Rep. Boebert targets renewed effort to remove federal wolf protections
Click play to listen to this article.
Representative Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., has introduced a bill to remove gray wolves from the list of endangered and threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
The measure would also prohibit any challenges to the law in court.
Jewel Tomasula, national policy director for the Endangered Species Coalition, said House Resolution 845 is essentially recycled legislation.
"The bill would reinstate a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisting decision issued in November of 2020, the end of the first Trump administration," Tomasula explained. "This was overturned in court because the Fish and Wildlife Service did not use the best available science, among other serious errors."
Gray Wolf. Courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The move comes as President Donald Trump and allies have accused federal courts of trying to overtake the executive branch's authority by blocking a number of executive orders.
After being hunted and poisoned to near extinction, the return of the gray wolf to the Lower 48 states is widely viewed as one of America's greatest conservation success stories. The livestock industry, which has overtaken large swaths of historic wolf habitat for grazing, has opposed protections citing concerns about predation.
A separate bill aims to put the brakes on getting species listed as endangered, speed up the delisting process and remove guardrails meant to prevent species from becoming extinct.
Kaitie Schneider, Colorado wolf representative for Defenders of Wildlife, said preventing the loss of keystone species like gray wolves is important for maintaining ecosystem viability and resilience in the face of a changing climate.
"We know that it's better not to lose that piece of the puzzle to begin with," Schneider stressed. "But it's critically important to put it back where we can. Keeping our ecosystems intact and restoring native species is not only important for us, but for our future generations too."
Nine in 10 Democrats and eight in 10 Republicans support the Endangered Species Act. And 84 percent of Americans support returning wolves to suitable landscapes in the Lower 48.
Schneider noted states like Colorado are showing wolves and people can coexist.
"If these bills and efforts to delist wolves from the Endangered Species Act federally do go through, that's not going to stop the wolf reintroduction to Colorado," Schneider asserted. "Because the voters of Colorado decided that this is a priority for our state. That's going to continue."
