Keep protecting Wolves!

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Center to Fish and Wildlife: Keep Protecting Great Lakes Wolves

Continuing our fight to help gray wolves survive and recover across the nation, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Humane Society of the United States this week filed comments demonstrating that wolves in the Great Lakes region must keep their Endangered Species Act protection. Our comments defend wolves from petitions by state wildlife managers and sport-hunting groups to remove wolf protections in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now considering those petitions despite explicit concerns our comments raise, such as the continuing loss of gray wolf pups to disease; hybridization among gray wolves, eastern wolves and coyotes; and state laws specially crafted to facilitate wolf killings after federal protections are lifted.

Wolves occupy just 5 percent of their original range in the lower 48 states and make up a tiny fraction of historical numbers (once about 2 million in North America). So besides specifically defending wolf populations in the Great Lakes, northern Rockies, Southwest and Pacific Northwest, we've petitioned the feds for a nationwide recovery plan that would help restore wolves to significant portions of their old U.S. range. "It's easy to forget how lucky we are to have wolves in our woods, where they help keep the balance," said the Center's Collette Adkins Giese. "Wolves shouldn't be stripped of protection before achieving national recovery."