In Colorado, environmental and animal protection groups are leading a campaign to pass Proposition 114, a ballot measure that would require state biologists to reintroduce gray wolves in the state’s western public lands by 2023. Whatever the outcome of the fight over federal protections, conservationists are taking steps to shore up support for wolves at the state level. One expert noted that the proposal barely considered the effects of climate change, which federal wildlife officials claimed would not affect wolves. In a peer review of the agency’s proposal, experts on the gray wolf criticized the scientific analysis underpinning the decision to delist the species, writing that the agency’s conclusions were based on factual omissions and errors. However, there are indications that the Trump administration’s decision may be vulnerable to legal challenge. “Certainly the Endangered Species Act has a role in protecting those species that are imperiled, but once a species demonstrates they have recovered, that federal attention should be refocused.” Kaitlynn Glover, executive director of the Public Lands Council, a trade organization representing ranchers, said this time is different. Though wolves have been delisted in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, eastern Oregon and eastern Washington, the Obama administration’s efforts to end protection for the species in the Great Lakes region was undone by a court order in 2014. Many of the attempts to weaken protections were overturned by federal judges. In parts of the West where belief in small government is sacrosanct, the wolf became a symbol of burdensome regulation. Hunters complained about having to compete with wolves for deer and elk. The return of the country’s most controversial predator drove a wedge between ranchers, who saw them as a threat to livestock, and environmental groups. Soon after wolves were reintroduced to the Northern Rockies in the mid-1990s, efforts began to remove their protected status. “There’s going to have to be a lot of eyes on the ground overseeing those populations.” “I really do worry about what’s going to happen in some of these states,” she said. And in Montana and Idaho, where Congress intervened to strip wolves of federal protections, nearly 500 have been killed in the last year, according to Lambert. But Utah allows wildlife managers to trap and euthanize wolves to prevent them from reestablishing themselves. In California and Washington state, wolves would still be protected under those states’ endangered species laws. If the courts uphold the Trump administration’s decision, then gray wolves will be subject to individual states’ rules on hunting and trapping, as well as private landowners who run the gamut from tolerant to hostile. It’s unclear whether gray wolves will be able to expand their range without the federal protections they’ve had for nearly 50 years. Although parts of Colorado, Utah and California could be ideal wolf habitat, there are hardly any packs in these states. Today, they are primarily found in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as the Northern Rockies, where they have been successfully reintroduced.īut outside these clusters, wolves haven’t established viable populations, said Joanna Lambert, a professor of animal ecology at the University of Colorado Boulder. “We believe they’ve declared victory too soon.” “We absolutely plan to challenge it,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, chief executive of the conservation advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife and a former director of the Fish and Wildlife Service under President Clinton. Conservationists maintain that wolves have returned only to certain parts of their former habitat and say the agency is acting prematurely. Like the previous attempt, which took place under the Obama administration, this latest effort is expected to face legal challenges. Fish and Wildlife Service is the second time in the last decade that federal wildlife officials have tried to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list, where they say the animals no longer belong now that they’re thriving in the wild. Heralded as one of the greatest success stories of the Endangered Species Act, the gray wolf will lose federal protections under a Trump administration decision announced Thursday.
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