Washington — On the heels of a deer-hunting season in which northern Minnesota hunters expressed dissatisfaction with the cull and directed their collective anger at the impact of gray wolves on the white-tailed deer herd, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a fresh “engagement” effort that will last through 2026.
The USFWS plan was announced the day before a Dec. 14 press release from the Center for Biological Diversity revealed that under the settlement approved by a federal judge in the District of Columbia, the USFWS “must develop a new recovery plan for the Endangered Species Act-listed gray wolf. The draft plan must be completed within two years unless the agency determines that such a plan would not promote the conservation of the species.”
And in another twist involving wolves, Outdoor Newsin its Dec. 8 issue, reported on the formation of a statewide group called “Hunters for Hunters” and its plan to hold a series of “wolf hunting” meetings in northern Minnesota this month and next.
Meanwhile, lawsuits and appeals are still ongoing at the federal level regarding the species, which is classified as federally “threatened” in Minnesota and as vulnerable in Wisconsin and Michigan.
Recent information courtesy of USFWS: In November 2020, the USFWS published a final regulation to delist wolves in the lower 48 U.S. states. The regulation went into effect in January 2021.
About a year later, in February 2022, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California overturned the delisting rule, thus once again making wolves outside the Rocky Mountain region protected under the Endangered Species Act.
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According to the USFWS, “multiple parties appealed the district court’s order to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the parties entered into mediation.”
In January 2023, the district mediator issued an order temporarily administratively halting the appeals until February 2, 2024. The USFWS announced at that time that it would “update its review of the status of the gray wolf in the lower 48 U.S. states and initiate stakeholder engagement activities.”
In the same statement, the USFWS stated its intent is to “submit to the Office of the Federal Register a proposed regulation regarding the listed status of gray wolves…”
The federal involvement process is currently underway.
On December 13, a USFWS press release announced that the agency “has initiated new efforts to create and support a national dialogue about how communities can live with gray wolves, including conflict prevention, long-term stability, and community safety,” adding that “these discussions will include people who live with wolves and those who do not but want to know they have a place on the landscape.”
The release also said the agency had determined that work would begin in September, with completion scheduled for 2026, and would be carried out by an external contractor.
“(USFWS) believes that the conversation is best led by an outside party rather than by (USFWS),” the release reads. “Recognizing that fair, inclusive, and balanced public engagement requires a neutral and widely trusted facilitator to design and lead the process, (USFWS) has entered into an agreement with Francine Madden of Constructive Conflict LLC to begin a nationwide conversation about gray wolves.
“Working with Ms. Madden and her team, (USFWS) intends to participate as an equal with citizens, tribes, states, environmental groups, cattle producers, hunters and others in this national dialogue. Ms. Madden’s team will work with people from all sides to convene and lead the conversation.”
Federal officials did not answer the question: Will this delay further action to delist the company?
“These actions will help us shape (USFWS) policy and future regulations affecting wolves,” the release said.
After the settlement was reached earlier this month, Collette Adkins, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s predator management program and an advisory committee member for Minnesota’s recently updated wolf management plan, called the settlement “a major victory.”
“We hope that (USFWS) will finally look at what it takes to actually restore wolf populations in this country, rather than once again trying to illegally and prematurely delist wolves,” Adkins said.
The DNR’s most recent estimate of the state’s wolf population is about 2,700 animals. The 1992 federal wolf recovery plan suggested a recovery goal of 1,250 to 1,400 animals.
Earlier this year, legislation to end federal protections for gray wolves in the Midwest—the Trust the Science Act—passed the House Natural Resources Committee. There has been no significant action on the bill since.
Tasks assigned to Constructive Conflict LLC and their completion dates include defining the collaborative process (September 2023), comprehensive assessment of the societal conflict surrounding gray wolves (August 2024), building capacity and coordinating group activities (August 2025), and reconciling relationships, aligning groups toward common goals, and beginning collaborative problem-solving and decision-making (August 2026).
On the website of Washington-based Constructive Conflict, we say: “We use a relationship-focused approach called Conservation Conflict Transformation to engage dialogue and decision-making processes.”
On the state front
At the request of Outdoor News, Minnesota DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen issued a statement Dec. 18 regarding the state’s response to wolves and addressed concerns from deer hunters.
In her statement, Strommen said public input and involvement were and are taken into account in the DNR’s deer and wolf management process.
He further states, “We have heard from some hunters that they are frustrated with the disappointing deer season, particularly in the northeastern part of the state. Preliminary data shows that the harvest was down from last year and below the 10-year average. We also know that Michigan and Wisconsin have seen similar harvest declines this year. When it comes to deer population numbers, there are many factors at play, including winter severity, predator density and habitat, which are all related issues that the DNR is actively managing.
“We have also heard questions from hunters and other Minnesotans about the Minnesota DNR’s approach to wolf management. We are in ongoing contact with our partners at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on a wide range of conservation issues, including wolf management. In a letter to the (USFWS) in 2019, the DNR reported that gray wolf recovery has been a tremendous success, with population numbers exceeding Minnesota’s recovery goal. We also said that gray wolf range and population expansion in Minnesota demonstrate that wolves are no longer threatened or endangered within their appropriate range in the state.”
States current wolf population management plan was adopted a year ago.
“The plan describes a series of wolf management strategies, including a framework that could be used to decide on a wolf season should the wolf’s status as a federally endangered and protected species in Minnesota change,” Strommen said.
Minnesota Deer Hunters Association Executive Director Jared Mazurek recently posted a YouTube video explaining the organization’s position on wolves. Here are his comments: MDHA, while recognizing that wolves “play an important role in the ecosystem,” believes wolf management should be returned to Minnesota through federal delisting.
Mazurek noted that the wolf population in the northern Rocky Mountains (in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Washington and Oregon) is managed by state agencies due to congressional actions (in 2011 and 2017) that determined the matter was “not subject to judicial review.”
A note from the past
The federal-state wolf management seesaw has been going on for decades. Almost 40 years ago Washington Post contained an article regarding a federal judge’s decision to reject the transfer of wolf management from the Department of the Interior to the state of Minnesota.
A January 7, 1984, article stated that Judge Miles Lord of the United States District Court in Minnesota “ruled that the proposed (management) relocation violated the Endangered Species Act and found that former Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt ‘breached his statutory duty’ by approving the relocation ‘without explanation.'”
At that time, it was estimated that there were about 1,200 wolves in the 48 U.S. states, with almost all of them living in Minnesota.
According to the Post article, state officials in Minnesota were seeking management responsibility so that the trapping season could proceed. They planned to cull between 50 and 160 animals.
