Feds seek court OK for ending gray wolf federal protections

From E&E News by Politco:

The Fish and Wildlife Service maintains that the gray wolf has recovered throughout the continental United States and no longer requires Endangered Species Act protections, a new court filing shows.

In a legal brief filed on its behalf Friday, the agency declared the gray wolf to be “one of the ESA’s biggest success stories” and asserted that the “best available science” showed wolves were not endangered or threatened even though the species no longer inhabits part of its historical range.

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The Biden administration is taking steps to eliminate protections for gray wolves

From NBC Los Angeles:

The Biden administration on Friday asked an appeals court to revive a Trump-era rule that lifted remaining Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the U.S.

If successful, the move would put the predators under state oversight nationwide and open the door for hunting to resume in the Great Lakes region after it was halted two years ago under court order.

Environmentalists had successfully sued when protections for wolves were lifted in former President Donald Trump’s final days in office.

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Operation Bhediya reveals gaps in human-wildlife conflict mitigation

From Mongabay.com:

The forest officials of Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district breathed a sigh of relief when they captured five wolves from a pack of six, which has been under scrutiny for recent animal attacks on people, mostly children. “The good news is that there haven’t been any attacks reported in the past week,” Shaheer Khan, a conservation biologist from the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun, who is currently stationed in Bahraich to assist the forest department in identifying and capturing the wolves, informed Mongabay India earlier this week.

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U.S. House of Reps bill prohibits killing predators with snowmobile

From Buckrail:

UNITED STATES — National outcry after Daniel, Wyoming resident Cody Roberts ran over and possessed an injured female wolf on Feb. 29, has led to federal lawmakers pursuing new legislation that would prohibit the intentional killing of wolves, coyotes and other wildlife with a snowmobile on federal lands.

The Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons (SAW) Act was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Nancy Mace, R-S.C., Don Davis, D-N.C., Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. and Troy Carter, D-La on Thursday, Sept. 12.

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The Biden administration is taking steps to eliminate protections for gray wolves

From AP News:

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday asked an appeals court to revive a Trump-era rule that lifted remaining Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the U.S.

If successful, the move would put the predators under state oversight nationwide and open the door for hunting to resume in the Great Lakes region after it was halted two years ago under court order.

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Colorado’s new source for gray wolves is outside the U.S.

From 9News:

DENVER — Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) went outside the United States to secure a new source for gray wolves in its second year of reintroduction efforts, the agency said on Friday.

Colorado will get up to 15 wolves from the B.C. Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship in British Columbia, Canada. The wolves will be captured and released in Colorado between December and March, CPW said in a news release.

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Tribal wildlife grants awarded

From Char-koosta News:

POLSON – The Department of the Interior recently announced the recipients of Tribal Wildlife Grants. The Tribal Wildlife Grants Program is administered by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the program annually solicits project proposals from tribal fish and wildlife programs for funding consideration. The proposals are competitively reviewed by the Service, and funding is allocated based on the reviews.

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Colorado wolf dies in Grand County, the 2nd mortality in one week from reintroduced species

From Sky-Hi News:

Another of the male wolves reintroduced to Colorado has died in Grand County.

This marks the third wolf death since Colorado Parks and Wildlife released 10 gray wolves in December 2023 and the second mortality this month.

The wildlife agency received a mortality signal from the GPS collar on wolf 2307 on Monday, Sept. 9, and confirmed the death on Tuesday.

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Western Watersheds Project on conserving public lands

From The Sopris Sun:

Advocating for healthy public lands and wildlife is at the heart of the Western Watersheds Project (WWP). The organization started in 1993, then the Idaho Watersheds Project, as a form of citizen protest to ranching practices in Lake Creek, Idaho. WWP’s work is done through a lens of maintaining and restoring ecosystem balance in places where humans and livestock overlap with wildlife.

Now 30 years into this work, WWP does much more than just compete at land-leasing auctions. With field offices in six states and addressing 250 million acres of public land, WWP is involved in initiatives from pollinator protection to wolf reintroduction, and from litigations and negotiations to public information campaigns.

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Activists Push For National Ban On Running Down Wolves With Snowmobiles

From Cowboy State Daily:

While Wyoming ponders a legislative response to the abuse and killing of a wolf in Daniel that sparked nationwide outrage, an animal welfare group is pushing a bi-partisan bill for a federal ban chasing predators on snowmobiles.

In a case of a hot-button issue making strange political bedfellows, conservative firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, is joining with Congressional Democrats to introduce the Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons (SAW) Act.

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