New Lawsuit Challenges Three Antelope Provision
Friends of Animals has just filed yet another lawsuit to thwart conservation of U.S. populations of scimitar-horned oryx, dama gazelle and addax (three antelope). This latest suit challenges the constitutionality of Section 127 of the 2014 Appropriations Act, passed by Congress and signed by the President in January. Section 127 directs the Secretary of the Interior to reissue a 2005 regulation that made it unnecessary for U.S. private owners of the three antelope species to apply for and obtain individual permits to allow the hunting of members of their herds. In 2009, a federal district court determined that the 2005 regulation violated the Endangered Species Act and directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to withdraw the rule. Section 127 provides the FWS with new statutory authority to reissue the 2005 rule.
Friends of Animals claims that Section 127 will have an effect on pending litigation and therefore violates the separation of powers between the legislative and judiciary branches of the government. SCI is currently a party in two other lawsuits concerning the three antelope species. In one of these lawsuits, SCI appealed a federal district court ruling upholding the FWS’s decision to list U.S. populations of the three antelope species as endangered. In the other suit, Friends of Animals and other groups challenged the legality of the individual permits that the FWS has issued to allow private ranchers to cull members of their herds. Both of these cases are currently on hold while the parties await the FWS’s reissuance of the 2005 regulation. SCI is currently assessing whether to join this latest lawsuit to defend the constitutionality of Section 127.
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[…] In a private economically driven model of conservation, hunters and Texas game ranchers have brought these magnificent antelope back from the edge of extinction. The Three Amigos have been given economic value that has paved the way for conservation. The EWA is working to return a dozen scimitar-horned oryx to their native range of Senegal in 2015. Another ranch and wildlife park, Fossil Rim, spends $250,000 a year returning scimitar-horned oryx and other endangered species to their native range. Thousands of tourists, school groups, scouts and church groups visit Fossil Rim every year. None of this will be possible if FoA succeeds in overturning the Three Amigos provision of the Appropriations Act of 2014. […]
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[…] regarding the three antelope species, and it will likely impact an ongoing lawsuit filed by Friends of Animals that challenges the permit process previously used by the FWS. Safari Club International is an […]
First For Hunters 
Reblogged this on The Last Word and commented:
“An animal rights organization desperate to stop endangered species conservation in Texas has filed suit to block the recently passed 2014 Approporiations Act.” ~Andrew Wyatt