Judge rejects federal suit seeking upgraded NC red wolf protection

A federal judge has ruled against an environmental group seeking upgraded government protection of red wolves in eastern North Carolina.

Chief US District Judge Richard Myers filed an order Tuesday granting summary judgment to the leaders of the US Department of Interior and US Fish and Wildlife Service. They were defendants in a 2023 lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity.

Myers rejected the center’s argument that federal officials acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when the government decided not to “redesignate the experimental red wolf population in Eastern North Carolina as ‘essential’ under the Endangered Species Act.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service established an eastern NC red wolf program in 1986. The red wolf population was designated as nonessential because enough red wolves were “secured in captivity” to safeguard the species’ survival, Myers explained in his 19-page order.

The feds released 60 adult red wolves into the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in Dare County between 1987 to 1994. The population grew to as many as 120 wolves by 2012, but the number had declined to 13 by 2023. Fish and Wildlife documented 457 red wolf deaths from 1987 to 2020.

As early as 2016, the Center for Biological Diversity sought to have eastern NC red wolves reclassified as “essential” under the Endangered Species Act. In November 2018, US District Judge Terrence Boyle issued an order blocking Fish and Wildlife from killing any wolves “without first demonstrating that such red wolves are a threat to human safety or the safety of livestock or pets.”

Fish and Wildlife rejected the center’s petition in January 2023, prompting the current federal lawsuit filed in October 2023.

“Under the applicable statutory scheme, the Service was not required to revisit its essentiality determination,” Myers determined. “Pursuant to 16 U.S.C. § 1539, “’[b]efore authorizing the release of any [experimental] population,’ the Service must determine ‘whether or not such population is essential to the continued existence’ of the species. As the statute makes clear, this determination occurs before the Service authorizes a population’s release outside of its current range — which has not happened here.”

“From this point on, the designation is fixed, and a set of protections are introduced that govern how local residents are to interact with the newly introduced population of threatened or endangered species,” he added. “Until such time as the Service authorizes a new release under § 1539(j)(2)(A), under the terms of the statute, the Service is not required to reassess its prior determination.”

“The court is unpersuaded,” Myers wrote, that the Center for Biological Diversity’s petition can prompt the Fish and Wildlife Service to revisit its designation of eastern NC red wolves as essential or nonessential.

“To be clear, this order does not make a finding as to whether the red wolves in eastern North Carolina, as it stands today, are essential to the continued survival of the species in the wild,” Myers added. “That question is not properly before the court. In this posture, it suffices to find merely that the Center’s § 553(e) petition was not the appropriate tool to compel the Service to reconsider its decision. Accordingly, the court finds that Service’ s denial letter was the product of ‘reasoned decision making.’ Under the level of deference required of this court, that is all that is required.”

Myers also rejected the center’s attempt to have Boyle’s injunction incorporated in the federal rule governing killing of red wolves.

“It suffices to note that any potential public confusion resulting from the language of the regulation could not end in an unlawful taking because the Service is required to approve, in writing and subject to limitations announced in [the earlier case] Red Wolf Coalition, any request for a lethal taking made under the rule,” Myers’ order explained.

“All of this said, the Service responded appropriately to the Center’ s petition,” he wrote.

“Judge rejects federal suit seeking upgraded NC red wolf protection” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.