What just happened in the U.S. House of Representatives could spell tragedy for gray wolves. Thursday’s vote on H.R. 845, a bill to remove federal Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states, passed by the smallest of margins, 211-204. Now, this legislation moves to the Senate, where we still have a chance to stop it.
The last thing this nation needs is a pathway to more reckless trophy hunting and recreational trapping seasons that target wolves. But that’s what H.R. 845 is all about.
Once pushed to the brink of extinction in the lower 48 states by widespread extermination campaigns and bounty programs, wolf populations gradually began to recover following their protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1974. But we know that the species is far from recovered—it’s not even close.
We also know that threats to the survival of wolves will ramp up following their delisting. That knowledge comes through bitter experience, and it’s why we’ve repeatedly gone to court to stop the carnage.
In Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, for example (states where wolves lost their federal protections through congressional and agency actions in the 2010s), wolves have suffered relentless persecution by trophy hunters, recreational trappers and even state agents in the intervening years, including by methods like strangling neck snares and leghold traps. Idaho allows year-round killing in most parts of the state with the goal of slashing the population by 60% by 2028. Entire wolf families can be killed in their dens with victims as young as four to six weeks old. In Montana, a single person can kill up to 30 wolves every year, annihilating entire wolf packs. In Wyoming, wolves can be killed at any time, by any method, in most of the state.
The record is also grim in the Great Lakes region, where wolves were delisted from late 2011 until 2014. Nearly 1,500 were killed in just three trophy hunting and recreational trapping seasons, including many pups. More recently, when wolves again lost their federal protections in 2021, trophy hunters in Wisconsin killed more than 200 wolves in less than 60 hours during the critical breeding season. Most were killed after being chased down and cornered by packs of dogs.
We hear a whole lot about “following the science” from those who want to kill wolves in these states, but that’s not what’s happening. There are no scientific justifications for killing wolves. Wolves play a key role in keeping nature in balance. Studies have shown that killing a single wolf can cause the entire family pack to fall apart and lead to additional deaths. Conflicts between wolves and domestic animals are currently very rare, while killing wolves can cause more conflicts due to the social disruption it creates.
Even though they claim to want to minimize wolf predation, the advocates of killing wolves aren’t big on support for non-lethal, proactive conflict prevention measures, like range riding (people patrols), carcass disposal, fencing and other strategies. These are highly effective and we know that there are easy ways to keep both wolves and other animals safe when the will is there.
It’s also worth noting that the minimal federal recovery goals for wolves as articulated decades ago are less relevant today given our better understanding of population dynamics. We now know that many more wolves are needed than originally thought to ensure the genetic health of the population and their ability to fulfill their vital ecological role.
Years before he gained acclaim as an author and conservationist, Aldo Leopold was killing wolves as an employee of the U.S. Forest Service. One fall day, from atop a rimrock canyon in New Mexico, Leopold shot a gray wolf. She was still breathing when he reached her, “in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes.”
It took Leopold several decades more to make the transition from exterminator of wolves to champion of their preservation, but in doing so, he laid the groundwork for the post-World War II transformation in attitudes concerning wolves and other carnivore species. The movement that coalesced around the preservation of wolves and wildness in those years is a true American legacy, and we will defend it against anyone who seeks to destroy it today.
Kitty Block is president and CEO of Humane World for Animals. Follow Kitty Block on X. Sara Amundson is president of Humane World Action Fund.
