A gray wolf in Idaho. The Obama administration Friday proposed dropping federal protections for the gray wolf. States would be responsible for managing the estimated 6,100 gray wolves in the lower 48 states.
The Obama administration on Friday proposed dropping protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe said the decision to take gray wolves off the Endangered Species list comes in response to the wolves’ recovery after a century of persecution by ranchers and others who wanted to drive the predators to extinction.
“We are saying wolves are recovered, meaning they are no longer threatened with extinction,” he said.
Friday’s announcement will lead to a 90-day public comment period before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can take final action. That is not likely to happen for about a year, Ashe said.
The Obama administration’s top fish and wildlife official also said the decision was driven by the limitations on the federal government’s ability to continue to enforce protections for wolves while also helping species that are "truly facing extinction.”
The return of gray wolves has been far more controversial than the restoration of other species, such as bald eagles. Ranchers have bitterly opposed the return of the predatory packs, blaming them for the costly loss of sheep and cattle.
Conservationists have contested earlier steps to gradually reduce protections for wolves, which were previously stripped of federal endangered species protection in Idaho and other Rocky Mountain states and in the eastern two-thirds of Oregon and Washington.
The decision shifts responsibility for gray wolves to the states. Ashe noted that both Oregon and Washington will continue to protect wolves under state wildlife laws.
Without the constraints of the federal Endangered Species Act, Ashe said, states will have more flexibility to manage the kind of conflicts that wolves will pose as they expand into western side of the Cascades.
"Under the Endangered Species Act we have very little flexibility to deal with wolves who might be depredating on livestock or killing pets or hanging around suburban communities," he said.
Ashe said he expects continued protections elsewhere in the West, including states like Wyoming and Idaho, which don’t classify gray wolves as threatened or endangered species. Instead, they manage their populations like any other hunted “game species.”
If wolves in these states are overhunted, Ashe said, “we would certainly be petitioned to relist wolves and we would consider that at that point at time. We do not anticipate that we would need to do that.”
Wildlife advocates were sharply critical of the decision.
“This is like kicking a patient out of the hospital when they’re still attached to life-support,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director with the Center for Biological Diversity in Portland. “Wolves cling to a sliver of their historic habitat in the lower 48 and now the Obama administration wants to arbitrarily declare victory and move on.”
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Current distribution of gray wolves
Light gray: historic range; Dark gray: currently occupied range. The marker "1" indicates location of packs
in Washington outside of those ranges. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service draft document.
Ashe acknowledged that gray wolves will never return to their historic range in the United States, given the vast urbanization and rural settlement that's been occurring since the late 19th century.
Wolves in Idaho, the eastern one-thirds of Oregon and Washington, and other parts of the West were taken off the federal endangered species list last year.
Idaho's wolf population was 683 last year, down from 746 in 2011. That dip reflects the initial effects of a controversial wolf-hunting season in Idaho. The 2011-12 season saw nearly 400 Idaho wolves killed by hunters or trappers.
The Washington wolf population rose from 27 in 2011 to 51 last year. In March, a new wolf pack was confirmed in Washington, bringing the state's total number of packs to 10.
Oregon's 2012 wolf count tallied 45, up from 29 in 2011. Two new wolf packs formed in Oregon last year. That brings the state's total to six packs.
The Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973, led to the species’ legal protection that year. Wolves from Canada began to successfully recolonize Montana in 1986 and a decade later, wolves were reintroduced to Central Idaho and Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park.
The Oregon House this week passed a bill allowing the killing of wolves and freeing up the state to execute a kill order on two wolves in the state's northeast corner. The bill, reflecting a deal reached by conservationists and ranchers, lifts a year-old injunction on that kill order.
In Washington, wildlife officials had an entire pack killed off after persistent reports of livestock predation in the state's northeastern corner.
Ashe said federal protections would remain only for a fledgling population of Mexican gray wolves in the desert Southwest.
