Urgent Notices and Actions

• There is little over a week remaining to send in official comments to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife CR-102 proposing a rule to downlist wolves from endangered to sensitive and its Determination of Nonsignificancefor the new rule under the State Environmental Policy Act.
  • Official comments on both the proposed rule and the SEPA determination are due at midnight on May 6. The Commission is scheduled to vote on the downlisting in July. Although people should feel free to continue to send comments up until the day of the vote, they may not be included in the official decision record.
  • You can comment on the proposed rule by entering text in the box on this page, emailing graywolf2024@publicinput.com, or leaving a voicemail message at 855-925-2801 (project code 6505).
  • You can comment on the SEPA determination by going to the SEPA webpage and/or emailing SEPA_GrayWolf@publicinput.com.
  • For context, you may want to reference the updated Gray Wolf Periodic Status Review, last year’s Gray Wolf Periodic Status Review, the 2023 version of the Petracca et. al study on which the original PSR was based (and which the new PSR still references), and the final, peer-reviewed version of the Petracca et. al study published in January 2024.
• Please consider signing your organization on to Defenders of Wildlife’s letter to oppose Rep. Lauren Boebert’s anti-wolf bill H.R. 764, which would remove protections for the gray wolf under the federal Endangered Species Act. Sign-ons are due at 9 a.m. on April 29. Contact Mary Beth Beetham (mbeetham@defenders.org) if you have questions.

Events

WDFW Commission Meetings

• The Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission will meet on May 17 over Zoom. There is no posted agenda yet, but the website’s Year-at-a-Glance indicates that the Commission will hear a briefing on the Columbia River agreement, and Commission Chair Barbara Baker verified at the last meeting that agency staff would be presenting a new proposed model for managing black bear hunting.
• Please start to plan now to attend the Commission’s next in-person meeting, to be held June 21-23 in Vancouver, Washington. The Commission may take action on a revised Best Available Science Policy at this meeting, and it will likely be the last opportunity to comment in person on the proposed rule to downlist wolves.

Other

• Michelle Lute of Wildlife for All will give a talk hosted by the Wolf Conservation Center called “Justice for All: Preventing Cruelty through Wildlife Governance Reform.” The talk will take place at 3 p.m. on May 8, 2024 and will address “how state wildlife management, especially Wyoming’s liberalized predator killing policies, incentivizes illegal activities and systematic persecution of wolves and other native carnivores.” Register here.
• The Endangered Species Coalition is planning many events around Endangered Species Day on May 17, including an endangered species chalk art competition May 11-19 and the City Nature Challenge throughout the month. Check the website for more nationwide and local events.
• June is Orca Action Month! Activists will be celebrating our killer whales and taking action down the West Coast all month with beach clean-ups, family activities, riparian restoration, and more.

More Action Items

Washington

• WDFW, FWS, and the Kalispel Tribe Natural Resources Department are proposing to reintroduce bull trout into Sullivan Lake in Pend Oreille County. Bull trout are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act and are a candidate for the state Endangered Species Act. Members of the public can weigh in by entering a comment at wa.gov/sullivanlakebulltrout, emailing SullivanLakebulltrout@publicinput.com, or leaving a voicemail at 1-855-925-2801 (project code 6058). The deadline to comment is April 30, 2024
• The public comment periods for the bald eagle and peregrine falcon draft status reviews are open through May 27, 2024.WDFW is recommending that both species remain delisted. Please send your comments to TandEpubliccom@dfw.wa.gov or by mailing Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife ATTN: Taylor Cotten, P.O. Box 43141, Olympia, WA 98504.
• WDFW is asking the public for information on the ground squirrel to assist in the determination of the species’ conservation status. Send your observations to TandEpubliccom@dfw.wa.gov or by mailing Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife ATTN: Taylor Cotten, P.O. Box 43141, Olympia, WA 98504. Reports will be posted to the species status review page. (WDFW has not provided a deadline.)

National

• The Endangered Species Coalition and other organizations are asking for support for a letter opposing H.R. 615, Protecting Access for Hunters and Anglers Act of 2023 (Rep. Wittman – Natural Resources), a prohibition on regulating lead ammunition and tackle on federal land and water.
• The America The Beautiful For All Coalition is seeking immediate organizational sign-ons to a letter thanking the Bureau of Land Management for its new rule that puts conservation on equal footing with the extractive industry and other uses of our public lands.
• Numerous groups are asking for action on the Wyoming wolf torture incident. NARN, Center for a Humane Economy, and Project Coyote have shared petitions denouncing or calling for felony charges against the man who tortured the wolf. Predator Defense has called for a boycott of Wyoming over its lax wildlife laws and asked supporters to spread the word with the hashtag #BoycottWyoming on Facebook and Twitter.