Washington Wildlife First Hails Significant Victory for Western Wolves

“We hope that today’s ruling will signal the beginning of the end of the brutal, unethical, and relentless persecution of wolves in much of the West,” said Dr. Francisco Santiago-Ávila, Science & Advocacy Director at Washington Wildlife First.

In 2011, Congress ignored the best available science and overruled the courts by unilaterally removing ESA protections for wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains, which includes Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and the eastern one-third of Oregon and Washington.

Free from federal restrictions, western states have waged war on wolves, employing the same tactics that extirpated wolves from the West in the 1930s. For example, the Idaho legislature approved a bill in 2021 aimed at reducing the state wolf population by 90%—and to achieve this objective, Idaho pays contractors to kill wolves, allows year-round wolf trapping, provides extended hunting seasons with no limits, and authorizes wolves to be baited, hunted at night, pursued by dogs, and run down with motor vehicles.

Wildlife advocacy organizations petitioned the USFWS in 2021 to restore ESA protections to Northern Rocky Mountain wolves, but the agency refused that petition in 2024. Today’s ruling finds that USFWS’s refusal to relist wolves ignored best available science, failed to consider wolves’ extirpation from their historic range, underestimated the potential impact of anti-wolf state policies, and made many unfounded assumptions in concluding that the Western wolf population was no longer in danger of extinction. It requires the USFWS to go back to the drawing board to issue a new decision correcting these deficiencies.

“We thank all the advocacy organizations that played a part in obtaining today’s ruling, which vindicates over a decade of peer-reviewed science,” said Santiago-Ávila. “By directing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to perform a new analysis, the court has laid a foundation for consistent, region-wide protections that comport with the best-available science—rather than reactionary policies that pander to an irrational hysteria stoked by anti-wolf special interest groups.”

A restoration of ESA protections to the Northern Rocky Mountain wolves would put wolves in eastern Washington back under federal protection, removing them from the control of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The ESA already protects wolves in the western two-thirds of the state.

“Wolves in eastern Washington have endured reckless, unscientific, and unethical policies that have caused population declines, impaired dispersal, and stalled statewide recovery,” Dr. Santiago-Ávila noted, pointing to unrestricted Tribal hunting, alarming levels of poaching, and taxpayer-funded actions to kill wolves in retaliation for predations on cattle.

Last year, these recent increases in human-caused mortality drove Washington’s first wolf population decline in 16 years and led to a 25% drop in breeding pairs—a situation likely worsened by declines in immigration from neighboring states intent on exterminating their wolf populations.

“We urge Washington’s legislatures and wildlife commissioners to take note of today’s ruling,” said Dr. Santiago-Ávila. “Even if ESA protections are not ultimately extended to all Washington’s wolves, we hope it will be a wake-up call that will pave the way for science-informed, ethical policies that prioritize wolf recovery and coexistence in the region.”