US: Wolves may need protections after states expand hunting
BILLINGS, MONT. » The Biden administration said Wednesday that federal protections may need to be restored for gray wolves in the western U.S. after Republican-backed state laws made it much easier to kill the predators.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service initial determination that the region’s wolves could again be in peril — after decades spent restoring them — will kick off a year-long biological review.
It marks an abrupt turnaround for the federal wildlife agency and brought a swift pushback from Montana’s Republican governor, who said officials in Washington shouldn’t be “second guessing” the state’s wildlife policies.
Federal officials had spent years in court defending their decisions on wolves, including under Biden and dating back to the Obama administration, when wolves were returned to state jurisdiction in the six-state Northern Rockies, opening the door to hunting for the first time in decades.
Former President Donald Trump’s administration lifted protections across most of the remainder of the U.S. in his last days in office.
But the deference given by federal officials to state wildlife agencies is now being tested. Republican lawmakers in Montana and Idaho are intent on culling more wolf packs, which are blamed for periodic attacks on livestock and reducing elk and deer herds that many hunters prize.
The states’ Republican governors in recent months signed into law measures that expanded when, where and how wolves can be killed. That raised alarm among Democrats, former wildlife officials and advocacy groups that said increased hunting pressure could cut wolf numbers to unsustainable levels.
The Humane Society of the U.S., Center for Biological Diversity and other groups had filed legal petitions asking federal officials to intervene.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday the petitions provided “credible and substantial information that increased humancaused mortality in Idaho and Montana may pose a threat to wolves” across the western region.
Wilderness areas in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are strongholds for wolf populations, helping fuel their expansion in recent years into portions of Oregon, Washington state, California and Colorado.
The agency rejected a request to restore protections immediately. But it said the groups provided enough information to justify a yearlong review of whether wolves warrant re-listing under the Endangered Species Act, which is for plants and animals considered at risk of extinction.
Center for Biological Diversity attorney Andrea Zaccardi said advocates welcomed the review but added that wolves were “under the gun now” and need protections right away.
“We are concerned that a lot of wolves could be wiped out while undertaking a year-long review,” she said.