Wolves in the West should be relisted under ESA, groups argue

Attorneys for environmental groups on Wednesday argued that federal agencies failed to consider the science and state-level regulations when they opted against returning gray wolves to protected status in the western United States.

In a trio of 2024 federal lawsuits that have since been combined into a single case, 20 conservation organizations are asking U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy to require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reconsider its finding last year that gray wolves in the West don’t need to be re-listed under the Endangered Species Act.

In a hearing Wednesday at the Russell Smith Federal Courthouse in Missoula, lawyers argued that state policies encouraging increased killing of wolves are reducing their numbers to levels that could threaten the species’ survival. Federal protections for gray wolves were removed in Montana and Idaho in 2011, and in Wyoming the following year.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the Endangered Species Act, also failed to take new research into account indicating wolf populations and genetic diversity have been significantly declining, argued Matthew Bishop, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center.

“This is really not an approach that I think can be classified as applying the best available science,” Bishop told Judge Molloy.

Sara Warren, an attorney for the federal defendants, said the FWS had incorporated that new research into its analysis. And she argued the study was plagued by missing data and bias that “isn’t just a thumb on the scale, but putting your whole hand on the scale.”

Under questioning from the judge, Warren acknowledged that historical hunting, trapping and poisoning by European colonists was responsible for nearly eradicating the species south of the Canadian border. An estimated 380,000 wolves once roamed the American west, which now contains an estimated 2,700 of the animals. But she rejected the arguments that state management was poised to repeat history.

“The difference between the 1930s and today is now we manage hunting,” Warren said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service accounted for state-level policies in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming that have increasingly sought to reduce wolf populations closer to the minimum numbers the species needs to remain viable. Those include laws allowing for baiting, nighttime hunting and nearly unlimited killing to protect livestock or other ungulates.

But federal attorneys argue that despite those pressures, the states have also enacted policies requiring they maintain populations above minimums established by the federal agency.

Molloy asked how to ensure populations do, in fact, remain at those levels. With wolf populations too large to hand-count, both Montana and Idaho rely on different models to estimate the number of animals year to year.

Kate Schultz, senior attorney for the Center for Humane Economy, argued the agency also failed to consider evidence that both states are over-estimating their wolf populations. And she said the federal government’s analysis failed to consider how killing more wolves could have an outsized impact if those populations are smaller than biologists realize.

“When harvest rates lead to small enough populations, the harvest of wolves out of these small populations is having a bigger impact than just killing a wolf, because you are now starting to destabilize wolf packs,” she said in an interview afterward.

Beyond official state policies, Schultz also argued the agency failed to consider the potential impacts of a rise in wolf poaching. She pointed to recent examples in Oregon and Washington where entire packs of wolves had been illegally poisoned.

Warren responded that even under the most dire scenarios, the FWS analysis found no risk of wolf extinction.

One part of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision is not being contested, however — to stop viewing gray wolves in the northern Rockies as a “distinct population segment” from other wolf populations in the country. The agency instead decided to create a new population segment spanning the entire western U.S.

In the parlance of the Endangered Species Act, a “distinct population segment” refers to how populations of the same species are managed within different geographic areas.

After about three hours of oral arguments, the judge thanked the parties for their briefings but didn’t indicate how soon he would issue an order. Molloy is expected to either uphold the agency’s findings or order a do-over of its analysis.

“I’ll get something out as soon as I can,” Molloy said. “I wouldn’t say it’s going to be tomorrow.”