Depending on who you talk to, gray wolves either deserve federal protection or do not deserve to be covered under provisions specified in the Endangered Species Act. Recently the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled against a petition that called for the wolf to be listed as “threatened.”
On July 1, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled against a petition to reclassify all gray wolves in the United States, except for the Mexican wolf in the Southwest, as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The Service said the petition does not present substantial information indicating that reclassification may be warranted. As a result, the Service will take no further action on the petition, which was submitted on January 7, 2015, by the Humane Society of the United States and 22 other petitioners.
In its ruling the Service stated, “The petitioner’s information with respect to unoccupied suitable habitat is based on a misrepresentation of the Act. Moreover, despite making allegations with respect to disease, and small population size, petitioners presented no information to support their claim. …
“Therefore, the petition only provides information with respect to possible overutilization from recreational hunting and trapping, and the information is not substantial.”
The Service also found that petitioners failed to provide substantial information indicating that gray wolves meet the definition of a threatened species which are likely to be in danger of extinction within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of their range.
Both the U.S. Senate and House have recently attempted to insert language into the U.S. Department of the Interior’s spending bill to delist gray wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Wyoming. To date, none of these efforts have passed.
Gray wolves were removed from the Endangered Species Act in 2012 and a limited hunting/ trapping season was conducted in Minnesota for two years before a federal judge restored federal protection to the wolves in the Great Lakes area in 2014.
“We oppose the federal delisting of wolves because it’s not based on the best available science and we don’t have good policies in place in the State of Minnesota that would be responsive and responsible to keep their [wolf] numbers up,” said Dr. Maureen Hackett, president and founder of Howling for Wolves, which was one of the 22 organizations that made the petition to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Although the Service ruled out the concerns raised in the petition, wolves are still federally protected and listed as “endangered” in many areas and “threatened” on the ESA list in Minnesota. The only way a wolf can be taken in Minnesota is if it has killed livestock and then it has to be trapped by a state sanctioned trapper.
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