Smith: While there's no change in wolf status in Wisconsin or Lower 48, a national recovery plan is in the works

Given its expanding geographical distribution and strong and varied human views on the species, the gray wolf is never out of the news in the U.S.

But last week produced more wolf headlines than usual.

On Friday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied a petition that sought to place the wolf in western and northern Rocky Mountain states under protections of the Endangered Species Act.

The USFWS said it conducted "an extensive peer-reviewed assessment" and used "the best available science" to make its decision.

The agency said its modeling assessed various threats, including human-caused mortality, existing regulatory mechanisms and disease, and found wolves are not at risk of extinction in the western United States now or in the foreseeable future.

The announcement amounted to keeping the status quo. The gray wolf is under state management in much of its range in the West, including in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Washington.

But aggressive wolf control measures employed by the state agencies, including allowing year-round killing of wolves, prompted the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, the Humane Society of the United States and the Humane Society Legislative Fund to file the petition.

It sought to relist wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains as an endangered or threatened "distinct population segment" under the ESA.

The Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement it was "incredibly disappointed" with the Feb. 2 decision to deny protections to wolves in the region and for "letting northern Rockies states continue erasing decades of recovery efforts."

Gray wolves are listed under the ESA as endangered in 44 states (including Wisconsin), threatened in Minnesota and under state jurisdiction in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and portions of eastern Oregon and Washington.

Based on the latest data as of the end of 2022, 2,797 wolves were distributed across at least 286 packs in seven states in the western United States, according to the USFWS.

"This population size and widespread distribution contribute to the resiliency and redundancy of wolves in this region," the USFWS said in its announcement last week. "The population maintains high genetic diversity and connectivity, further supporting their ability to adapt to future changes."

Wolves have been documented dispersing into unoccupied areas of Oregon and California over the last 12 months and a formal reintroduction project transferred wolves from Oregon into Colorado in December.

Wisconsin Rep. Tom Tiffany and others wanted wolves delisted here

The USFWS announcement also meant no change for wolves in Wisconsin.

That disappointed those who hoped the Service might delist wolves in the Badger State. Wolves in Wisconsin and most other states have been protected since a district federal judge's ruling in Feb. 2022.

Congressman Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin is among those who want the species delisted in the state. Because it only dealt with the petition in the Rockies, he called the USFWS decision "misguided."

The status quo means wolves are protected in Wisconsin from lethal means of control, including hunting and trapping.

"The gray wolf population has recovered, and it’s time for the House to pass the Trust the Science Act to remove the gray wolf from the list of federal endangered species and return management power back to states,” Tiffany said.

Tiffany is co-author of the proposed legislation. The Trust the Science Act would remove ESA protections from wolves in the Lower 48 states and prohibit judicial review of the final rule. It passed out of the Natural Resources Committee in April but has not been taken up by the full House.

The USFWS had more to say on wolves last week, too. In a move that could please wolf advocates, the agency provided additional information on its goal of producing a national recovery plan for wolves.

National wolf recovery plan planned by late 2025

"Recognizing that the national discussion around gray wolf management must look more comprehensively at conservation tools available to federal, state and Tribal governments, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Feb. 2) announced a path to support a long term and durable approach to the conservation of gray wolves, to include a process to develop – for the first time – a National Recovery Plan under the Endangered Species Act for gray wolves in the lower 48 states," the USFWS wrote.

The USFWS recognized the ongoing and often contentious debates over wolf management, which it said has included more than two decades of legislation, litigation and rule-making.

It also said facilitating a more durable and holistic approach to wolf recovery must go beyond the ESA. The USFWS expressed the need to work with state and tribal partners.

"Wolf recovery to date has been construed around specific legal questions or science-driven exercises about predicted wolf population status," the USFWS wrote. "Courts have invalidated five out of six rules finalized by the Service on gray wolf status, citing at least in part a failure to consider how delisting any particular population of gray wolves affects their status and recovery nationwide."

The national wolf recovery plan would provide a vision for species recovery that is connected to "site-specific actions for reducing threats and conserving listed species and their ecosystems," the USFWS said.

It did not provide details about how it would work with states, tribes or the public to craft the plan.

It did provide a deadline for completing the plan: Dec. 12, 2025.

Some wolf issues will also continue to argued in courts. The four petitioners who were denied in last week's decision announced Wednesday they are planning legal action against the USFWS in an attempt to provide Endangered Species Act protections to wolves in the northern Rocky Mountain states.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service commits to national plan for wolves