BLM Withdraws Permit for Idaho Predator Killing Derby!

Boise, ID:  In response to our lawsuit, the Bureau of Land Management backed down from its decision to allow the Idaho Predator Hunting Derby on 3.1 million acres of our public lands surrounding Salmon, Idaho.

Advocates for the West’s Director of Litigation Laird Lucas and Staff Attorney Bryan Hurlbutt represent Defenders of Wildlife in this case, filed alongside the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, and Project Coyote.

BLM’s five-year permit would have allowed up to 500 participants to compete to kill the largest number of wolves, coyotes, and other animals for cash and prizes throughout much of central and eastern Idaho over three days every winter.

BLM informed us of the decision yesterday, just before we submitted our brief asking the Court to stop this year’s hunt.

Laird says of the cancelation, “BLM’s first-ever approval of a wolf killing derby on public lands undermines wolf recovery in the Northern Rockies and was not in the public interest. So it’s good BLM lawyers realized they needed to yank the permit after we sued.”

BLM’s decision is a significant blow to the derby’s organizers, who hoped to hold the derby on BLM, National Forest, state, and private lands. Without the BLM lands – the largest and most accessible area for the event – it is unclear whether the derby will go forward.

Bryan says of the cancellation, “This thwarts the derby organizers’ attempt to expand the small derby held in Idaho last year into a major event, and gives us momentum to ensure these backwards events are never permitted on our public lands.”