House of Representatives votes to remove gray wolves from endangered species list
WASHINGTON – Lawmakers are one step closer to removing the gray wolf from the endangered species list, an effort that has been a focus in Wisconsin’s congressional delegation.
The House on Tuesday passed the so-called Trust the Science Act, authored by Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert and co-sponsored by Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany and Wisconsin’s other House Republicans, on a 209-205 vote.
The bill would permanently remove the gray wolf from protections of the federal Endangered Species Act of 1973 and restore wolf management authority to state lawmakers and state wildlife officials. Its future in the Senate is uncertain.
“This is a great success of the Endangered Species Act that a species that was endangered has now recovered,” Tiffany told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Tuesday, saying people will "lose respect" for the Endangered Species Act if recovered species are not delisted.
Tuesday’s vote marked the biggest step from Congress since a federal district court ruling in February 2022 relisted the wolf under the Endangered Species Act in Wisconsin and many other states.
The wolf is native to Wisconsin but was largely wiped out in the 1960s after decades of unregulated hunting and bounties. It was re-established in the state in the 1970s following federal and state protections, and its population has notably increased in Wisconsin in recent decades.
Wildlife advocates have favored continued protections for wolves as they hope to see the species reoccupy more of its historic range. Farmers and hunters, meanwhile, largely support lower wolf numbers and generally back state efforts to manage the species.
From 2022 to 2023, the wolf population in Wisconsin saw about a 4% increase. The state Department of Natural Resources last year estimated Wisconsin had about 1,007 gray wolves. Still, the number of wolf packs was down slightly, from 288 in 2022 to 283 in 2023.
In the last decade, the wolf had two periods under state management authority in Wisconsin, from 2012 to 2014 and 2021 to 2022, before judicial rulings restored it to ESA protections.
Wisconsin statute requires the DNR to hold a wolf hunting and trapping season when the species is under state management.
Delisting the gray wolf has been somewhat of a bipartisan goal among Wisconsin’s lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson introduced similar legislation in the Senate last year. And Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin has authored multiple bills on the topic.
Baldwin last year introduced what she called a “regional-specific” plan to delist the gray wolf in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Her bill would create an advisory committee of scientists and other regional stakeholders who would establish a “delisting rule for the region.”
Neither Johnson nor Baldwin’s legislation appeared poised to be considered in the Senate as of late April.
Boebert's bill would prevent any judicial review of the delisting.
On Tuesday, Wisconsin’s five House Republicans supported the bill while Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore voted against it. Just four Democrats supported the measure, and four Republicans voted against it.
Pocan in a statement pointed to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf management plan released in February that Pocan said would "relieve the pressures of the Grey Wolf." The Service said its plans "provide a vision for species recovery that is connected to site-specific actions for reducing threats and conserving listed species and their ecosystems."
"This is just a crazy member of Congress, who doesn't believe in science, who is trying to undercut the process," Pocan said, referencing Boebert.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Paul A. Smith contributed.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: House votes to remove gray wolves from endangered species list
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