The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation has filed an amicus curiae brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, to support the Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) 2020 rule delisting gray wolves in the Lower 48 states under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The Foundation has been fighting for more than two decades against the animal-extremists’ agenda to keep wolves and other apex predators permanently protected under the ESA, no matter what the science says. This type of thinking undermines everything scientific management is based on. These wolf cases are about much more than wolves, but whether we continue to make wildlife decisions supported by data, or instead turn to radical ideologies that discard science in favor of emotional blackmail.
There have been nine separate cases challenging different wolf-listing decisions over the last 20 years. The results are mostly the same: time and again federal courts vacate FWS’ decision to delist. Courts do this routinely even while referring to the wolf as an ESA “success story.” On that point they are right.
Today, there are at least 2,797 wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountain region, and 4,688 wolves in the Western Great Lakes region. Both of these populations are directly connected to another 27,000 to 29,000 wolves in Eastern and Western Canada. Because wolf counts often take place in the winter when population numbers are typically at their lowest, there can be little doubt that the numbers are even stronger.
But the numbers don’t seem to matter to animal-extremist groups nor to many courts. This is not how the ESA was designed nor is it what Congress intended, and it is counterproductive for all involved. By keeping a thriving species listed, courts are preventing conservation resources from going where they are needed the most—to help recover species that truly need it.
Instead, some courts—especially those in the Ninth Circuit (West Coast)—continue to apply the ESA so that species remain listed in perpetuity. “In doing so, courts have strayed from the ESA’s text and structure and applied a heightened standard for delisting a species,” the Sportsmen’s Alliance argued in its brief to the court. “That is not what Congress intended. When the factors threatening the species with extinction were ameliorated, Congress intended the species to be delisted.”
The Sportsman's Alliance brief further argues that by disfavoring delisting, even with data in hand suggesting otherwise, courts are depriving the states of their traditional role in managing wildlife for the benefit of their citizens.
“We have no doubt that if the court applies the ESA evenhandedly as Congress intended, it will have to conclude that the wolf is recovered,” said Michael Jean, litigation counsel for Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. “It’s high time the courts stop fighting the science and simply apply the plain words of this statute.”
To be clear, the Sportsmen’s Alliance is not leaving the future of wolf management in the Ninth Circuit’s hands. The Alliance has developed its own plan for wolf management. Two weeks ago, it even filed its own lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service to force them to take action on the Sportsman Alliance petition to delist wolves in the Western Great Lakes region.
