After 45 Years The Gray Wolf Has Successfully Been Lifted Off the US Endangered Species List

45 years since one of Earth’s most charismatic and persecuted carnivores was listed by the Endangered Species Act (ESA), management of the gray wolf in the lower 48 states will now pass to state governments and tribal, in what has been one of ESA’s greatest successes.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service based its final determination on the best available scientific and commercial data, a thorough analysis of the threats and how they have been alleviated, and the continued commitment and proven track record of states and tribes. to continue managing healthy wolf populations one time. excluded from the list.

“After more than 45 years as a listed species, the gray wolf has exceeded all conservation goals for recovery. Today’s announcement simply reflects a determination that this species is not a threatened or endangered species based on the specific factors that Congress has established in law, ”said Sec. Of the Interior David Bernhardt in a sentence.

In fact, the number of gray wolves has skyrocketed in the last four decades, from less than a hundred refugees hiding in Northeast Minnesota and Michigan peninsula superior to about 6,000 individuals.

Those populations would expand after receiving protection under the ESA, and now represent the ancestors of one of the genetically unique wolf lineages.

Another lineage began to thrive in the 1980s after the wolves were released in Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks. Those wolves are now found in Colorado, as well as Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregan, Washington, and northern California.

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Utah’s First District Rep. Rob Bishop (R) called the gray wolf program “one of the most successful species recoveries in history,” while California Congressman Ken Calvert (R) called the delisting. as “an important milestone illustrating the positive progress made in recovering this precious species.”

Management of the wolf packs will pass to state and tribal wildlife management agencies, who will be able to better mitigate the concerns of both conservation activists and ranchers, who still lose livestock each year to wolf predation.

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The ESA legislation is an unprecedented success. A peer-reviewed analysis The Center for Biological Diversity found that not only has there never been a species that, once considered recovered under ESA, has fallen back into vulnerability, but that of 291 lists of plants and animals, 99% have been saved from the extinction.

Gray wolves were shot, poisoned and run over by the Low 48 primarily due to predation by livestock during the 20th century until there were only a few dozen hiding out on the Isle Royale and in rural Minnesota.

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Wolves lived in Alaska, the only state where for many years it was possible to see them in large packs. Today there are between 7,000 and 11,000 wolves in Alaska, along with 6,000 in the lower 48 states.

The Mexican wolf, as GNN has reported, is still critically endangered and was not included in the delisting yesterday even though the two are almost the same species.

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