Commentary: USFWS denies Sportsmen’s Alliance petitions on wolves

On Jan. 7, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation received “not-warranted” findings as a politically-motivated farewell folly from the Biden administration on two Endangered Species Act petitions requesting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delist gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes and downlist West Coast wolves to threatened.

The petitions serve as a blueprint for successfully delisting Western Great Lakes wolves and downlisting West Coast wolves in accordance with prior court decisions. The USFWS, however, in an unsurprising move to ignore a durable solution and good science, chose to wrongfully merge and deny the petitions as a whole to circumvent its own “may be warranted” finding on the petition to delist gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes.

“These denials couldn’t provide a clearer representation of what everyday Americans have come to loathe from a federal government that plays politics instead of addressing their needs,” said Dr. Todd Adkins, senior vice president at the Sportsmen’s Alliance. “Our petition to delist Great Lakes wolves is bulletproof, and the agency recognizes that. Yet, the administration couldn’t stomach making the correct decision, so (it) used smoke and mirrors to carry on the illusion that gray wolves still need ESA protections.”

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The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation, along with the Michigan Bear Hunters Association, Upper Peninsula Bear Houndsmen Association, and Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association, filed the two petitions in June 2023. The agency ignored these petitions for more than a year, and on July 2, 2024, the SAF notified the USFWS that it intended to sue the agency for its failure. The SAF followed through with that promise Sept. 9, 2024.

“We submitted two separate petitions to the USFWS, and they should have been treated as such,” said Michael Jean, litigation counsel at the SAF. “Instead, the agency chose to merge the petitions and deny them both based on the agency’s ‘not-warranted’ finding to downlist West Coast wolves. The USFWS failed to adhere to the ESA’s petition process requirements, and we plan to hold them accountable.”

The USFWS took over a year and a half to issue the statutorily-required 90-day findings on the two petitions, and it did so only after SAF brought suit to compel the agency to act. SAF is now assessing potential legal challenges to the agency’s denial of the petitions.

“This isn’t over. Not by a long shot,” Adkins said.