The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been sued for failing to provide ESA protections for wolves in the West/USFWS file

Arguing that "wolf-hating states" will sabotage the recovery of the gray wolf in the West, four conservation groups Monday sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for declining to provide Endangered Species Act protections for the canids. A second lawsuit challenging the agency's decision argued that wolves have yet "to achieve self-sustaining populations in much of their historic habitat across vast portions of the Western U.S."

Two months ago the Fish and Wildlife Service opted not to list the gray wolf in the West under the ESA, saying the predators didn't need the protection and it would be better to develop a national recovery plan. 

"Gray wolves are listed under the ESA as endangered in 44 states, threatened in Minnesota, and under state jurisdiction in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and portions of eastern Oregon and Washington," the agency said in February in declining a listing position filed by a handful of conservation groups. "Based on the latest data as of the end of 2022, there were approximately 2,797 wolves distributed across at least 286 packs in seven states in the Western United States. This population size and widespread distribution contribute to the resiliency and redundancy of wolves in this region. The population maintains high genetic diversity and connectivity, further supporting their ability to adapt to future changes."

But in their lawsuit the four conservation groups said the Montana and Idaho legislatures recently adopted laws that make it easier and more effective to kill wolves, and that the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to "rely on the best available science – in some instances, the Service completely ignored key research that conflicts with the agency’s conclusions."

"As the Service itself concluded, increased killing of wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains will lead to precipitous population declines in the next ten years," the lawsuit said. "Significantly, recent scientific research demonstrates that the level of genetic variability observed in wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains is already insufficient to prevent long-term extinction risk. Population declines will cause further harm to the genetic health of these wolves."

Back in February the Center for Biologist Diversity argued that "Idaho law lets the state hire private contractors to kill wolves, lets hunters and trappers kill an unlimited number of wolves and permits year-round trapping on private land. It also allows hunters and trappers to kill wolves by chasing them down with hounds and all-terrain vehicles. In 2022 and 2023 alone, Idaho hunters and trappers killed more than 560 wolves. In Montana, wolf hunters and trappers can now use night-vision scopes and spotlights on private land, strangulation snares on public and private land, and bait to lure wolves. A single hunter can purchase up to 10 wolf-hunting licenses, and trappers have a bag limit of 10 wolves. That means someone who has both hunting and trapping tags can kill 20 of the animals."

According to the center, across most of Wyoming wolves are designated as “predatory animals” that can be killed without a license "in nearly any manner and at any time." Just last week a story broke about a Wyoming man being cited and fined $250 for capturing a wolf and torturing it before killing it. The fine was for "violating laws prohibiting the possession of live wildlife," according to WyoFile. Had the wolf been protected under the ESA, the man would have faced federal charges.

“We’re back in court to save the wolves and we’ll win again,” Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said Monday. “The Fish and Wildlife Service is thumbing its nose at the Endangered Species Act and letting wolf-hating states sabotage decades of recovery efforts. It’s heartbreaking and it has to stop."

The lawsuit was filed by the center, the Humane Society of the United States, the Humane Society Legislative Fund, and the Sierra Club. The conservation groups’ filing seeks a court order requiring the Fish and WIldlife Service to use current science and to reevaluate whether gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains warrant Endangered Species Act protection.

The other lawsuit, brought by the Western Environmental Law Center in behalf of 10 conservation groups, states that the Fish and Wildlife Service is on record saying that “[w]hile harvest rates documented in Idaho and Montana during the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 wolf seasons are within the range of harvest rates that occurred during seasons that pre-dated these new laws … it remains unclear how recent statutory and regulatory changes will affect wolf abundance and distribution in each state and throughout the West in the long-term.”

According to that lawsuit, after Montana liberalized its hunting regulations for wolves, "Twenty-four wolves that primarily resided in Yellowstone National Park were legally killed outside of the Yellowstone National Park boundaries in 2021-2022 (19 were killed in Montana, 2 were killed in Idaho, and 3 were killed in Wyoming)."

"The Service stated that it is unclear how continued killing of wolves that live primarily in Yellowstone National Park might affect Yellowstone National Park’s wolf population, including: the long-term abundance, pack social structure, reproduction, pack interactions, and interactions with prey," the lawsuit continued. "Cassidy et al. (2023) recently found that the legal hunting of wolves outside of Yellowstone National Park is killing enough wolves to disrupt pack social structure and cause dissolution of packs in Yellowstone National Park."

“The Service’s finding seems to give the green light for states hostile to wolves to follow suit with Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming’s aggressive killing regimes if they are eventually delisted and transferred to state management West wide,” said Kelly Nokes, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center representing the groups. “But wolves have yet to recover across vast portions of the West, and they exist in only small populations in the West Coast and Colorado habitats they are slowly reinhabiting. This legal challenge asks only for the protections needed for this iconic species to be rightfully restored across the West’s wild landscapes—protections that some states have shown only the Endangered Species Act can really provide.” 

Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist and executive director of Western Watersheds Project, added that, "[T]he current killing regimes in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming put wolves at obvious risk of extinction in the foreseeable future, and this core population is key to wolf survival in the West. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is playing politics, pretending that the anti-wolf agendas of state governments constitute adequate conservation regulations and that the small and vulnerable condition of fledgling wolf populations elsewhere in the West somehow protect the species from extinction.” 

In its February announcement declining the listing request, Fish and Wildlife said it would launch "a process to develop a first-ever nationwide gray wolf recovery plan by December 12, 2025. Recovery plans provide a vision for species recovery that is connected to site-specific actions for reducing threats and conserving listed species and their ecosystems. Facilitating a more durable and holistic approach to wolf recovery must go beyond the ESA. The Service also recently announced a new effort to create and foster a national dialogue around how communities can live with gray wolves to include conflict prevention, long-term stability and community security. These discussions, led by a third-party convenor, will help inform the Service’s policies and future rulemaking about wolves, and include those who live with wolves and those who do not but want to know they have a place on the landscape."