Last week, the House of the United States Congress voted to end federal protections for grey wolves in the lower 48 states. Though the bill—H.R. 764, sponsored by Representative Boebert (R-Colo.) and co-sponsored by Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc.)—passed only by the smallest of margins on a vote of 209-205, it appears to have bipartisan support. It now moves to the Senate, though if it passes there, it is possible the Biden administration could strike it down. Indeed, the White House has already released a statement warning that the Biden "Administration strongly opposes" the bill, and that its passage would be "short circuit(ing) the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s science-based administrative rulemaking processes."
Of course, the whole point of H.R. 764 is that the species has recovered by the very standards of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which should trigger its delisting. A year after the Trump administration Department of Interior's (DOI) 2020 delisting of the animal, the NRA-ILA shared that the gray wolf population in the Lower 48 totaled more than 6,000 wolves. This number exceeded the combined recovery goals for the Northern Rocky Mountains and Western Great Lakes populations combined. Indeed, the species is an ESA success story, showing the efficacy of the Act in bringing a once endangered species back from the brink. At the time, even the Biden administration agreed, issuing its own court filing in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California where the delisting was challenged. It noted: “This case should turn on the proper interpretation and application of the ESA—not policy preferences on who should manage wolves,” and it pointed out that Congress had already resolved the debate.
Politics, however, reigns supreme even in matters of conservation. Under pressure from animal-rights extremist groups, the Biden administration reversed its stance in October 2021. Its DOI announced it would review the ESA status of the gray wolf after all, focusing on wolf populations in the western states. Then, in February 2022, an activist judge in California vacated the 2020 rule. Though research has shown that gray wolf populations are exceeding recovery goals, the species was relisted by judicial fiat—a move that NRA-ILA appealed in April 2022, leading to the introduction of H.R. 764.
While the species' successful and stable reintroduction provides the bedrock of the case for its ESA removal, it is not the only incentive. Indeed, Boebert's sponsorship of the bill directly follows from her advocacy for her rural constituency. Farmers and ranchers in her district are currently dealing with increasing wolf attacks on livestock, thanks to passage of a 2020 state ballot measure that mandated the introduction of gray wolves in Colorado. Meanwhile, co-sponsor Tiffany pointed to the fact that the species has exceeded recovery goals, and seeks to restore control over the sky-rocketing gray wolf population in his home state of Wisconsin.
In direct relation to such goals, when commenting on the passage of H.R. 764, the NRA-ILA said, “The NRA has long supported legislative and legal efforts to return wildlife management to the states. This legislation would not only allow states to better manage wolves, but it would also benefit hunters by allowing them to play a more active role in wildlife management and protect vulnerable big-game animals from over-predation.”
Stay tuned to americanhunter.org and nrahlf.org, for more on the bill's inevitable uphill battle in the Senate and (hopefully) beyond.
