Progress is coming alone with my new book Wolf: What’s to Understand. I wanted to provide a few sneak previews into what readers might look forward to. I thought that a most recent court ruling concerning wolves in Wyoming, by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, involved, in part, some discussion of the term “genetic connectivity.”
I will continue to provide readers with an occasional preview of the book. I don’t have a firm date yet for release but as soon as I am fairly confident of that date, I will make available for those interested to be able to pre-order early for a signed copy at a discounted price.
In part, here is what I have included in the upcoming book about the creation of the term “genetic connectivity” by activist Judge, Donald Molloy.
Sneak Peek:
In order for Judge Donald Molloy to allow an injunction to stand as part of a lawsuit to keep wolves under federal protection, he must find just cause. The plaintiffs in this case, Defenders of Wildlife, lay claim that the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Northern Rocky Mountain wolf (re)introduction, “specifically conditions the delisting decision on a Finding of Subpopulation Genetic Exchange.” Judge Molloy finds in agreement with the plaintiffs in his 40-page ruling.1
Molloy’s 40-page ruling to grant a temporary injunction to place the wolf back under protection of the Endangered Species Act is a laughable document. The judge manipulates the science and goes so far as to make up definitions.
Molloy bases his entire decision on two aspects. One, is that the agreement the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had with the state of Wyoming on managing the wolf after delisting was “arbitrary and capricious”. The second is that “genetic exchange” must occur before delisting can be considered and further goes on to claim that the USFWS cannot prove that this “exchange” took place.
Did USFWS state in their 1994 Environmental Impact Statement, as Judge Molloy refers, that genetic exchange has to take place?
What is interesting as well as disturbing, is that in Molloy’s 40-page ruling, he uses the term “genetic exchange” 49 times and actually creates his own term, “genetic connectivity” and uses it 2 times. In the 1994 Environmental Impact Statement, the term genetic exchange is used once and that came in an appendix to the original document and the EIS never once used “genetic connectivity” to describe anything.
Molloy insists over and over again that the USFWS’ EIS demands this genetic exchange, all the while the USFWS claims it never said that.
Probably in much the same way as Ed Bangs and his band of scientists randomly selected the idea that 10 breeding pairs and 100 wolves in each of the three recovery areas, so too was the mention of at some future date the need for “genetic exchange.” While many a person has spent countless hours discussing both viable wolf populations and “genetic connectivity,” what shouldn’t get lost during any of this is the fact that of all the issues sold to the American people about wolf (re)introduction, none of it was true.
Even if hind site has perfect vision, it would be impossible to (re)introduce wolves and end up with 30 pairs and 300 wolves before delisting. The system within which we all must work is rigged. Judge Molloy’s ruling here about genetic exchange is but one example of how the system has and continues to fail honest people because it is rigged.
We see in this ruling of Defenders of Wildlife v. H. Dale Hall (USFWS), that a judge, hand picked by the plaintiffs because of his activist rulings and staunch support to protect wolves, can destroy the real science and seriously obstruct the proper administration of the Endangered Species Act. In addition, when we are subjected to one man or a team of like-minded people, intent on wolf (re)introduction, the power and authority granted them in determining “best available science” makes for a very powerful and rigged system.
