Animal Welfare, Conservation Groups Announce Lawsuit Against U.S. Fish & Wildlife For Failure to Protect Gray Wolves
July 10 2024 - 4:46PM
Following an earlier Notice of Intent to Sue, a coalition of
organizations has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (FWS) for its refusal to give Endangered Species
Act (ESA) protections to the gray wolves in the West, in violation
of the ESA and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
Three years ago, this coalition—Animal Wellness Action, the
Center for a Humane Economy, Project Coyote, Kettle Range
Conservation Group, Footloose Montana, and Gallatin Wildlife
Association—along with dozens of other organizations filed a
petition with the FWS requesting federal ESA protections for gray
wolves in the Western United States.
Despite the FWS’ initial finding that listing the Western gray
wolf under the ESA “may be warranted,” the agency inexplicably
reversed course more than two years later, when it decided that the
Western gray wolf is not entitled to ESA protection.
“A modern ‘war on wolves’ has been waged on public and private
lands across the western United States since around 2021,” said
Kate Chupka Schultz, senior attorney for Animal Wellness Action and
the Center for a Humane Economy. “Since then, Rocky Mountain states
have liberalized the legal killing of wolves and have also removed
discretion from their fish and wildlife agencies, letting lawmakers
run wild and unleashing ruthless campaigns to kill wolves by just
about any and all means.”
In addition, rates of known poaching appear to be surging in the
Pacific Northwest, and it is likely that unreported and
undiscovered “cryptic” poaching is occurring at similarly
astronomic rates across the rest of the Rockies. Idaho, Montana,
and Wyoming have been executing plans to reduce their wolf
populations to bare minimum numbers under the pretense that the
states are fulfilling their responsibilities to maintain viable
populations. In large parts of these states, wolves can be killed
any day of the year and in any number. More than twice as many wolf
trapping tags were sold in the 2021-2022 Idaho wolf season as were
sold in the 2017-2018 season. It is also legal in these states to
allow private citizens to run over wolves with snowmobiles in a
manifestation of unalloyed hatred toward wolves.
The coalition includes multiple organizations located within the
battlegrounds of the war against wolves, such as western and
central Montana, the greater Yellowstone area, and northeastern
Washington.
“Based on our frontline fight to protect wolves from the
onslaught of inhumane and cruel policy decisions harming and
endangering wolves, Footloose Montana has come to the conclusion
that states like Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho have proven they
cannot be trusted to sustain the wolf species,” said Jessica
Karjala, executive director of Footloose Montana, based in
Missoula, MT. “By allowing wolves to remain delisted, it will
further endanger their sustainability as a species. We believe
wildlife biologists who say that there is likely incorrect or
manipulated population estimates of wolves [in Montana] that
overestimate their numbers through use of the integrated Patch
Occupancy Model. We believe the continued existence of wolves will
continue to be jeopardized until wolves are relisted.”
Clint Nagel, president of the Gallatin Wildlife Association,
which is based in Bozeman, Mont., agrees. “To see one of our
federal agencies, specifically the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
not fulfill the implementation of using the best available science
in the management of one of our truly iconic apex predators is sad
and disappointing. And for them to stand by and allow the abuse and
senseless killing of wolves as the norm in wolf management is
appalling.”
But this is not just a Northern Rockies issue: the persecution
of wolves in Northern Rockies states will have trickle-down effects
on other gray wolf populations and the ecosystems they inhabit
elsewhere in the western United States.
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is continuing to allow
decades of wolf recovery to unravel and is failing not just the
wolves of the Northern Rockies, but wildlife and wildlands at large
that benefit and rely on healthy and abundant wolf populations to
serve their keystone roles in our ecosystems,” said Renee Seacor,
carnivore conservation director with Project Coyote. “This is why
we won't sit idly by and are taking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service to court because all wolves are deserving of full, enduring
protections that will allow them to live self-determined lives free
from persecution.”
The coalition is represented by Jessica Blome of Greenfire Law,
PC, and Robert Farris-Olsen of Morrison, Sherwood, Wilson, &
Deola, PLLP. Kate Chupka Schultz represents Animal Wellness Action
and the Center for a Humane Economy.
ABOUTAnimal Wellness Action is a Washington,
D.C.-based 501(c)(4) whose mission is to help animals by promoting
laws and regulations at federal, state and local levels that forbid
cruelty to all animals. The group also works to enforce existing
anti-cruelty and wildlife protection laws. Animal Wellness Action
believes helping animals helps us all. X: @AWAction_News
The Center for a Humane Economy is a Washington,
D.C.-based 501(c)(3) whose mission is to help animals by helping
forge a more humane economic order. The first organization of its
kind in the animal protection movement, the Center encourages
businesses to honor their social responsibilities in a culture
where consumers, investors, and other key stakeholders abhor
cruelty and the degradation of the environment and embrace
innovation as a means of eliminating both. The Center believes
helping animals helps us all. X: @TheHumaneCenter
Wayne Pacelle
Animal Wellness Action
202-420-0446
Wayne@animalwellnessaction.org