by Jeremy Bruskotter
On 30 September my colleagues and I published an article in the journal Science that argues that the wildlife trust doctrine
(a branch of the broader public trust doctrine) may provide a legal
means for interested citizens to compel states to conserve wolves (or,
for that matter, other controversial, imperiled species). What follows
is a brief discussion of some of the major points presented in the paper
(Bruskotter, J. T., S. A. Enzler, and A. Treves. 2011. Rescuing Wolves
from Politics: Wildlife as a Public Trust Resource. Science
333:1828-1829). We begin with a brief primer on the wildlife trust doctrine.
A Primer on the Wildlife Trust
The wildlife trust doctrine–a branch of the broader public trust
doctrine that deals specifically with wildlife–was established in a
series of court cases that provide the foundation for state-based
conservation of wildlife that some refer to as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation/Management.
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This past September my colleagues (S.A. Enzler & A. Treves) and I
published an article arguing that the public trust doctrine could
provide a legal means to force protection of wolves were state policies
found lacking (Bruskotter et al., 30 Sept. 2011, p. 1828). This article
prompted two recent replies published by Science last month
from L. David Mech and David Johns (17 Feb. 2012, p. 794). Contrary to
our assertion, Mech contended that “state governments have not shown
‘hostility toward wolves’”. He defended this statement noting that
“teams of highly qualified scientists set wolf recovery criteria” and
state management plans pledged to maintain wolf populations at or above
150% of recovery goals. Further, Mech argued that monitoring by the FWS
ensured that “the wolf can be relisted anytime if necessary”.
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