A Letter To Sec. Dirk Kempthorne

exsec@ios.doi.gov

Below is a copy of the email I sent to Department of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne asking him to please consider appealing the ruling of Judge Donald Molloy that placed the gray wolf back under protection of the Endangered Species Act. Above is Sec. Kempthorne’s email address. I urge each of you to take a moment and send Mr. Kempthorne a letter asking that justice be done.

If this ruling is not appealed immediately, the chances are excellent that through stalling and game playing, there is no chance the wolf would be taken back off the list for several years. Where will we be then?

Sec. Kempthorne – I am writing to urge you and the Department of Interior to please appeal the temporary injunction as ruled by Judge Donald Molloy placing the wolf back under protection of the Endangered Species Act. I hope you are aware that a unanimous vote was taken by a panel of 11 judges in the Ninth District Court of Appeals stating that judges needed to make rulings such as this by utilizing science. It is my opinion that Judge Molloy did not use good science and in fact made up most of his own in rendering his decision.

This kind of activism utilizing the court system has to stop. In essence this judge is making a mockery of our judicial system as well as saying that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Interior don’t know what they are doing.

Judge Molloy based half of his decision, according to his own ruling, on the fact that the USFWS required genetic exchange between subpopulations of wolves. This is completely fabricated. Molloy referred to genetic exchange 49 times in his ruling and yet the Environment Impact Statement of 1994 used the term once in a appendix as part of an attempt to
define a “viable wolf population”. The author of the same Appendix 9 stated that the plan for 30 breeding pairs and 300+ total wolves in 3 separate subspecies would make up a viable wolf population that would subsist into the long term. He ignored this science and virtually every piece of science the USFWS presented.

This action must be appealed. The groups seeking an injunction selected where they would file their appeal knowing they would get Judge Molloy. He is one judge that must not be allowed to dictate his own agenda from the bench.

I urge you to pursue this matter as expeditiously as possible and place management of the gray wolf into the hands of the states before more property destruction occurs and more of our elk and deer populations are destroyed.

Without an appeal, this process will be stalled and dragged out for a long time putting people’s property at risk as well as continued destruction of valuable elk and deer populations. Allowing the wolf to go unmanaged is in violation of some state’s constitutions that dictate that fish and game will manage game species to provide hunting opportunities to its residents. Wolves in some areas are prohibiting good scientific management of game.

Allowing this ruling to stand and with the projected time element of resolving this issue, puts our people, property and game populations at risk. I urge you to take action immediately!

Thank you for you consideration.

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Thomas K. Remington
Skinny Moose Media, LLC
Managing Editor
U.S. Hunting Today
Black Bear Blog
tom@ushuntingtoday.com

Tom Remington