Federal protections for gray wolves must be restored under the Endangered Species Act across much of the U.S., according to a federal judge. Gray wolves were removed from the ESA in the final days of the Trump administration.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California, said in Thursday’s ruling that the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to show wolf populations could be sustained in the Midwest and portions of the West without protection under the ESA. Wildlife advocates had argued state-sponsored hunting threatened to reverse the gray wolf’s recovery over the past several decades.
The ruling does not directly impact wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, which remain under state jurisdiction. Federal officials argued wolves were resilient enough to bounce back even if their numbers dropped sharply due to intensive hunting.
At stake is the future of a species whose recovery from near-extinction has been heralded as a historic conservation success. That recovery also has brought bitter blowback from hunters and ranchers angered over wolf attacks on big game herds and livestock. They contend protections are no longer warranted.
