Among other missteps, the agency had not incorporated \u201cthe best available science\u201d into its decision, Judge Donald Molloy wrote. His decision<\/a> has come at a precarious time for the Endangered Species Act<\/a>: The USFWS is considering revoking key protections for habitat critical to endangered species, and a handful of proposed bills before Congress would remove protections from certain animals, bypassing the agency.<\/p>\n The ruling is just the latest chapter in a saga that\u2019s stretched on since 1995 over whether wolves across different regions of the lower 48 states should be listed\u2014what Molloy calls a \u201cpolitical yo-yo process.\u201d Scientists say this constant volleying could have profound consequences for wolves in the contiguous U.S., undermining the decades of work that conservationists and governments have done to bring them back from the brink. Gray wolves are still listed as endangered or threatened in the majority of states.<\/p>\n \u201cPolitics has basically taken over any real sense of actual wildlife biology,\u201d said Patrick Kelly, Western Watersheds Project\u2019s Washington and Montana state director. Western Watersheds Project is one of the 10 environmental groups that brought the case Molloy ruled on. \u201cI was skeptical that it would come out as well as it did,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Others felt the ruling only ratcheted up the political current pulsating through wildlife management debates and won\u2019t help wolves much.<\/p>\n \u201cAll it\u2019s going to cause is frustration and anger with the ESA,\u201d said Jess Johnson, head of government affairs for Wyoming Wildlife Federation, a wildlife and sportsman advocacy organization. She\u2019s worried about the long-term fate of the conservation law.<\/p>\n Wolves are a keystone species, and their earlier decimation palpably altered the Northern Rockies\u2019 food web, contributing to a decline in tree health and booming numbers of elk in the region, scientists say. Since their reintroduction, though, ranchers have argued that the wolves are targeting their cattle.<\/p>\n Those who want to keep wolves off the endangered-species list in the Northern Rockies say the animals have recovered sufficiently since their reintroduction and it\u2019s necessary to kill substantial numbers of them to protect livestock and elk.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe gray wolf population has recovered, and America\u2019s great farmers and ranchers should have the ability to protect their livestock against such threats,\u201d said Anna Kelly, a White House deputy press secretary.<\/p>\n But wolves kill only a few dozen cattle annually in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming each, accounting for less than one tenth of 1 percent of all losses there, according to state and federal data<\/a>. Meanwhile, in recent years, Idaho and Montana have upped the number of wolves that can be hunted and trapped.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of it just doesn\u2019t make sense to me\u2014what the states are doing versus what the statistics are of livestock loss and maintaining elk herds,\u201d said Carter Niemeyer, who worked for decades as a wolf biologist and trapper for the USFWS before retiring in 2006. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make sense to me as a biologist and someone who is part of this recovery effort.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House did not say whether it would challenge Molloy\u2019s ruling. The USFWS declined to comment on the litigation.<\/p>\n Pack Mentality<\/p>\n Much of the debate over whether gray wolves have fully recovered in the Northern Rockies comes down to numbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1974, after decades of aggressive wolf elimination campaigns decimated their populations across the country, less than 1,000 wolves remained in the contiguous U.S. In the decades following, endangered-species protections and efforts to reintroduce wolves from Canada have helped build their numbers back.\u00a0<\/p>\n Biologists estimate<\/a> that around 7,000 wolves can now be found in the lower 48 states.<\/p>\n But in 2011, Congress made an unprecedented decision: Rather than leaving the decision in the hands of USFWS, it stripped wolves of their Endangered Species Act protections in much of the Northern Rockies, effectively handing over the reins of management to the states in Idaho and Montana. In 2017, the USFWS delisted wolves in Wyoming.\u00a0<\/p>\n When a species is removed from the endangered-species list, state legislatures and wildlife agencies must adhere to species population thresholds established in consultation with the USFWS.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n As wolf populations have grown, states have adopted more aggressive hunting and trapping policies in the region, which they argue will maintain the minimum number of animals required to avoid relisting. In 2021, Idaho legislators created a reimbursement system\u2014a bounty program, to its detractors\u2014that pays up to $2,000 for wolves killed legally, including with all-terrain vehicles, night vision goggles and hunting dogs. Montana\u2019s program, enacted that same year, now pays hunters up to $1,500.<\/p>\n Molloy, the federal judge, wrote that these approaches are \u201cresurrecting\u201d policies responsible for wolves\u2019 extirpation in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHerein lies the problem,\u201d said Niemeyer, who was part of the USFWS team that captured the first Canadian wolves reintroduced in the U.S. The Idaho, Montana and Wyoming legislatures, \u201cin my opinion, they\u2019re taking more and more liberties to dictate wildlife management, far more than 30 or 40 years ago when I was in the field.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThey\u2019re making more and more laws and passing bills and creating statutes that fish and game agencies have no choice but to abide by.\u201d<\/p>\n In its modeling of the impact of state management plans, the USFWS acknowledged that high harvest rates could \u201cresult in large population declines.\u201d The agency also stated<\/a> that the models themselves have \u201ckey uncertainties and assumptions\u201d and did not incorporate illegal hunting, changes in prey availability or habitat, the effects of climate change and the impact of reduced abundance on genetic health\u2014factors that are among the top threats to gray wolves.<\/p>\n And though wolves in the lower 48 states now number in the thousands, sometimes even higher population sizes aren\u2019t an accurate indicator of recovery, according to Daniel Blumstein, a professor in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at University of California, Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSome species you really just want to count individuals, but when you have social species that have interesting group dynamics, like wolves, \u2026 killing a particular individual in that group could have a disproportionate effect on that group stability, on movement [and on] whether they all make it or not,\u201d Blumstein said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wolf packs are led by a dominant male and female pair, typically the only ones in their pack to breed. These pack leaders teach the rest of the group\u2014often their offspring from recent years\u2014crucial knowledge to survive, from the best areas for hunting to social skills. That means hunting a member of the breeding pair could cause the rest of the pack to topple. In other cases, research shows<\/a> that killing wolves can sometimes result in more young wolves breeding, which can cause genetic issues within a population.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cKilling wolves encourages more wolves to breed, even those that are relatively less ideal from a genetic health and demographic standpoint,\u201d Bridgett vonHoldt, a professor in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University, said in an email.\u00a0<\/p>\n In January, vonHoldt, Blumstein and a team of ecologists published a paper<\/a> that outlined the genetic threats of ignoring social ecology when it comes to gray wolf recovery, and stressed how recovery and state management are falling short.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the recent court case, environmental groups pointed to a separate 2023 paper<\/a> led by vonHoldt, which found that genetic diversity in Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves has declined over time. This suggests that gray wolves have already fallen below the minimum size necessary to avoid long-term risk of extinction.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, USFWS declared in an internal agency memorandum that the study\u2019s findings were unreliable due to \u201cconfounding technical issues with the data set.\u201d Molloy deferred to the agency\u2019s findings in this debate, but still concluded that best science practices had not been used during the delisting decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n Though vonHoldt said that disagreements \u201care part of science,\u201d she pointed out that the USFWS relies on an internal memo on wolf research that staff produced without involving any third party peer-reviewer, the gold standard for scientific publications.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTheir research is (or was) not reviewed externally but they preferred to use that for making wolf management decisions,\u201d vonHoldt said over email. She maintains that gray wolves don\u2019t meet the standard for delisting, and that there are \u201cnowhere near enough wolves\u201d when social dynamics are factored into the equation.<\/p>\n \u201cFor every win a species experiences in protection and plan of recovery, there are legal battles that follow to undo the protection, and then re-do the fight to protect them. It\u2019s exhausting,\u201d vonHoldt wrote. \u201cScience has little role in listing decisions from my experience\u2014despite thorough, robust, and detailed research being available.\u201d<\/p>\n Nathan Roberts, a professor of conservation and wildlife management at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri, disagreed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a consensus among the agencies, which are the experts on these issues, that wolves are recovered,\u201d he said. In 2024, Roberts testified at a House committee hearing<\/a> that the gray wolf in the United States is recovered, and that state goals are adequate to avoid extinction. More recently, Roberts spoke at a March hearing<\/a> in support of the proposed Pet and Livestock Protection Act<\/a>, a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) to delist the gray wolf from all lower 48 states.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to remember that the Endangered Species Act is not intended to tell states how to manage species once species are recovered,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI think it\u2019s unfortunate when the courts get involved in these situations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n However, in his decision, Molloy points to another factor that threatens genetic diversity for wolves: connectivity. The USFWS states that as long as wolf populations can move freely among habitats, inbreeding won\u2019t be a major issue even if the number of packs dip. While analyses show high connectivity now in the Mountain West, it\u2019s unclear that will be the case in the coming decades, especially for the Northern Rockies population\u2014a factor that the agency failed to consider when delisting, Molloy wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is especially concerning given the Service\u2019s outsized reliance on connectivity to compensate for other threats to the species\u2019 continued viability,\u201d his decision reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n States Want Fewer Wolves<\/p>\n Under state policies, wolves have so far stayed above the extirpation thresholds below which they would return to the endangered-species list. The states aim to keep them just above that perilous line.\u00a0<\/p>\n Idaho and Montana would like to reduce their wolf populations to around 500 each, down from over 1,000 per state. Wyoming, which has at least 330 wolves, aims to keep the population at 160 across a vast stretch where the animals have virtually no protections.<\/p>\n Western Watersheds Project\u2019s Patrick Kelly, calls this \u201ca war of eradication that\u2019s disguised as wildlife management.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Molloy, the judge, wrote in his opinion that USFWS not relisting the animal because its numbers haven\u2019t yet fallen below the threshold squared \u201cwith the text, though not the spirit, of the ESA.\u201d But as long as populations remain on the right side of the brink, states\u2019 wildlife agencies say they should be left alone to manage the animals.<\/p>\n \u201cWildlife management always involves politics, particularly with wolves because Idaho never wanted wolves,\u201d said Roger Phillips, Idaho Fish and Game public information supervisor. Halving the state\u2019s wolf population will be difficult to accomplish, he said, even with the new management approaches.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a long history of managing a viable wolf population in Idaho, and we will continue to do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are passionate views on all sides of the discussion about how wolves are managed in Montana. Balancing those opinions and values is contentious,\u201d said Greg Lemon, administrator for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks\u2019 communication and education division, in an email. The agency \u201cwill continue to do our best to follow the laws of the state and to ensure we have healthy and sustainable wolf populations in Montana for generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n Representatives from the Wyoming Game & Fish Department declined to comment, but the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, a ranching trade group, praised its wolf management.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI would hold out that Wyoming has proven that we can do it,\u201d said Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the group. He said he sees \u201cno justification for any relisting decision in Wyoming.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n Donate Now<\/a> <\/p>\n In February 2024, a Wyoming man allegedly mauled a wolf with his snowmobile<\/a> in the state\u2019s vast \u201cpredator zone,\u201d where a wolf can be killed without a permit and by any means. The state accused Cody Roberts of tying up the incapacitated animal and parading it around a local bar before ending its life.\u00a0<\/p>\n Roberts, indicted by a grand jury<\/a> Aug. 20 on a charge of felony cruelty to animals, faces up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine. But last year, while Wyoming\u2019s wildlife agency was run by the now-director of USFWS<\/a>, its only response to the incident was to fine Roberts $250 for illegal possession of warm-blooded wildlife.<\/p>\n Roberts\u2019 lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n This year Wyoming legislators amended the state\u2019s animal cruelty statutes<\/a> to include specific protections for wildlife and predatory animals. However, efforts to ban mauling wildlife with a snowmobile in the state have so far failed. Johnson, with the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, said she expects to see the issue revisited in future legislative sessions.<\/p>\n She thinks the state should still be the primary arbiter of wolf policy\u2014\u201ca stupid, horrific decision with one animal\u201d shouldn\u2019t change that, she said. Wolves remain protected in Wyoming\u2019s national parks. The fact that the state has not substantially changed its wolf management approach since 2017 is evidence to Johnson that lobbying on behalf of the animal has paid off in the legislature.<\/p>\n Over the course of his 33-year career in wildlife management, Niemeyer has watched wolves reemerge as cornerstones of Western culture, however controversial. As the former USFWS wolf recovery coordinator, Niemeyer supervised wolf management in Idaho, tracking, relocating and, very rarely, killing wolves. His work was instrumental in the process that resulted in states taking over the animal\u2019s management.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, in his opinion, their approaches go too far. He wishes Idaho, Montana and Wyoming would \u201cshow great restraint\u201d in the number of wolves they kill each year.<\/p>\n \u201cI can go have a beer with a lot of them who are college-trained individuals like myself, and they don\u2019t like what\u2019s going on,\u201d he said of state wildlife specialists. \u201cBut in an interview, you\u2019re never going to hear that from them because we want to keep our job.\u201d<\/p>\n The ESA in the Crosshairs?<\/p>\n Johnson thinks the key to changing the culture of wolf management is to focus on the states, where she believes lobbying is more effective than lawsuits.<\/p>\n \u201cConsistent involvement [from] conservation and wildlife groups at a state legislative level\u2014and I do mean consistent, I mean every day of the session, their face is in the room; I don\u2019t mean parachuting in when the bill concerns you, I mean being there even when the bills don\u2019t\u2014that changes landscapes,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n Kelly and his colleague Dagny Signorelli, Western Watersheds Project\u2019s Wyoming and Northern Utah director, disagree. State management has not helped create social acceptance for wolves in the Northern Rockies, Signorelli said. She added that her group does not lobby in Wyoming at all because of \u201chow entrenched livestock interests are,\u201d preferring instead to focus on the federal government and the courts.<\/p>\n Niemeyer believes much of the acrimony surrounding wolf management is baked into the culture in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where skepticism of and hostility toward the federal government is as common as sagebrush.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018The federal government dumped them on us against our will. Now we\u2019re in charge, and this is how we\u2019re going to manage wolves: We\u2019re going to kill them,\u2019\u201d Niemeyer said, embodying for a moment the attitude he believes some lawmakers have adopted\u2014and, to a certain degree, amplified.<\/p>\n Another round of litigation could be on the horizon.\u00a0<\/p>\n Magagna, with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, thinks USFWS \u201cis in a difficult position,\u201d and he is \u201canxious to see\u201d the Trump administration and the three states appeal Molloy\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n Johnson worries that more lawsuits puts a spotlight on the Endangered Species Act under \u201can administration that, frankly, is very unfriendly\u201d toward the law. \u201cWolves are going to be around in 10 years,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think the Endangered Species Act is if this keeps up.\u201d<\/p>\n Signorelli and Kelly approach the battle over wolves differently than Johnson, but they share her concern about the law\u2019s fate.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe foxes are in charge of the hen house,\u201d Kelly said, and repealing the ESA is \u201cabsolutely a real risk with this Congress and this administration.\u201d<\/p>\n After decades helping wolves reestablish themselves in the Northern Rockies and witnessing fast-growing human population growth and development in the region, Niemeyer said he hardly recognizes the political landscape around him.<\/p>\n It\u2019s like \u201cI\u2019m living on an alien planet right now,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Endangered Species Act is good. I just know that these species got to have a place to exist, and they\u2019ve got to have space. And if we don\u2019t have a law like that, then humans aren\u2019t going to police themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can\u2019t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We\u2019ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.<\/p>\n Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don\u2019t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places? <\/p>\n Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.<\/p>\n Thank you,<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/16053196600_7710552934_k-1024x683.jpg\"\/)
A wolf is released from a shipping container in Yellowstone National Park on Jan. 27, 1996. Credit: Jim Peaco\/NPS<\/p>\n![\"Carter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/P1070940sq-1024x1024.jpg\"\/)
Carter Niemeyer worked for decades as a wolf biologist and trapper for the USFWS before retiring in 2006. Credit: Courtesy of Carter Niemeyer<\/p>\n![\"Wolves](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/53470570790_45992ab239_o.jpg\"\/)
Wolves move through Hayden Valley in Yellowstone National Park. Credit: Ashton Hooker\/NPS<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/53553087247_6c20283e26_k-1024x683.jpg\"\/)
A wolf is examined by biologists during a capture in February 2024. Credit: Jacob W. Frank\/NPS<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/53554139118_6eec5474cd_k-1024x683.jpg\"\/)
A wolf is examined by biologists during a capture in February 2024. Credit: Jacob W. Frank\/NPS<\/p>\n![\"Carter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ynp.jpg\"\/)
Carter Niemeyer was part of the USFWS team that captured the first Canadian wolves reintroduced in Yellowstone. Credit: Courtesy of Carter Niemeyer<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Jake-Bolster-300x300.jpeg\"\/)
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