Groups again sue to re-list Northern Rockies wolves

Washington — The Center for Biological Diversity, along with other animal-rights groups, including the Humane Society of the United States and the Sierra Club, is “once again filing a lawsuit to derail scientific wildlife management of wolves,” the Sportsmen’s Alliance reported in an April 8 press release. The groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the USFWS’s denial of CBD’s petition to relist gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains of the western United States under the Endangered Species Act.

“We’re back in court to save the wolves and we’ll win again,” said Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation program director at the CBD, in a press release.

The petition filed in 2021 by the CBD, HSUS, Humane Society Legislative Fund, and Sierra Club sought to restore federal protections to gray wolves in the northern Rockies. The USFWS denied the petition in February, the CBD release states.

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According to the Sportsmen’s Alliance, the USFWS concluded in February that gray wolves in the northern Rockies are not a distinct population segment that could be listed under the ESA and that wolves in the broader western United States, while qualifying as a distinct population, do not warrant listing under the ESA. The USFWS supported the decision by noting that “now and into the foreseeable future, wolves are likely to retain a healthy level of abundance” throughout the western United States.

“(The Sportsmen’s Alliance) also supports the delisting of gray wolves elsewhere. Specifically, we filed our own petitions with the USFWS last summer, requesting the service recognize and delist a Western Great Lakes Distinct Population,” its release says.

Wolves in Idaho, Montana, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and northern Utah lost federal protections through a congressional legislative rider in 2011. Wolves in Wyoming also lost federal protection in 2012.