Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

The big, bad, gray wolf.

This week, U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced the delisting of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act, returning management of the species back to the states. The decision comes 7 years after the Obama Administration found that gray wolf recovery goals had been achieved.

Congressman Dan Newhouse (R-Wa) proclaims the gray wolf is an Endangered Species Act success story. He has orated that by empowering states to manage gray wolf populations, the federal government is recognizing the effectiveness of locally-led conservation efforts, basing management decisions on sound science, instead of politics, and providing certainty to families, farmers, and rural communities in Central Washington and throughout the country.  Click here to learn more.

Earlier this month, the Congressman composed an op-ed discussing the efforts in Congress and by the Trump Administration to modernize the Endangered Species Act. Delisting the gray wolf and, finally, celebrating its recovery is another step toward achieving that goal.

You can read that entire piece here.

“This is great news for Washington state where our wolf population has reached recoverable levels,” said Mike LaPlant, President of the Washington Farm Bureau. “It’s time to end the federal/state split management of wolves in Washington and allow our state wildlife managers to manage wolves in conjunction with all other species.”

In Washington state alone, there are at least 108 known wolves in 21 known packs, including at least 10 breeding pairs, and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation reported 37 wolves in five packs.

The gray wolf joins the bald eagle, peregrine falcon, American alligator, brown pelican and 33 other species of animals and plants in U.S. states, territories and waters that have been brought back from the brink with the help of the ESA.