[JURIST] The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled [opinion, PDF] Tuesday that a 2014 Michigan law that gave the Michigan Natural Resources Commission and State Legislature the ability to name new game animals was unconstitutional. The Michigan Constitution contains a Title-Object Clause, which states “No law shall embrace more than one object, which shall be expressed in its title.” The court ruled [DFP report] that the portion of the wolf hunt law allowing free hunting licenses for members of the military is unrelated to the law’s purpose of managing game, which means the entire law must be struck down as violating the Title-Object Clause. The court reversed the lower court’s previous decision [DFP report], which was in favor of the defendant, the state of Michigan. The plaintiff is Keep Michigan Wolves Protected [advocacy site], an organization that works to “restore protections to Michigan’s small wolf population and restore the rights of voters to have a meaningful say on important wildlife issues.” Although the original wolf hunting bill was rejected by the majority of voters in 2014, parts of the bill were then incorporated into the new law that was passed by the state legislature in 2015.

This ruling marks a change from previous rulings on the gray wolf. In 2012 the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court ruled [JURIST report] that gray wolves were not protected under the Endangered Species Act. In 2011 a Montana judge allowed [JURIST report] Congress to remove wolves from the endangered species list.