ELR Citation: 54 ELR 20064
No(s). 23-3754 (9th Cir. Apr 23, 2024)

The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part a district court's preliminary injunction limiting wolf trapping and snaring in certain parts of Montana to January 1, 2024, through February 15, 2024. Nonprofit groups argued Montana's laws authorizing recreational wolf and coyote trapping and snaring allowed unlawful "take" of grizzly bears, a threatened species, in violation of ESA §9. The district court granted the groups' motion for a preliminary injunction. The appellate court found the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding serious questions going to the merits, and affirmed its finding of a reasonably certain threat of imminent harm to the bears had the state's wolf trapping and snaring season proceeded as planned. It affirmed the temporal scope of the injunction, but held it was geographically overbroad and remanded for the district court to reconsider the geographic scope. It further held the injunction was overbroad because it prevented Montana from trapping and snaring wolves for research, vacated that portion of the injunction, and remanded for the district court to make proper modification to the scope of its order.