Grey Wolf De-Listing Reconsidered

Earlier this spring, the grey wolf was taken off the endangered species list. While many ranchers, hunters and tribes in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana favored the de-listing, others worried about the gratuitous killing of wolves once they lost their protection.

Earthjustice, an environmental group, filed a lawsuit to encourage the US Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider the de-listing. This summer, Federal District Judge Donald Malloy supported a temporary order reinstating the protection of the wolf while the lawsuit wends its way through the courts.

This week, the Fish and Wildlife Service asked the Judge to vacate the de-listing so that the federal agency could reconsider the decision. For the first time since the wolves were reintroduced into the wild, the agency found that the population dropped from an estimated 1,545 a year ago to 1,455 this year. They do not know what explained the drop in population. Until they better understand the population dynamics, they want to reconsider the decision and plan to de-list.