Wildlife advocates are calling on Congress to pass a bill to help states track diseases killing wildlife across the country.

House Resolution 6765 would spend up to $42.5 million a year to help state wildlife experts study and share data electronically on diseases and their spread.

In Oklahoma, officials are crafting a response plan to the state's first documented case of chronic wasting disease, an always-fatal neurological condition affecting the brains of deer, elk and moose, creating holes resembling those in sponges.

Matthew Wright, chairman of the Conservation Coalition of Oklahoma, said the state is a top-five destination for deer hunters, so getting a handle on the disease early is crucial.

"This could have a huge impact on our economy and tourism," Wright pointed out. "The ability for everybody to keep track and have a central database (where) they can compare notes and help with tracking, and see any trends that they can hopefully cut off before it becomes a bigger problem."

The state has tested 10,000 tissue samples in the lab, but the bill would help create online "information nodes" to allow scientists to more effectively share the information among state and tribal agencies as well as with neighboring states. Wright said biologists are also concerned about a dangerous spread of avian flu, which could impact Oklahoma's $6.7 billion poultry industry.

Dr. Colin Gillin, state wildlife veterinarian for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and vice-chair of the Association of Fish and Wildlife agencies, is a national expert on wildlife disease outbreaks and has been tracking them across the country. He said the avian influenza outbreak has killed hundreds of thousands of birds, including Canada geese and others in the American West this year.

"We've had raptors that feed on infected birds that have died, such as bald eagles and a lot of the scavenging birds, vultures," Gillin outlined.

Gillin said avian influenza has taken aim at the endangered California condor population. There are only 350 in the wild, and avian flu killed 21 last year. Right now, fewer than three dozen states have programs in place to track disease, and this measure would help grow the number, along with states' ability to share information. The bill awaits action in a U.S. House subcommittee.


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Two conservation groups have filed suit in a federal court in Montana to stop a U.S. Forest Service logging project that would clear cut large stands of trees, and carve over 24 miles of new logging roads into the Bitterroot National Forest.

The Forest Service says this is the most efficient way to manage the old growth forest.

But Alliance for the Wild Rockies Executive Director Mike Garrity said the Forest Service's plan for logging on the Gold Butterfly project threatens critical habitat for a host of species, because it leaves only eight trees standing on each acre of old growth forest in the project area in the Bitterroot.

"Eight trees on an area a little bigger than a football field," said Garrity. "Nobody would call that an old-growth forest. Old-growth forests are very thick forests with big trees, younger trees, standing dead trees, and fallen over trees."

The Forest Service says based on an Environmental Impact Statement, the Gold Butterfly project is the best and most efficient way to manage old growth in the Bitterroot.

The suit awaits action in a U.S. District Court in Missoula.

Garrity said the Forest Service's logging plan to leave that part of the Bitterroot so barren threatens habitats of the pileated woodpecker, pine martin and goshawk, among others.

"There are also grizzly bears in the area," said Garrity. "There was a successful wolverine den there recently, where the wolverine produced kits. Both are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act."

The groups that filed the suit are asking the federal court to rule the project illegal.

They offer the opinions of over 3,000 people who weighed in against the project as evidence that the public doesn't want any more logging roads in old-growth forests.

Groups in Oregon are warning wolf poaching poses a threat, not just to the creatures targeted but to people who enjoy the outdoors.

Poaching was a big issue in 2023 and again this year, especially through poisoning.

Bethany Cotton, conservation director for nonprofit conservation organization Cascadia Wildlands, said the wolf population did not grow in 2023 for the first time since the species returned to the state and a high rate of deaths has continued in 2024, largely caused by humans.

In May, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife started warning recreationists to keep their dogs on leashes because of potential exposure to poisoning meant to illegally kill wolves.

Cotton noted she decided against visiting eastern Oregon because of it.

"I have two rescue dogs, and I was invited to some friends' property out there and to spend some time out there this summer and I chose not to go," Cotton recounted. "Because it's too high a risk to go camp or hike in that part of the state right now knowing that this is happening."

Cotton acknowledged the investigation into a wolf's death takes time but poisonings are indiscriminate. In February, a poisoned cow carcass in Hells Canyon National Recreation Area killed three wolves, two golden eagles, a mountain lion and a coyote. The poaching led to the Department of Fish and Wildlife's May warning. The wolf count was 178 at the end of 2023.

Groups have banded together to take on poachers with the Turn-In-Poachers program. The collaboration is between O-D-F-W, the Oregon State Police, the Oregon Hunters Association, the Oregon Wildlife Coalition, the Oregon Outfitter and Guides Association and the Oregon State Marine Board. Rewards have been offered for tips on poachers but have not led to any arrests or convictions.

Cotton wants to see the silence around poaching events broken.

"We really do hope that those with knowledge about this poisoning incidents or future poisonings will come forward because of the possibility and the reality that it impacts far more than wolves," Cotton emphasized. "It impacts lots of other species and has impacted dogs and very likely will again in the future."

Cotton added healthy wolf populations are good for humans, including controlling diseases like chronic wasting disease in deer and elk and reducing vehicular accidents with deer.

"They bring a lot of benefits to the landscape," Cotton stressed. "It's been a huge success story that wolves naturally recolonized Oregon after having been absent for so many decades, and we just need to really learn to coexist with them like humans and wolves did for millennia."

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision could affect public lands and wildlife in places like Wyoming.

In June, the nation's highest court overturned a nearly 40-year-old practice known as Chevron deference, which said when it comes to interpreting a vague law, courts should defer to agency expertise instead of interpreting the law themselves.

The practice has given agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees endangered species, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management flexibility in making decisions on how a vague law plays out. The new decision tilts the scales, giving courts the final say on ambiguous statutes.

Sam Kalen, professor of law at the University of Wyoming, said the decision is far-reaching.

"That means there's going to be more power, more ability of a court to potentially do something that is, you know, against the entire purpose, if you will, even of the Endangered Species Act," Kalen explained.

In the court's majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote Chevron kept judges from judging. In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said it supported "regulatory efforts of all kinds," including those keeping "air and water clean, food and drugs safe, and financial markets honest."

Over the span of four decades, 70 U.S. Supreme Court decisions and 17,000 lower court decisions have invoked Chevron. Kalen noted the new decision could upset old ones.

"What we have seen in the last, I would say, couple of months is a lot of instances where parties are trying to now reargue issues where Chevron was used as a framework in the past," Kalen observed. "To me, that could be significant."

He added it is too soon to tell if revisiting old court decisions will become a trend.


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