To the dismay of wildlife advocates who hoped it might mark a new era of compromise between conservation groups and cattle ranchers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has denied a petition to grant fewer protections to the gray wolf in the United States.
Confused about why 22 environmental groups would want to reduce federal protections for one of America’s most iconic species? Don’t feel bad—when it comes to managing wolves, complexity is par for the course. When it comes to gray wolves in America—confusion.
The petition to move wolves from the “endangered” list to the “threatened” list was supposed to be a compromise. Written by the Humane Society of the United States, the Center for Biological Diversity, and other conservation groups, the petition was an attempt to bring back federal oversight for the entire gray wolf population across the contiguous U.S. while lessening restrictions so as to allow ranchers to protect their livestock against “trouble” wolves.
In a short statement, the Fish and Wildlife Service said the groups’ petition “does not present substantial information indicating that reclassification may be warranted.” A USFWS representative was not immediately available for comment.
The move would have brought back protections to wolf-unfriendly states such as Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, which have succeeded in removing protections for the species, allowing ranchers and hunters to kill wolves.
In states where wolves continue to receive the full protections of endangered status under the Endangered Species Act, the change to a threatened listing would allow individual states more leeway to control nuisance wolves and handle wolf-livestock conflicts while retaining federal oversight of the species.
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