Feds appeal to remove endangered species status for gray wolf

The Biden administration is seeking to overturn a 2022 district court decision that reinstated Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves across most of the U.S.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service hopes to reinstate a rule passed under the Trump administration to remove ESA protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states and put the animals under state management.

Attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice filed an 87-page appeal of a California district court’s 2022 decision that blocked the Trump-era rule and kept existing listing regulations in place. The district court’s decision kept wolves in Minnesota a threatened species, and an endangered species in 44 states. In the appeal, USFWS argues that the district court incorrectly interpreted the ESA, which the government contends is only meant to ensure species are not in danger of going extinct, not to restore species to their full historical range.

“The ESA is clear: its goal is to prevent extinction, not to restore species to their pre-western settlement numbers and range,” USFWS argued in its court filing.

The ruling may not have an impact on gray wolf status in Washington, which is part of the Northern Rocky Mountain Region for the gray wolf and also includes Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, the eastern third of Oregon and a tiny part of Utah.

Staci Lehman, communications manager for the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, emailed The Center Square.

“If the federal appeals court agrees to reinstate the rule passed under the Trump administration to remove Endangered Species Act protections, state and tribal wildlife management agencies will resume responsibility for gray wolves," she said. "In Washington, we have already been doing that for the most part."

She went on to say, “WDFW has facilitated wolf recovery for more than a decade and is well-prepared to be the management authority for wolves statewide. The majority of wolf packs in Washington reside in the eastern third of the state where wolves have not been federally listed under the Endangered Species Act since 2011.”

The filing is not going over well with groups seeking enhanced protections for various groups of gray wolves, whose members argue turning over protections to the states will reverse decades of recovery.

Susan Holmes, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition, called the filing “bewildering” and said if the government’s appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is successful, federal protections for gray wolves would be lifted, “robbing the species of important tools and protections that are key to conservation and recovery efforts.”

The government argues in its appeal that “The gray wolf is one of the ESA’s biggest success stories: it has made a remarkable recovery and now thrives in the continental United States in two large, expanding metapopulations that are also connected to large populations of wolves in Canada."

Livestock groups have continued to push back on protections for the gray wolf due to attacks on cattle and other farm animals.

As previously reported by The Center Square, Pam Lewison, director of the Center for Agriculture at the Washington Policy Center think tank, said the wolves have rebounded significantly and that farmers with livestock are living with that fact.

Washington’s gray wolf population has increased for 15 straight years, reaching a total population of 260, according to the latest count conducted by WDFW and Colville tribe.