Endangered gray wolf protections up in the air pending appeals

The Ninth Circuit is considering three appeals stemming from 14 challenges to federal actions decreasing protections for gray wolves.

As the Trump administration again tries to remove the gray wolf from the federal endangered species list, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked the Ninth Circuit to overturn a lower-court ruling that blocked Trump’s first attempt in 2020.

In a federal courthouse in Montana on Tuesday, the agency also appealed the vacatur of its more recent decision not to relist gray wolves specifically in the northern Rocky Mountain region, and defended its designation of Mexican gray wolf habitat in Arizona and New Mexico as “nonessential” to the survival of the subspecies.

“There is no entity of gray wolves that is in danger of extinction or likely to become so in the foreseeable future,” Department of Justice attorney Emily Polachek told a three-judge panel.

Representing the nonprofit conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, attorney Kristin Boyles said that conclusion exists only because of Endangered Species Act protections that would be ripped away too soon.

“What we need is a recovery nationwide,” she said.

Before federal protection in 1974, wolves were functionally extinct in the lower 48 states, except for two isolated pockets in Minnesota and Michigan. After decades of conservation and reintroduction, at least 5,000 wolves now thrive, separated into two main populations in the Great Lakes region — about 4,000 — and the northern Rocky Mountains — at least 1,900.

The northern Rocky Mountain population was delisted in 2011.

The wolves now spread into California and the western portions of Oregon and Washington — creating what some conservationists deem a separate “West Coast” population. The smaller Mexican subspecies recovered from just seven to more than 300 wolves in Arizona and New Mexico.

In response to the rebound, Fish and Wildlife removed federal protection for gray wolves across the lower 48, excluding the Mexican subspecies. Defenders of Wildlife sued, and in 2022 a federal judge vacated and remanded the decision.

Conservationists said the agency relied too heavily on the central populations and ignored smaller populations like the West Coast wolves.

“These are emerging populations that need the protections of the ESA, not some lone wolves that can be written off,” Boyles said.

Polachek said the West Coast wolves aren’t their own entity, but are simply the dispersing edge of the northern Rocky Mountain population.

If the rest of the lower 48’s wolf population is delisted, U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Bress asked what assurance the government could make that wolves wouldn’t be eradicated by humans like they were in the 20th century.

For the next five years, Fish and Wildlife would still monitor populations, and the Bureau of Land Management would consider them a “sensitive species,” Polachek told the Donald Trump appointee.

Later, Polachek defended the agency’s denial of a petition to relist the northern Rocky Mountain wolves, whose territory is made up of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and the eastern portions of Oregon and Washington. A federal judge vacated and remanded that decision in August 2025.

Polachek said the wolves in that region are no longer in danger of human depredation like before. States no longer place bounties on wolves, and poison is no longer legal for widespread killings.

Margie Robinson, attorney for Humane World for Animals, formerly the Humane Society, said the agency failed to consider other parts of the wolf’s historical range, like the southern portion of the Rocky Mountains.

“If the species has not returned to a portion, it is still presently endangered in that portion,” Robinson said.

“But where do we draw the line?” U.S. Circuit Judge Carlos Bea asked. “Does the service have to wait for wolves to be reported all over before they can say they’re not endangered?”

Robinson told the George W. Bush appointee that the question isn’t about repopulating the entire historical range, but determining what portions are biologically important to the wolves’ survival.

Conservationists also challenged Fish and Wildlife’s Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan, which designates the only wild population — limited to the southern halves of Arizona and New Mexico — as “nonessential” to the survival of the subspecies.

A federal judge ruled against the group in March 2025.

On appeal, Mexican Wolf Recovery Project attorney Andrew Hawley said the agency committed a legal error by failing to consider in its analysis the likelihood of the species’ survival without the existence of the “experimental population” to determine the significance of that population.

DOJ attorney Kyle Glynn said the agency did so and determined the experimental population is not essential to the species’ survival because the captive breeding program population is more genetically diverse than the wild population. If the wild population were eradicated, the agency concluded the captive population and the smaller population in Mexico would be enough to revive the wild population in Arizona and New Mexico.

“Using the captive population to restart a wild population if warranted would be feasible,” Glynn said. “The entire reason that the Mexican wolf exists in the wild today is the captive breeding program.”

Hawley said whether the agency could restart the population is a different question than determining the likelihood of survival of the species.

The nonessential designation assumes no federal action will negatively affect the species’ likelihood of survival, meaning federal action in Mexican wolf territory would not be subject to consultation or environmental analysis.

U.S. Circuit Judge Richard C. Tallman, a Bill Clinton appointee, rounded out the panel. The panel didn’t indicate when it would rule on any of the three appeals.