Overturning an executive action of President Obama, a federal judge ruled that the chief executive’s 2012 removal from the Endangered Species List of the gray wolf in the Great Lakes region was a violation of the the United States’ Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA). The Act was intended to increase scant populations of flora and fauna on the verge of extinction.
Federal protections were dropped with Obama’s decision and, with the new ruling from U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., management of the species’ population is now back in federal hands. After just one season of wolf hunting in three states in the Great Lakes region, the practice is once again prohibited in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Signed by President Nixon, the ESA was created to protect species from extinction that became imperiled because of untempered development. The tendency toward species extinction was to be halted “whatever the cost.” The ESA is administered and enforced by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The case that Judge Howell heard was brought by The Humane Society of the United States, which alleged that the movement of management duties from the U.S. to the states was a failure, with the result that more than 1,500 gray wolves were killed by humans, thus putting population recovery in peril. Unless the case is appealed and overturned, Howell’s decision will continue to prohibit wolf hunting and trapping in the three states.
After federal protection was stopped and 40 years of wolf protection was reversed, Wisconsin and Minnesota legalized the hunting and trapping of wolves. 272 gray wolves were soon killed in Minnesota and 154 in Wisconsin, the majority of both being a result of leghold traps.
Gavin Shire, a spokesmen for the Fish and Wildlife Service, expressed disappointment with the decision, characterizing it as a significant step backward. He said “the science clearly shows that wolves are recovered in the Great Lakes Region,” reporting further that his agency believes the states involved “have clearly demonstrated their ability to effectively manage their wolf populations.”
It was in 1978 that gray wolves were first placed under the protection of the ESA. The canines by then had been trapped, hunted, and harassed to near extinction, with but a few hundred wolves throughout the continental United States, and most of those were in or near the Superior National Forest of Minnesota. Federal protection gave the wolves room to live without predation and the population rebounded faster than some expected, spreading into Michigan and Wisconsin.
Farm and hunting groups praised the 2012 shift from federal protection to state management, but the Humane Society sued, stating that the gray wolf had not recovered sufficiently over the areas it had once roamed and that the Fish and Wildlife Service had unlawfully selected a small and successful population from enormous areas where wolves no longer exist.
Canis lupus, also known as the timber wolf or western wolf, is native to North America, Africa and Eurasia. Its winter fur is thick and long, distinguished in color by various shades of gray, but reds, whites, browns and black also can be displayed. Like many canines, the gray wolf is social, with nuclear families traveling together over ranges of various size. Humans and tigers are the animal’s only serious threat.
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