Today, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 845, a bill that disregards science and removes Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for gray wolves across the Lower 48. Wolves remain far from being recovered and are depleted in or absent entirely from the vast majority of their historic range. The bill would restore a 2020 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisting rule rejected by the courts due to scientific evidence showing wolves are not yet recovered under the ESA. H.R. 845 would also prohibit any legal challenge to its removal of wolf protections.
If passed by the Senate, this bill would congressionally delist all gray wolves in the lower 48 the same way wolves in the Northern Rockies were congressionally delisted in 2011, handing management authority over to states. The 2011 delisting marked the first ever delisting of a species from the Endangered Species Act by Congress—a decision that is otherwise authorized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through a multi-step process that involves scientific review and public participation. Regulations in Montana, for example, allow hunters and trappers to kill several hundred wolves per year—a 452-wolf quota was approved this year—with bait, traps, snares, night hunting, infrared and thermal imagery scopes, and artificial light.
The most recent data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its state partners show an estimated 4,900 wolves inhabit the western Great Lakes states, but only 230 wolves are in Washington state, 204 in Oregon, 50 in California and a scant 20 in Colorado early on in its reintroduction. Nevada, and Utah have had a few wolf sightings over the past three years, but wolves remain functionally absent from their historical habitat in these states. There are only 2,700 wolves in the entire western United States.
“Wolves are a keystone species whose presence on landscapes regulates animal populations and improves ecosystem health – something the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has acknowledged for at least 44 years,” said Kelly Nokes, Western Environmental Law Center attorney. “Allowing people to kill wolves in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana has already stunted recovery in those states. Applying this same death sentence to wolves throughout the contiguous U.S. would nationalize these negative effects, with potentially catastrophic ripple effects on ecosystems where wolves have yet to fully recover. The Senate must reject legislative wolf delisting as anti-science and purely political.”
Contacts:
Kelly Nokes, 575-613-8051, nokes@westernlaw.org
Matthew Bishop, 406-324-8011, bishop@westernlaw.org
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