Washington, Feb 11 (Agency ) Gray wolves in the United States will soon regain federal protection across most of the country after a court ruling on Thursday that struck down a Trump administration decision to take the animals off the endangered species list, The New York Times reported. While giving the ruling Senior District Judge Jeffrey S White, of United States District Court for the Northern District of California, found that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, while earlier declaring wolf conservation a success and removing the species from federal protection, had failed to adequately consider the threats to the wolves outside of the Great Lakes and Northern Rocky Mountains where they have rebounded most significantly.
Although the decision to delist the wolves from federal protection took place under the Trump administration, his successor President Joe Biden’s administration has defended that decision in court. “Wolves need federal protection, period,” said Kristen Boyles, an attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization that has helped lead the legal fight. “The Fish and Wildlife Service should be ashamed of defending the gray wolf delisting.” Fish and Wildlife Service on the other hand said that the agency was reviewing the decision. The ruling will be applicable in 44 of the lower 48 states as wolves in the states of Montana and Idaho will remain unprotected because they were delisted by Congress in 2011. Wolves in Wyoming were delisted by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2017. Wolves in New Mexico, which are considered a separate population, and therefore never lost protection.
This decision to enlist the grey wolves for federal protection comes as wolf hunting had increased sharply in some states, including Wisconsin after they were removed from the endangered species list. In the spring of 2021, Wisconsin for example had to end its wolf hunting season early, after more than 200 wolves were killed in less than 60 hours, far exceeding the state’s quota of 119. This had also infuriated the Ojibwe tribes people for whom the wolves have a sacred place in their culture.