Judge orders feds to reconsider Endangered Species Act protections for wolves

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was published in The Spokesman- Review Thursday, Aug. 7.

A federal judge in Montana has ordered wildlife officials to reconsider Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the West.

In a 105-page ruling on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy sided with environmental groups who challenged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2024 denial of their petition seeking protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies, which includes populations in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and parts of Utah, Oregon and Washington.

Molloy wrote that the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision violated the law by failing to consider the species’ historic range in the West and relying on “unfounded assumptions” about wolves’ future.

He also raised concerns with population estimating methods in Idaho and Montana and efforts in both states to reduce wolf numbers through expanded hunting and trapping.

The decision doesn’t immediately restore protections for the wolves, which were delisted by Congress in 2011. It directs the Fish and Wildlife Service to revisit its 2024 determination that the Northern Rockies population doesn’t warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act. The agency will have 60 days to appeal.

The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Humane World for Animals, Humane World Action Fund and the Sierra Club. The groups celebrated Tuesday’s ruling as a major victory.

Colette Adkins, carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that it provides the “hope of true recovery for wolves across the West.”

Hunting and predator control programs led to wolves being all but extirpated in the Lower 48 states, with the exception of Minnesota. They were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in the mid-1990s, and their numbers have grown steadily since. Montana and Idaho now estimate their states have more than 1,000 wolves.

Wolves have expanded their range and pioneered new territory. In Washington, their return was first confirmed in 2008. At the end of 2024, Washington’s minimum count found the state had at least 230 wolves.

Wolves are still protected under the federal Endangered Species Act western two-thirds of Washington. Their federal protections in the eastern third were removed alongside protections for wolves in Idaho and Montana with the 2011 congressional mandate. Wyoming’s wolves were delisted in 2017.

Delisting ceded management authority to the states. In Washington, state law still protects them from hunting or trapping seasons, though tribal wolf hunting does take place on the Colville Reservation.

Montana and Idaho allow wolf hunting and trapping and in recent years have loosened their regulations. Lawmakers in both states have passed laws that seek to reduce wolf numbers significantly, including authorizing payments for wolf hunters and trappers.

Idaho’s wolf management plan aims for a population of about 500. The state also eliminated bag limits for wolf hunting and allows wolf hunting and trapping year-round on private land.

In Montana, wildlife officials have proposed increasing the wolf hunting and trapping bag limits to 15 apiece, which would allow a person who hunts and traps to take a total of 30 wolves.

The groups cited the changes in Montana and Idaho in their petition for relisting in 2021. In denying the petition in 2024, the Fish and Wildlife Service said it doesn’t think increased wolf killing in the two states threatens the long-term viability of the species.

Molloy wrote that the agency’s position assumes that the attributes that make the wolf population resilient – such as habitat and prey availability, population growth rates and their ability to disperse – won’t change, and that Idaho and Montana will remain committed to maintaining populations above their minimum threshhold of 150.

And even if they do, Molloy raised doubts that the states’ population modeling methods can flag a downward trend in time to end public hunting or trapping. He wrote that it leaves little room for error.

“It seems that state management plans will trend precipitously close to threatening the continued existence of the gray wolf in the western (distinct population segment), even if they would not result in immediate extirpation,” Molloy wrote.