Trump administration moves to drop gray & Mexican wolves from Endangered Species List

Reeling from criticism over his plans to import beef, President Donald Trump attempted to win back favor from ranchers and beef producers by ordering the Interior Department to begin the process to remove gray wolves and Mexican gray wolves from the Endangered Species List on Friday.

The move will make it easier for ranchers and hunters to kill the wolves, if necessary.

Environmental organizations criticized the move calling it a distraction based on “political whims,” while U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani praised Trump’s executive order along with the Arizona Farm Bureau.

The
Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity said Friday they are “prepared” to
fight the Trump administration’s move in court, and prove that removing
the wolves from the list and allow a “steep increase in killings would not only be cruel but also deeply
unwise and illegal.”

“Trump’s new push to prematurely remove wolf protections will lead to
yet another court decision that reinstates those protections while
doing nothing to help ranchers,” said Collette Adkins, senior attorney
and director of the carnivore conservation program at the center. “Smart
ranchers coexist with wolves by using commonsense measures like guard
dogs and fencing to protect livestock. Trump should be funding these
tools, not wasting taxpayer money trying to kill or illegally strip
wolves of lifesaving protections.”

“We look forward to challenging any misguided delisting attempts in court,” Adkins said.

The executive order directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to determine whether wolves have recovered enough for either delisting or downlisting under the Endangered Species Act. The order was among a series of policies dubbed “supporting Americas ranchers” and included moves to change meat labeling.

Burgum was also ordered to revise the criteria for killing wolves, including “precision targeting” when wolves threaten livestock or people.

Environmental groups said the order doesn’t just direct Burgum to remove the protection for the wolves, but “encourages the federal agencies to meddle” with state laws, and directs them to “weaken evidentiary standards related to predation of livestock.”

“For far too long, endangered animals such as Mexican gray wolves have been subject to the political whims of politicians who know very little about these endangered animals,” said Sandy Bahr, director for Sierra Club Grand Canyon chapter. “Mexican wolves are on their way back, but they continue to need the protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act to truly recover and thrive. This executive order is a political stunt at the expense of the wolves and other creatures who depend on the healthy ecosystems wolves help facilitate.”

“This is a huge distraction to placate a handful of ranchers and make
them believe that wolves are a greater threat than President Trump’s own
policies,” said Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds
Project. “The impact of wolves on the livestock industry pale in
comparison to the impacts of recent trade agreements and the reality of
ranching in the arid West under changing climate conditions.”

Leia
Barnett, New Mexico conservation lead for WildEarth Guardians, called
the move an attempt to “bypass the very framework Congress built to keep
species recovery decisions insulated from political whims.”

As part of the order, the White House said ranchers help secure a “plentiful domestic ranching industry,” however the national herd is at a 75-year low and consumer demand for beef has grown almost 10 percent over the past decade.

Trump’s move comes in the wake of a widely criticized plan to boost beef imports by lifting tariffs.

The price of beef has risen sharply in recent years. It was around $3.81 per pound in March 2020, but has risen to $6.90 on average in May 2026, the Arizona Mirror reported.This is due to fewer cattle, rising costs, Trump’s tariffs, and the resurgence of parasitic screwworm.

“The Mexican gray wolf is not recovered simply because the population
has grown,” said Claire Musser, executive director of the Grand Canyon
Wolf Recovery Project. The groups said the U.S. population of Mexican wolves has been mismanaged, leading to a decline in their “genetic diversity accompanied by birth defects and fewer pups surviving.

Just seven Mexican wolves were successfully bred in captivity decades ago to rescue the subspecies from extinction, but since that time most of the genes from those seven last wolves have been lost, the groups said.

Musser said there are now just 317 wolves in the wild.

At the beginning of the year, there were at least 319 Mexican wolves in the Southwest — including around 143 in Arizona, and about 45 in Mexico. However, in August, USFS decided
to remove two wolves —translocating one to New Mexico and killing the
other — because they allegedly killed or injured several cows
from March through July 2026, according to the Sierra Club’s Grand
Canyon Chapter.

“With just 317 wolves in the wild and a
population still facing serious genetic challenges, weakening federal
protections now would put decades of recovery work at risk. Decisions
about the future of lobos must be based on the best available science
and what these wolves need for long-term recovery, not political
pressure,” Musser said.

Environmental groups said ranchers are entitled to receive 100 percent
of the value of cattle killed by wolves under state and federal
programs, and state programs also fund efforts to mitigate potential
conflicts. This includes programs to remove livestock carcasses and range riding “which help discourage habituation behaviors,” said Anderson.

Last year, Arizona’s Livestock Loss Board approved 25 requests for compensation based on reports from the USDA’s Wildlife Services, up from 14 requests in 2024, according to a report from January to Gov. Katie Hobbs.

The board sent nearly $60,000 to ranchers as compensation in 2025.

The report also noted they sent $185,000 to ranchers for “conflict avoidance measures” largely the range rider program, which attempts to get wolves to avoid areas where there are cattle. Arizona Game and Fish Department used this funding to launch a rapid response team to haze Mexican wolves from pastures, and officials removed dead cattle and attempted to move cattle away from the wolves during calving season.

“Mexican wolves aren’t the problem, but the administration’s approach to
solving purported conflict is. If the administration truly wanted to
support ranchers, they would prioritize increasing funding for
non-lethal initiatives to create long-lasting solutions,” said Regan
Downey, director of education and advocacy at the Wolf Conservation
Center.

On Friday, Ciscomani said Arizona ranchers have “dealt with the consequences of a federal wolf reintroduction program without adequate relief.”

“Their livelihoods are directly threatened by an animal the federal government put back into their communities, and it’s long past time this policy got a serious, honest review,” Ciscomani said in a press release Friday.

Ciscomani said that if the wolves are removed from the list of endangered species, state officials will “take the lead role in managing the species.”

“Arizona ranch families have lived with the Mexican gray wolf program
for more than 25 years,” said
Arizona Farm Bureau President John Boelts. “They’ve lost calves, cows, and income while
doing everything asked of them to protect an experimental population. We
thank President Trump and his Administration for recognizing the
detrimental impact that the Mexican gray wolf has on our cattle ranchers
and our rural communities.”

“As a public lands rancher who’s lived with Mexican gray wolves for years, I’ve watched the real costs pile up—lost calves, stressed herds, and compensation that never quite covers the damage,” said Dalton Dobson, an Arizona rancher. “Delisting this apex predator is the first step toward local, common-sense management that lets cattle operations produce high-quality food for the American people instead of going bankrupt trying to sustain a government program.”

“Today’s executive order puts the future of Mexican wolf protections
directly on the federal chopping block and even directs states to remove
their own protections,” said Michelle Lute, Ph.D. in wolf conservation
and executive director of Wildlife for All.

“Look no further than the
mismanagement of wolves by other states like Montana to understand what
that would mean for one of the world’s most critically endangered canid
species. We urge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to base any recovery
determination on the best available science — not political pressure.”