List of endangered species 2019: Trump wants to eliminate gray wolves

As the public deadline for the Department of the Interior's proposal to remove the gray wolf from the list of species at risk, the country's gray wolves may be one step closer to losing the federal protections provided by the Endangered Species Act.

Trump administration officials at the Interior are trying to show that 50 years of recovery efforts have helped restore wolf populations to a place where they no longer need to be protected by law.

But scientists who are looking for where the wolves have made a comeback, and where they do not, say the recovery is far from over. Why? Although there are just over 6,000 wolves in the 48 lower states, mainly in the western Great Lakes and northern Rockies, they occupy less than 15% of their range. historical distribution.

That is why more than 100 scientists sent a letter on May 7 reprimanding the proposal to remove the wolves from ESA. In addition, more than 650,000 people spoke, most of the time opposed, before the deadline of the July 15 comment period.

"In our opinion, this proposal is premature because the recovery of the wolf in the 48 least developed states is not yet over," says Zack Strong, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. "The wolves have not yet returned to important areas where they once existed and where the habitat is still suitable."

Some wolf advocates see this as part of a larger Republican-led initiative to undermine ESA, but it's essentially a battle over what should look like the restoring.

City dwellers, who value wildlife for its intrinsic nature and want to see wolves return to the areas where they were hunted, tend to want as much recovery as possible. And rural communities, who see wolves as a threat to livestock and game hunting, tend to want as little recovery as possible. In other words, it is not enough to manage the number of wolves. It's managing people.

Why wolves have been registered under the Endangered Species Act

Wolves once roamed the vast expanses of North America, but the settlers who spread to the west in the 18th and 19th centuries slaughtered them for livestock safety. Exterminating the wolf has become a metaphor for taming a wild America.

"The wolf is the type of arched ravine, the beast of waste and desolation," noted Theodore Roosevelt in his 1902 book. Chasing graying sketches and others. "It is still scattered in all the wildest parts of the United States, but it is everywhere removed from the progress of civilization."

At the time the Rocky Mountain Wolf subspecies was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1973, hunting and trapping had pushed the number of gray wolves into the lowest 48 states. several hundred thousand before the arrival of settlers to 1,000. Recognizing the threat to gray wolves across the country, the ministry listed all subspecies covered by the law in 1978.

Hunting bans have allowed wolves to recover in some areas. This included mainly sparsely populated areas along the Canadian border, where extant populations were supplemented by northern wolves.

In 1994, a reintroduction program in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho helped to speed recovery in the west. But reintroduction efforts are not welcome.

"Wolves have caused huge problems for pastoralists, who have lost sheep, cattle and working dogs to predators while wildlife managers have been forced to stay with them," Capital Press said. , an agricultural publication based in Oregon.

Although wolves account for less than 1% of livestock deaths, this presumption almost led to their extinction in the 48 lowest states. The generalized protections of the law, however, provided a lifeline to gray wolves.

AP

Why Interior is ready to remove them from the list

Interior's decision to remove federal protections is based on the success of two wolf populations – in the northern Rocky Mountains, already removed from the list, and near the Great Lakes. According to the government, these two populations are large enough that the entire species is no longer threatened or endangered.

According to the proposed rule, removal from the list is justified because the gray wolf "does not meet the definition of endangered or endangered species under the law because of recovery". It is then explained that wolves located outside the Great Lakes are not needed recovery, nor are they distinct from the listed populations.

However, the own interior policy on separate populations under the ESA does not support this catch-all strategy. According to the policy, a distinct population needs to be differentiated only by "physical, physiological, ecological or behavioral factors", "is delimited by international governmental boundaries" and does not require "d & # 39; absolute procreative isolation ".

Why removal from the list could be bad for wolves

In the United States, some wolf populations are doing well, but others have barely begun to recover. The populations of Pacific states like California, where they are barely a dozen, are precarious. The same goes for the Southern Rockies Wolves. Removing from the list of wolves now would best impede recovery or reverse the situation in these areas.

Once the wolves are removed from the list, their management returns to the state agencies. They often set aggressive hunting and trapping quotas to meet the demand of local ranchers and farmers, who derive income from the sale of hunting licenses and tags as well as royalties for predator control services.

At the state level, hunting and farming interests have the power to fund lobbying efforts to remove ESA wolves, legitimize wolf premiums and develop hunting and trapping. In other words, state management can create deadly obstacles to recovery.

Conservation biologists, such as Dr. Carlos Carroll, believe that the restoration of vast areas of the wolf's range helps to preserve genetic diversity and improve adaptive capacity by maintaining multiple populations connected. This strengthens the resilience of wolves in a world characterized by changing ecosystems and climates.

What would true recovery look like

Although recovery seems different for each species, the signs of success are the same. The species has returned to important parts of its range and is no longer threatened with extinction.

Proponents of federal protections would like several recovery areas to be defined in a national wolf recovery plan before radiation occurs. Last December, while the proposed deletion of the list was under development, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Humane Society had petitioned inside asking him to do so. The petition described various areas that were ready for recovery, including the Pacific Coast, the Midwest, the Southern Rockies and the Northeast.

By focusing on large areas such as this one, Interior could tailor protections to conservation needs, while respecting ESA's intentions of re-establishing the area of ​​conservation. distribution of wolves, they said. For example, vulnerable populations in the southern Rocky Mountains may be better protected than robust populations near the Great Lakes.

"[T]The law defines an endangered or threatened species in terms of significant portions of its range, "says Collette Adkins, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit organization of an endangered species. "If you do not know all the areas where [wolves] Once you've lived, look at the few places they're fine and say, "Oh, well, they're fine here. We can remove the protections, 'then you will never really achieve true conservation and recovery.'