U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy on Monday returned grizzly bears in eastern Idaho, Wyoming and Montana to federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The ruling reverses a decision made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2007 that transferred control of grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem from the federal government to the states of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana outside of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.
Molloy said the conservation strategy on which the Fish and Wildlife Service based its delisting, was not enforceable and did not meet the requirement of the act to ensure rules were in place to protect bears after delisting.
"Because the service admits that the conservation strategy is unenforceable, the strategy was not properly considered in the service's evaluation of existing regulatory mechanisms," Molloy wrote.
Molloy also said the service did not adequately consider the impacts of global warming and other factors on whitebark pine nuts, a key grizzly bear food source.
Killing a threatened species under federal law carries a maximum jail sentence of one year in prison, a fine of $100,000 and possible restitution. That penalty had remained in place in central, northern or western Idaho -- west of Interstate 15 -- since bears there remain protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
But killing a grizzly bear in eastern Idaho, where the predator is delisted, carries a maximum six months in jail, a fine of $1,000, the loss of hunting privileges for up to three years and possible civil penalties. Idaho was beginning to consider what it would take to reopen hunting on the bears that were first listed as threatened in 1975.
Read the complete story at idahostatesman.com