Sportsmen Move To End Lawsuit To Ban Hunting On Refuges
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Sportsmen Move To End Lawsuit To Ban Hunting On Refuges





(Columbus) - The U.S. Sportsmen’s Legal Defense Fund today asked a federal judge to dismiss anti-hunters’ case seeking to outlaw hunting on 37 units of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

“The case is totally without merit,” said Rick Story, senior vice president for the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation, which manages the Sportsmen’s Legal Defense Fund. “We would have filed our motion to dismiss the suit sooner, but the anti-hunting plaintiffs kept amending it to seek hunting bans on more refuges. It seems they’ve run out of ideas, so it’s time to end this debacle.”

The Sportsmen’s Legal Defense Fund collaborated with Safari Club International on the motion. In addition, Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl, Izaak Walton League and the California Waterfowl Association are also defendant interveners.

The case was filed in 2003 in the Washington, D.C. Federal District Court by the Fund for Animals, which has since merged with the Humane Society of the United States. It originally sought to ban hunting on 39 units of the 100 million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System. The case claimed that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuges, failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires extensive Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), prior to establishing hunting programs.

“In simplest terms, Congress in 1966 and again in 1997, expressly recognized the legitimacy of hunting on units of the (refuge system) and directed the (Fish and Wildlife Service) to facilitate and increase these opportunities whenever they are determined to be compatible,” the Sportsmen’s Legal Defense Fund stated in it’s motion to dismiss the case.

The 1997 law mentioned in the motion refers to the Refuge Improvement Act, introduced by Rep. Don Young and lobbied into law by the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance.

Federal courts in Vermont and New Jersey have ruled that hunting regulations of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are not governed by NEPA.

“Even if NEPA could be held to apply to recreational hunting on refuge lands, the (service) … continues to carry out more than the functional equivalent of a comprehensive EIS and should not be forced to conduct burdensome, costly and unnecessary procedures simply to demonstrate perfunctory compliance with NEPA,” the motion stated.

“The suit demonstrates the lengths to which the anti-hunting movement will go to end hunting in America,” said Story. “They are nothing if not insidiously creative and sportsmen must be vigilant to head off such threats.”

The U.S. Sportsmen’s Legal Defense Fund is a program of the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. It is the only full-time fund of its kind devoted exclusively to defending and advancing sportsmen’s rights in local, state and federal courts. For more information, contact the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation, 801 Kingsmill Parkway, Columbus, OH, 43229. Phone (614) 888-4868. Visit the Foundation at www.ussportsmen.org.
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