Bill Description:
This bill would require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to re-issue previous final rules that removed gray wolves from the list of threatened and endangered species in the Western Great Lakes region (Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin (76 Fed. Reg. 81666), plus Wyoming (77 Fed. Reg. 55530). By stripping these necessary federal protections, the “War on Wolves Act” would allow trophy hunting and trapping of the imperiled species in these four states. If enacted, the management of wolves would be returned to the very state management programs found to be inadequate by two federal court rulings. Indeed, H.R. 424/S. 164 prohibits any judicial review of the reissued rules, thus removing the citizens of their right to further challenge these rules in court.[teaserbreak]
Background:
This bill is just the latest in a long line of attacks on gray wolves, which is why a more appropriate name for the legislation would be the “War on Wolves Act”.
In the Great Lakes region alone, the federal government has tried four times since 2003 to remove federal protections from gray wolves, only to be repeatedly stymied by court rulings. Most recently, in December of 2014, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell sided with conservation groups contending the Great Lakes states’ regulatory plans — which include hunting and, in Minnesota and Wisconsin, trapping — don’t provide enough protection. She noted the wolves haven’t come close to repopulating their historic range, which is a criteria for recovery under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The result of this court decision was to return full endangered protections to Great Lakes wolf populations after nearly four years of state-authorized slaughter.
A few months prior, in September of 2014, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson returned Endangered Species Act protections to wolves in Wyoming. In her ruling, she agreed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that wolves there had recovered. But she said the state hadn’t provided sufficient guarantees that a minimum population would be maintained. In fact, Wyoming’s state management program allows for unlimited shoot-on-sight killing of wolves across 85% of the state.
This “War on Wolves Act” represents the latest effort by Congress to ignore both science and the intent of the Endangered Species Act, and attempts to override the reasoned decisions of multiple judges. Such a move by Congress sets a dangerous precedent that, if successful, will surely lead to endless efforts to delist species based purely on politics. This would thoroughly undermine the integrity of the Endangered Species Act, one of our most powerful tools to ensure that the nation’s wildlife is conserved.
Please read our gray wolf page for more on this imperiled species and the ongoing battle to protect it.
Take Action:
Use this form to contact your federal legislators and ask them to oppose this bill!
Read the full text and follow its progress here for the House version and here for the Senate version.