Defenders' Experts
Pacific West Wolves Management and Policy
For wide-ranging species like the gray wolf, recovery must be considered at a very large scale. In the Pacific West, for example, wolf restoration will rely in part on wolves dispersing from the U.S. Northern Rockies—where more than three decades of protection under the Endangered Species Act have allowed wolves to make a comeback.
On April 28, 2007 the FWS removed the Northern Rocky Mountain wolf population (Montana, Idaho and Wyoming) from the Endangered Species list, thus leaving wolf management in the hands of state agencies. Unfortunately, legislators in Idaho and Wyoming have been particularly hostile to wolves, and the management plans currently developed by these states have put wolves at serious risk
For wolf management purposes, the FWS has lumped the eastern third of Washington and Oregon (as well a small portion of north-central Utah) with the Northern Rockies. This means that wolves moving into the Pacific West will no longer be legally protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The FWS does not intend to implement wolf recovery efforts elsewhere in the region now that it has removed legal protections from the Northern Rockies and portions of Oregon, Washington and Utah. The FWS may then remove legal protections for wolves from adjacent states, such as California. Unlike Washington and Oregon, California does not include wolves on its state Endangered Species List.
Defenders believes that the wolf’s natural dispersal into suitable habitat should not be limited by artificial, political boundaries. Quick and decisive action is needed to protect wolves dispersing from the Northern Rockies into the Pacific West. We have therefore filed a federal court lawsuit challenging the federal government’s decision to remove the northern Rockies gray wolf population from the list of endangered species, and asking that the FWS ensure continued full protection for these wolves, and that they examine the potential for restoring them in the Pacific West region.
Read our press release regarding our efforts challenging the federal government’s decision to delist wolves in the northern Rockies, and our petitions requesting that they establish “distinct population segments” for gray wolves in northern California/southwestern Oregon and western Washington.
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