.
It wasn’t all that long ago that the Columbia River would be filled with smelt during migration season. There were enough of these tiny fish to support a vibrant commercial fishing industry. Millions of pounds were harvested every year.
Then sometime in the 1990s, things started to go very badly for the Pacific Smelt.
On Tuesday, NOAA Fisheries announced it will list the fish as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
A Greater Sage Grouse near Burns, Oregon. Photo from BLM.
Faced with a difficult decision about protecting – or not protecting – the Greater sage-grouse, Interior says it’s going to split the difference.
Secretary Ken Salazar announced Friday morning that the sage-grouse deserves to be listed by the Endangered Species Act, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. The official label is that listing is “warranted, but precluded.”
So it becomes a candidate species. The bird’s status will be reviewed yearly. But Interior says it can’t protect every species that deserves it, and it has to set priorities. The sage-grouse falls into the bottom third of the candidate list.
Courtesy Montana Fish and Wildlife
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will announce tomorrow (Friday) that’s it’s denying endangered species status for the America Pika, a small cousin of the rabbit that goes by the nickname, “boulder bunny.”
The decision is a huge disappointment for environmental groups. They say the pika is danger of going extinct because of global warming. If the feds had agreed, it would have been the first time global warming was the primary reason for listing an animal.
Courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife
The timber industry has lost the battle to remove the marbled murrelet from the Endangered Species list.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the bird will keep its status as a “threatened” species. It made the decision after reviewing a petition from the American Forest Resource Council and other groups. They were hoping to delist the species along the entire West Coast.
The marbled murrelet is one of the more interesting characters in Oregon’s logging wars.
Pups from the Lookout Pack in Okanogan County - July 2008. Photo from Conservation Northwest
The public hearings are over, but you’ve still got plenty of time to comment on the Gray Wolf recovery plan for the state of Washington.
As Oregon grapples with its own issues with wolves, what’s happening just across the border is getting attention here. The Hells Canyon Preservation Council of La Grande played an important role in developing Oregon’s wolf plan and has some concerns with what’s going on in Washington.
Here’s what Washington Fish and Wildlife is proposing:
Current status: Wolves are protected as an endangered species under federal and state laws in the Western two-thirds of Washington. They were delisted in the Eastern third by the federal government, but are still protected there by state laws.
The next step: WDFW wants to lower their status from endangered to threatened, after six successful breeding pairs are present for three years in a row. In addition, the six pairs would have to be somewhat dispersed across the state. There are currently two breeding pairs in the state.
