The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says gray wolves no longer need federal protections.
The agency is asking a federal appeals court to reinstate a rule that removed gray wolves from Endangered Species Act protections. That policy dates back to the Trump administration.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued the agency over the removal of protections, and a judge restored them in 2022.
Collette Adkins, the carnivore conservation director and a senior attorney for the organization, said the fact that the Biden administration is now arguing in favor of upholding the Trump administration rule is a surprise.
“We know exactly what will happen because we've seen it before,” Adkins said. “Wolves will die if management is turned back to the states, and that means that we’ll have wolves in fewer places.”
Hunters killed more than 200 wolves in Wisconsin within three days in the first hunt after the species lost federal protections in 2020. Adkins said with federal delisting, hunting would likely open back up in the Great Lakes region. It could also put wolves in other places at risk, she said, and could make it harder for them to rebound, even in states promoting their recovery.
Wolves are already under state control in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and parts of Utah, Washington and Oregon. They have state-level protections in Colorado.
In the legal brief filed late last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service called the gray wolf a conservation success story, highlighting thriving populations in the Midwest and Northern Rockies. It also argued that the Endangered Species Act just requires it to prevent a species’ extinction — not to restore a species to its complete historic range.
In February of this year, the Wildlife Service declined to restore federal protections to wolves in the Northern Rockies. In that decision, the agency said it would draft a federal recovery plan for wolves by the end of next year.
Whether to remove federal protections across the lower 48 states is now up to the courts.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
