Wolf advocates petition for threatened status

PREDATORS — Overlooking the most astonishing if not over-successful recoveries of wildlife under the Endangered Species Act, pro-wolf groups are still trying to argue that the effort to reintroduce wolves to the Northern Rockies has failed.

Wildlife advocates petitioned federal officials today to reclassify gray wolves as a threatened species, hoping to retain at least some protections that lawmakers in Congress want to repeal, the Associated Press reports.

Wolves are classified as endangered across most of the lower 48 states except the Northern Rockies. “Endangered” is a more protective listing than “threatened.”

Brett Hartl with the Center for Biological Diversity said today’s petition asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to downgrade the animals’ status is meant to pre-empt Congressional intervention.

Lawmakers from the western Great Lakes and Wyoming have proposed lifting federal protections entirely in their states. That would put wolves under state control and allow hunting to resume after it was barred by the courts.

Spokesman Gavin Shire says the Fish and Wildlife Service will review the petition.