The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would redelist gray wolves throughout the Lower 48 states. Currently, the species is only fully off of federal Endangered Species Act protections in the Northern Rockies, including eastern portions of Washington and Oregon.
The bill, known as the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, or H.R. 845, was approved today on a 211-204 margin and saw Southwest Washington Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez join most Republicans in the House, including Eastern Washington’s Dan Newhouse and Michael Baumgartner and Eastern Oregon’s Cliff Bentz, in voting aye.
Bentz, Newhouse and Baumgartner are among 31 cosponsors.
“We salute House membership for agreeing with scientists and wildlife management professionals that wolf populations are stable and growing and should return to state management,” stated Blake Henning, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation chief conservation officer, in a press release. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisted wolves in the Lower 48 states twice in the last decade and a half – during the Obama Administration in 2011 and the Trump Administration in 2020. Both times, judges intervened to invalidate the process.”
Per RMEF, the bill puts back in place a USFWS delisting rule issued back in fall 2020. It also could not be judicially reviewed.
The hunter-habitat organization called on the US Senate to follow the lower chamber’s lead and pass the act.
“Today, I voted to delist the gray wolf in all of the lower 48,” tweeted Montana Republican Ryan Zinke. “The ESA was created to protect endangered animals, not to be weaponized for a radical agenda by activist judges. The last four administrations have all agreed that the gray wolf has recovered. Let’s follow the science and Montana’s lead and delist.”
Last month, USFWS said that it was no longer necessary to come up with a national recovery plan for gray wolves in the western two-thirds of Washington and Oregon as well as the rest of the Lower 48 where they remain federally listed because the species’ ESA listing “is no longer appropriate” thanks to their successful recovery.
Wolves are state-listed as endangered in Washington and protected under Oregon’s statewide wolf management plan.
Outside of Gluesenkamp Perez, all other Washington as well as Oregon Democrats were nays on today’s vote.
