Judge: Bush Administration Violated Endangered Species Act: "The Bush administration violated the Endangered Species Act when it relaxed protections on many of the nation's gray wolves, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones in Portland handed down a decision Tuesday rescinding a rule change that allowed ranchers to shoot wolves on sight if they were attacking livestock, said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group.
... the judge ruled that the government acted improperly by combining areas where wolves were doing well, such as Montana, with places where their numbers had not recovered.
'Interior Secretary Gale Norton tried to gerrymander the entire contiguous 48 states so that wolves in a few areas would make up for the absence of wolves in much larger regions,' Robinson said. 'Now, instead of drawing lines on the map based on political considerations, any future lines must be based on science.' "
- posted by geoff @ #