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Wolves first started to recolonize the state in 2008 when the first successful breeding pair produced a litter. During the past seventeen years while we have seen an overall increase in numbers their rate of growth has slowed, poaching has increased, and the number of breeding pairs declined from 2022 to 2023.

 We still don’t have any packs or breeding pairs in the Southern Cascades and Northwest Coast recovery zone the largest of the state’s three recovery zone.

During 2023 and 2024 the Endangered Species Coalition and our allies successfully helped defeat a proposal from the Department of Fish and Wildlife that would have down listed protections of wolves from endangered to sensitive under the state Endangered Species Act. This was especially important as the wolves in the eastern third of the state are not protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Last year the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission voted to deny the department’s request as it did not meet the State’s Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, was based on a scientifically disputed modeling study, and didn’t focus on the recovery of wolves throughout the state.

This year’s Washington House Bill 1311 would have overturned the commission’s decision.  Our staff lobbied and testified against the bill and our Washington State members inundated the legislature with comments against the bill which helped kill it.

The post Anti-Wolf Bills in Washington Legislature Defeated appeared first on Endangered Species Coalition.

Endangered Species Coalition staff and our Washington State volunteers led the grassroots efforts in opposition to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s proposed downlisting of the wolf’s status from endangered to sensitive.  

State protection for wolves is important as wolves are only protected in the western two-thirds of the state under the Endangered Species Act.

Wolves returned to Washington in 2008 but still only number approximately 250 animals.

In 2011, Washington Developed a Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, a nearly 300-page document subjected to peer review and analyzed through an Environmental Impact Statement. 

The Plan sets standards before wolves can be delisted or downlisted, and Washington’s wolf population has not met these benchmarks.   

The Plan established three wolf recovery zones: Eastern Washington, Northern Cascades, and the Southern Cascades and Northwest Coast. To downlist to threatened, the Plan requires at least two successful breeding pairs in each of the three recovery regions. To downlist to sensitive, the Plan requires at least four successful breeding pairs in each of the three recovery regions. 

There are no successful breeding pairs in the South Cascades and Northwest Coast recovery zone, the largest recovery zone with the most wolf habitat. 

Under pressure from special interests, the department chose to ignore the conservation and management plan and proposed downlisting wolves to sensitive status. This would have decreased the penalties for poaching wolves from $5,000 and/or up to a year in jail to $1,000 and/or up to 90 days in jail when wolf poaching incidents are on the rise.   It would have also eliminated the requirement that foresters avoid tree harvesting and road construction within 1 mile of known wolf den sites, a rule that will become increasingly important as the wolf population moves west. 

When the department proposed the downlisting in February 2023, 681 of our Washington members commented opposing it. When the final draft proposal was released this year in March, ESC testified against it, and 423 Washington residents and 8,851 members from across the country submitted comments.

The commission decided to vote on the proposal at its July meeting. In response, the Endangered Species Coalition turned out over 40 of our members to testify at their June meeting.And on the weekend before the July vote we were able to get over 100 of our Washington State members to write personal letters to the commissioners opposing the proposal.Along with other environmental organizations, we intensely lobbied commissioners until the last moment. 

The outcome of the vote was unknown and only decided once the votes were cast. One commissioner switched his vote to keep wolves listed as endangered, giving wolves a 5 to 4 victory.

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Grizzly bears roamed the North Cascades Ecosystem for thousands of years until hunting and trapping extinguished them from the landscape. The last know grizzly bear in the ecosystem was sighted in 1996.

The Endangered Species Coalition and our members have long advocated for their reintroduction. We, along with other local and national groups, made our voices heard for their return in hearings during the Trump years until that administration shut down agency attempts to restore the bears.

When the US Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park restarted the process of possible reintroduction two years ago we were ready. Our members: testified at local hearings, wrote newspaper letters to the editor, helped educate local communities about how we can coexist with grizzlies, contacted our Washington congressional representatives and governor, and submitted over 7,500 comments to the draft environment statement on grizzly bear reintroduction.

Agencies will seek to move three to seven grizzly bears per year for a period of five to 10 years to establish an initial population of 25 bears. 

Under the decision, grizzly bears in the North Cascades will be designated as a nonessential experimental population under section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act.

The designation is based on extensive community engagement and conversations will provide authorities and land managers with additional tools for management that would not otherwise be available under existing Endangered Species Act regulations. 

If all goes well there is a possibility that come  fall we could have paws on the ground in the North Cascades.

The post Grizzly Bears are Returning to the North Cascades Ecosystem of Washington State appeared first on Endangered Species Coalition.

The Endangered Species Coalition staff and our Washington State members helped defeat them this winter in what has become a yearly ritual.

Only 216 wolves reside in Washington and breeding pairs have yet to return to the South Cascades and Northwest regions. They are still listed as endangered under both the federal and state Endangered Species Acts. Yet, we continuously see bills that would allow their killing and block their recovery throughout the state.

Several anti-wolf bills were introduced in this year’s legislature with two being particularly egregious.

The first would have allowed ranchers, families or employees to kill the first wolf to return to a site of any type of predation of livestock. It would have allowed the baiting and killing of wolves. It also ignored the state protocol on preventing livestock and wolf conflict and the determination on how an animal died or what type animal it may have been killed by.

The second would have set up regional/county wolf management plans in lieu of the current state wolf conservation and management plan. The bill would have cut out citizen input, disregarded best available science, and ignored that wolf packs home ranges don’t follow county lines.

In my position as the Endangered Species Coalition Pacific Northwest representative, I testified against these bills and our Washington State members rallied and sent in over 1,300 comments in support of wolves to their legislators. 

Your support helped kill these anti-wolf bills and continue to give Washington wolves a chance to recover throughout the state.

The post The fight continues to recover Washington State wolves appeared first on Endangered Species Coalition.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission received a surprise at their February hearing when thirty junior high school students filed into the room mid-morning.

They were there to urge the commission to list the Southern Resident Killer Whales as endangered under the state’s Endangered Species Act.

Ten students gave testimony, four individually and the others as two groups of three. They were poised, cited scientific research and talked about the Southern Residents Killer Whales matriarchal cooperative culture.

They interspersed their talks with empathy and compassion towards the killer whales and underscored the urgency that is needed for recovery efforts.

They talked about the 74 orcas being in dangerous decline because of a lack of food, Chinook Salmon, pollution, and noise and disturbance from boats. 

The Southern Resident Killer Whales are found by the mouth of the Columbia River often during the spring feeding on returning spring Chinook salmon.

The sixth to eighth grade students from Portland’s Sunnyside K-8 environmental school are part of an Oceans class where Southern Resident Killer whales are part of this year’s curriculum. 

The students and their teachers met with cetacean and salmon biologists, Tribal representatives and the Endangered Species Coalition’s Pacific Northwest representative. 

While meeting with the Endangered Species Coalition’s staff member they asked questions about both the federal and state endangered species acts and how they could be advocates for these orcas.

They wrote their own testimony and coordinated amongst themselves on who would focus on different parts of the testimony.

As one environmental staffer said, there wasn’t one dry eye at the hearing after they finished

After testifying the students listened to another half hour of other speakers before heading back to their afternoon math class.

The Commissioners later decided to list the Southern Resident Killer Whales as endangered.

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