Roadmap To Successfully Remove Wolves from the ESA Tossed Aside by FWS

Today, Jan. 7, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation received “not-warranted” findings as a politically motivated farewell folly from the Biden administration on two Endangered Species Act petitions requesting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) delist gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes and downlist West Coast wolves to threatened.

The petitions serve as a blueprint for successfully delisting Western Great Lakes wolves and downlisting West Coast wolves in accordance with prior court decisions. The agency, however, in an unsurprising move to ignore a durable solution and good science, chose to wrongfully merge and deny the petitions as a whole to circumvent their own “may be warranted” finding on the petition to delist gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes.

“These denials couldn’t provide a clearer representation of what every day Americans have come to loathe from a federal government that plays politics instead of addressing their needs,” said Dr. Todd Adkins, Senior Vice President at the Sportsmen’s Alliance. “Our petition to delist Great Lakes wolves is bulletproof, and the agency recognizes that. Yet, the administration couldn’t stomach making the correct decision, so they used smoke and mirrors to carry on the illusion that gray wolves still need ESA protections.”

The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation, along with The Michigan Bear Hunters Association, Upper Peninsula Bear Houndsmen Association, and Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association, filed the two petitions in June 2023. The agency ignored these petitions for over a year, and on July 2, 2024, we notified FWS that we intended to sue the agency for its failure. We followed through with that promise on September 9, 2024.

“We submitted two separate petitions to FWS, and they should have been treated as such,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel at the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. “Instead, the agency chose to merge the petitions and deny them both based on the agency’s ‘not-warranted’ finding to downlist West Coast wolves. FWS failed to adhere to the ESA’s petition process requirements, and we plan to hold them accountable.”

FWS took over a year and a half to issue the statutorily-required 90-day findings on the two petitions, and they only did so after SAF brought suit to compel the agency to act. SAF is now assessing potential legal challenges to the agency’s denial of the petitions.

“This isn’t over, not by a long shot,” said Adkins.

About the Sportsmen’s Alliance: The Sportsmen’s Alliance protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation is responsible for public education, legal defense and research. Its mission is accomplished through several distinct programs coordinated to provide the most complete defense capability possible. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.