October, 01 2021, 12:15pm EDT
Wisconsin Tribes Seek Court Order to Stop November Wolf Hunt
Six Ojibwe tribes file motion for preliminary injunction against the state.
WASHINGTON
Earthjustice is back in court today on behalf of six Ojibwe tribes seeking a preliminary injunction to stop Wisconsin from holding a wolf hunt in November. The motion asks the judge to hold a hearing before the planned hunt slated to begin on Nov. 6.
This motion is part of the tribes' lawsuit filed Sept. 21 in the Western District of Wisconsin against the state claiming the proposed hunt violates the tribes' treaty rights. The Wisconsin Natural Resources Board approved a quota of 300 wolves, ignoring the recommendations of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and willfully acting to nullify the Ojibwe Tribes' share of wolves which the tribes seek to protect. Even the lower quota of 130 wolves recommended by the Department has no grounding in sound biological principles because, in developing the recommended quota, the Department failed to obtain a population estimate of the Wisconsin wolves that are remaining after a rushed hunt held in February.
During that three-day hunt, non-Indian hunters killed at least 218 wolves, including all of the Ojibwe tribes' share in violation of the tribes' treaty rights. Neither the Board nor the Department has made any changes to the management of the hunt to prevent a repeat of February's disastrous overkill of wolves. Scientists estimate that a third of all wolves in Wisconsin have been killed since federal delisting.
The following are statements from Earthjustice and tribal representatives from their declarations for the court:
"This case is about Wisconsin's responsibility to protect and conserve the natural resources we all share," said Gussie Lord, managing attorney of Earthjustice's Tribal Partnerships program. "The Ojibwe's treaty rights guarantee them the ability to coexist with the natural world in the way that they believe is appropriate and necessary to sustain the future generations. Wisconsin does not have exclusive rights here. The state has set the stage for yet another violation of the Ojibwe's treaty rights and we are asking the Court to step in and prevent that from happening."
"Our treaties represent a way of life for our tribal people. Eroding and disregarding our treaties is unacceptable. We view violations of our treaty rights as hostile actions against our tribal sovereignty and the very lives of tribal people."--From the declaration of Mike Wiggins, Jr., Chairman, Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
"What happens to ma'iingan happens to Anishinaabe. What happens to the wolf happens to humanity. That is universal law. The ecosystem is all connected. That is the message the ma'iingan is giving to humanity. Look at what we are facing today - the fish are dying, the trees are dying, the climate is changing, the water is drying up. Look at what is going on with the earth--what is taking place. I believe ma'iingan is saying - pay attention." --From the declaration of Marvin DeFoe, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
"The wolves are part of the ecosystem. The deer herds in Wisconsin are infected with Chronic Wasting Disease. When the wolves see the herd, they take the weak animals to try to keep the herd strong. We need strong deer herds, we need the body of the waawaashkeshi, to feed our families."--From the declaration of Robert VanZile, Chairman, Sokaogon Chippewa Community.
"The Ojibwe that hunt, fish and gather, we take and give back. We are supposed to be looking out for the next seven generations. I try to do that by teaching my grandsons to just take what they need to survive. We teach our children this - when we know it is wrong to hunt, we do not hunt. We take a step back and assess the damage. We determine how we can help so we can have the animals, the plants, the fish, for our future."--From the declaration of John Johnson, Sr., President, Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
Earthjustice represents the tribal nations Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, the Sokaogon Chippewa Community, and St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin.
The Ojibwe word for "wolf" is ma'iingan, for "white-tailed deer" is "waawaashkeshi," and the word to describe the people of the Great Lakes region connected to this culture is Anishinaabe.
Background:
The tribes' lawsuit accompanies an existing challenge by Earthjustice to the Trump administration's decision to remove wolves from the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made its decision against the advice of scientists who say wolves are still functionally extinct in the vast majority of the places they once inhabited and need continued federal protections in order to survive and recover.
On Sept. 14, 2021, groups representing nearly 200 tribes signed a letter to Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland demanding the restoration of Endangered Species protections to wolves nationwide.
Reporter Resources:
- Declarations of members of the tribes:
- Conrad St. John, St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin
- Brian Bisonette, Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
- John Johnson, Sr. Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
- Andrew Edwards, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
- Marvin DeFoe. Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin
- Robert VanZile, Sokaogon Chippewa Community
- Adrian P. Wydeven, Cable, Wisconsin
- Michael Wiggins, Jr., Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa
- Information on the February 2021 Wolf Hunt
- Press Release from the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission condemning new quota for November wolf hunt
- Online version of this press release
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
800-584-6460LATEST NEWS
'Screaming the Quiet Part': Trump Advisers Say He's Ready to Embrace King-Like Powers
The U.S. Supreme Court's immunity decision has reportedly emboldened the presumptive GOP nominee to pursue his far-right agenda and authoritarian aims "without fear of punishment or restraint."
Jul 02, 2024
Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump—who has pledged to be a dictator on "day one" if elected to another four years in the White House—is reportedly preparing to exploit the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Monday that current and former presidents are entitled to sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution.
Citing unnamed advisers to the former president, Axiosreported Tuesday that if Trump is reelected in November, he "plans to immediately test the boundaries of presidential and governing power, knowing the restraints of Congress and the courts are dramatically looser than during his first term."
"They're screaming the quiet part, and yet Democrats are mostly focused on renominating a sundowning 81-year-old losing to him in key swing state polls," The Lever's David Sirota wrote in response to Axios' reporting, referring to President Joe Biden.
Facing mounting calls to drop his reelection campaign following his disastrous debate performance against Trump last week, Biden said in an address following the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. United States that the ruling means "there are virtually no limits on what a president can do."
"I know I will respect the limits of the presidential power, as I have for three and a half years," said Biden. "But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law."
Among the steps Trump—who celebrated the ruling—intends to take swiftly upon assuming office following a possible November victory, according to Axios, are setting up "vast camps" to "deport millions of people," moving to "fire potentially tens of thousands of civil servants" and replace them with "pre-vetted loyalists," and centralizing "power over the Justice Department," which the former president has repeatedly threatened to wield against his political opponents.
Trump has also pledged to gut environmental rules—which the Supreme Court also targeted in recent rulings—and ram through climate-wrecking drilling projects, moves backed by the powerful oil and gas industry that's helping finance his campaign.
"Thanks to Monday's Supreme Court ruling, Trump could pursue his plans without fear of punishment or restraint," Axios reported.
“It's coming, fast and furious, if he's elected.”
Being a dictator on Day One. Swapping civil servants for “pre-vetted loyalists.” Threatening to “target and even imprison critics.” Pardoning insurrectionists. Jacking up prices with new tariffs. And more: https://t.co/sEiORyvMOt
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 2, 2024
While Trump made his support for such actions clear well before the U.S. Supreme Court's Monday ruling, the decision is likely to embolden the twice-impeached former president who, since leaving office, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on election-subversion charges and convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The high court's ideologically divided 6-3 decision in the immunity case has already impacted both legal proceedings, with Manhattan prosecutors agreeing Tuesday with the former president's request to delay his criminal sentencing on the 34 felony charges as the judge on the case examines whether the Supreme Court's ruling has any bearing on the conviction.
In the separate election-subversion case, the Supreme Court's ruling further pushes back a trial as the judge now has to determine which of the actions described in the indictment qualify as "official" duties that—according to the high court's right-wing supermajority—are entitled to "absolute immunity" from criminal prosecution.
"So, yes, all this will delay Trump's trial. In that sense, he gets what he craved," Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, wrote Monday. "But the implications are far worse for the structure of American self-government."
"We read sonorous language in the majority opinion that 'the president is not above the law,'" Waldman added. "But just in time for Independence Day, the Supreme Court brings us closer to having a king again."
"The Framers of the Constitution, wary of reestablishing the monarchy they overthrew, carefully limited the chief executive's powers. And six justices just crowned him king."
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent against Monday's decision that the Supreme Court's majority has effectively endorsed assassinations of political rivals, orchestration of a military coup to remain in power, and the acceptance of bribes in exchange for pardons as legitimate and unprosecutable uses of presidential authority.
"The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably," Sotomayor wrote. "In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law."
Slate legal journalist Mark Joseph Stern echoed Sotomayor, writing that "it is unclear, after Monday's decision, what constitutional checks remain to stop any president from assuming dangerous and monarchical powers that are anathema to representative government."
"The immediate impact of the court's sweeping decision will be devastating enough, allowing Donald Trump to evade accountability for the most destructive and criminal efforts he took to overturn the 2020 election. But the long-term impact is even more harrowing," Stern wrote. "All future presidents will enter office with the knowledge that they are protected from prosecution for even the most appalling and dangerous abuses of power so long as they insist they were seeking to carry out their duties, as they understood them."
"The Framers of the Constitution, wary of reestablishing the monarchy they overthrew, carefully limited the chief executive's powers," he added. "And six justices just crowned him king."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Historic' Category 5 Hurricane Beryl Offers Terrifying View of Future
"Beryl isn't 'unbelievable,'" one expert said. "it's what happens when you heat up the planet with fossil fuel pollution for decades."
Jul 02, 2024
As Hurricane Beryl barreled toward Jamaica on Tuesday after killing at least four people in the Caribbean's Windward Islands, climate scientists warned the record-breaking Category 5 storm is a present-tense example of what's to come on a rapidly heating planet.
Even before the Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an 85% chance of above-normal activity and 17-25 total named storms this year. Matthew Cappucci, a meteorologist for The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang, highlighted some records Beryl has already broken.
"There is a strong, well-documented link between the effects of human-induced climate change and the development of stronger, wetter storms that are more prone to rapidly intensify," he wrote Tuesday. "Beryl sprung from a tropical depression to a Category 4 hurricane in just 48 hours, the fastest any storm on record has strengthened before the month of September."
Beryl is also the earliest Category 4 and 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic, Cappucci pointed out. Previously, the earliest storm to reach the top level of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale was Emily, in mid-July of 2005.
The Capital Weather Gang reported that Beryl "strengthened more Monday night, its peak winds climbing to 165 mph. It has surpassed Emily (2005) as strongest July hurricane on record. It's early July but Atlantic is acting like late August."
Certified consulting meteorologist Chris Gloninger emphasized that "the climate crisis has led to well-above-average ocean water temperatures and helped this storm explode."
As Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Potsdam University explained: "The heat in the upper ocean is the energy source for tropical cyclones. This heat is at record level, mainly caused by emissions from burning fossil fuel. That's why an extreme hurricane season has been predicted for this year. It's off to a bad start!"
Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach on Monday shared graphics showing that "Caribbean ocean heat content today is normally what we get in the middle of September."
While some expressed disbelief over the storm, CNN extreme weather editor Eric Zerkel stressed that "Beryl isn't 'unbelievable' or 'defying all logic,' it's what happens when you heat up the planet with fossil fuel pollution for decades. The oceans store roughly 90% of that excess heat. The ocean is as warm as it typically is... when Category 4 storms form. June is now August."
Acknowledging Beryl's strength, Steve Bowen, a meteorologist who serves as chief science officer at the global reinsurance firm Gallagher Re, concluded that "this is a massive warning sign for the rest of the season."
Looking beyond this hurricane season, which ends in November, University of Hawaii at Mānoa professor and [C]Worthy co-founder David Ho said, "Let's remember that things are just going to get [worse] as we continue to consume nearly 100 million barrels of oil every day."
The "historic" storm is sparking calls for action to phase out fossil fuels across the globe. Noting how Beryl "is breaking records and leaving a trail of destruction throughout the Caribbean," the U.S.-based Sunrise Movement argued that "we must prosecute Big Oil for their role in causing devastation like this."
In response to a climate scientist who shared a photo of some damage Beryl has already caused, Rahmstorf expressed hope that people around the world won't "wait with voting for climate stabilization until extremes hit their homes."
Beryl made landfall Monday as a Category 4 hurricane on Carriacou, a Grenada island, and also affected St. Vincent and Grenadines. According toThe Associated Press, at least four people were killed.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Tuesday afternoon that on its current path, "the center of Beryl will move quickly across the central Caribbean Sea today and is forecast to pass near Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands on Thursday. The center is forecast to approach the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico on Thursday night."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rudy Giuliani Permanently Disbarred in New York State
A court found that the former Trump lawyer "flagrantly misused his prominent position" and "repeatedly and intentionally made false statements, some of which were perjurious," about the 2020 election.
Jul 02, 2024
Rudy Giuliani—onetime mayor of New York City, federal prosecutor, and attorney for former President Donald Trump—was permanently disbarred in New York state on Tuesday for lying about the 2020 presidential election being "stolen" by Democrats.
The New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division unanimously disbarred Giulian, calling his propagation of Trump's "Big Lie" about 2020 election fraud a threat to the public interest and the legal profession.
The panel found that Giuliani—whose law license was suspended in 2021—"flagrantly misused his prominent position as the personal attorney for former President Trump and his campaign" and "repeatedly and intentionally made false statements, some of which were perjurious, to the federal court, state lawmakers, the public … and this court concerning the 2020 presidential election, in which he baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country's electoral process."
"The seriousness of [Giuliani's] misconduct cannot be overstated," the court stressed.
As the New York Law Journalreported:
Once known as "America's Mayor," the 80-year-old has faced mounting legal battles and financial ruin in recent years.
Giuliani was indicted in Arizona in May alongside 17 others for his alleged role in an attempt to overturn Trump's loss in the state during the 2020 presidential election.
Giuliani filed for bankruptcy protection in December following a $148 million defamation judgment leveled against him for false statements in the wake of former President Donald Trump's failed attempt to retain the presidency.
He is also facing multiple actions in New York state—including a $10 million complaint from an alleged former employee who accuses him of sexual assault and wage theft—though many were stayed in the wake of his Chapter 11 filing.
Giuliani—who is also facing felony charges in Georgia along with Trump and others who allegedly tried to subvert the 2020 election—denies these and other accusations, including that he tried to sell presidential pardons for $2 million each.
Barry Kamins, the retired judge who represented Giuliani as he fought to keep his New York law license, said his client "is obviously disappointed in the decision" and that they are weighing their appeals options.
A bar disciplinary committee in the District of Columbia has also recommended that Giuliani be disbarred.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular