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.

Feb 12, 2025

Contact: Susan Holmes- (202)329-1553 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Wednesday, reports emerged that Donald Trump has nominated former Wyoming Game and Fish Director Brian Nevsik as the next Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Nesvik’s nomination has been referred to the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the federal agency charged with protecting endangered species and migratory birds and manages nearly 860 million acres of national wildlife refuges. Roughly 8,000 people work to carry out its mission to “conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats…”

Statement by Susan Holmes, Executive Director 

“Nesvik’s nomination is devastating news for wildlife and endangered species. During his time as Director of Wyoming Fish and Game, he repeatedly called for weakening the Endangered Species Act, oversaw a 50% increase in hunting tags for mountain lions and black bears, and testified before the U.S. Congress that grizzly bears should lose endangered species protections, “by whatever means is necessary.” Last year, his Commission received global condemnation for imposing only a minimal fine when a Wyoming man used a snowmobile to run down and brutally torture a young female wolf. There is no doubt that if confirmed as Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, he will do the Trump Administration’s bidding to advance unchecked drilling, mining, and logging of fragile wildlife habitats. He will sacrifice our precious endangered species for industry profits at every turn. It will be a war on wildlife that will wreak havoc on the protection and recovery of species from grizzlies to sea turtles to monarch butterflies.”

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Contact: Ryan Sedgeley,rsedgeley@endangered.org

Wolf Restoration Film Welcome Home Wins Best Conservation Film at The Portland EcoFilm Festival

Montrose, CO – January 28, 2025—The Endangered Species Coalition with Reel Earth Films is thrilled to announce that our short documentary film, Welcome Home, has been awarded the Best Conservation Film at the prestigious Portland EcoFilm Festival! This honor celebrates the powerful storytelling and impactful message behind our film, which tells the story of how people across Colorado are working together to make gray wolf restoration a success.

Welcome Home celebrates the reintroduction of wolves to Colorado. When the people of Colorado voted to return wolves to the state, they set in motion a unique conservation success story. The film shows the value of returning this historic carnivore and how people and wildlife can live together. 

Alan Lacy, director of Welcome Home, expressed their gratitude: “When we set out to produce “Welcome Home,” our goal was to create a film that not only captured this monumental moment for conservation in Colorado but to celebrate the decision of the people within the state to bring back wolves. Winning Best Conservation Film at the Portland EcoFilm Festival extends this celebration as a victory for wolves returning to their native habitat, and it’s truly an honor to continue this celebration as part of this year’s festival.” The Portland EcoFilm Festival is one of the leading showcases for films that focus on environmental and conservation themes, attracting filmmakers and audiences from around the globe. Winning this award underscores the importance and urgency of the issues presented in Welcome Home and highlights its ability to resonate deeply with viewers.

The Endangered Species Coalition and Reel Earth Films would like to thank the festival organizers, judges, and our incredible team of collaborators, including The Volgenau Foundation, Associate Producer Alana Helapitage, Cinematographer Chris Fischer, and Writer and Editor Patrick Lehr. Most importantly, we extend our gratitude to the communities and individuals who shared their stories and inspired this work.

As part of the momentum from this award, we are excited to announce that the film can be viewed at select film festivals across the world, with a public release planned for 2025. We invite everyone to join us in spreading awareness of this conservation success and driving positive change for the future of our wildlife.

For more information about Welcome Home, including upcoming events and how to support its mission, please visit endangered.org/welcomehome.

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The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) has lost its way on wolf protection. The agency recently announced that it was joining with the National Rifle Association and a trophy-hunting lobbyist group in going to court once again to defend the Trump Administration’s nationwide delisting of gray wolves.

Make a tax-deductible gift today to hold the USFWS responsible for doing the work.

This whiplash decision after they announced a year ago they will create a national wolf recovery plan is troubling. And the Administration’s partnership with groups who routinely oppose conservation and wildlife protections is a grave concern.

The path that the agency is choosing would give up on what has been one of the world’s greatest conservation successes. We should all beam with pride at bringing wolves back from the edge of extinction.We began to right a wrong and have made real progress. But that work is nowhere near complete.

Wolves have been restored to a fraction of their former range. By the most forgiving interpretation, wolves occupy less than 10% of their former habitat.¹ That success rate would not be acceptable in any other place in any other job and it is not acceptable here. The agency can’t just move on because they do not want to do the work.

What the USFWS is saying is that wolves no longer need the protections of the Endangered Species Act, now that they believe that they have recovered in three states: Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. While we question their assertion that wolves in those states should be without protections (and have fought to restore them), the suggestion that we can call this job done everywhere else is ridiculous. And they are making that argument in court, with the NRA and trophy hunting lobbyists, in defense of a Trump Administration rule that another court already overturned.

Keep the Endangered Species Coalition fighting for wolves until the job is finished with your gift today.

This Administration has made a number of curious and sometimes troubling decisions around endangered species protections. This decision is among the worst. By defending the Trump delisting rule that a court already rejected and overturned, the agency is paving the way for more wolf killing–wolves will die by bullet, trap, and brutal neck snares if the USFWS, NRA, and trophy hunters succeed.

Unlike the USFWS, we won’t quit on wolves. We hope you won’t either.Please make a gift today to keep the pressure on this once-proud agency to do the work.

Thank you for your commitment to wildlife and wild places.

Sincerely,

Susan Holmes
Executive Director
Endangered Species Coalition
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PS. Links not working? Please support our wolf-saving work at this URL: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/wolfusfws

1. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/gray_wolves/

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Contact: Susan Holmes sholmes@endangered.org, (202) 329-1553

Trump-era Rule Would Halt Ongoing Wolf Recovery Across the U.S.

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) filed an appeal on Friday, seeking to overturn a 2022 district court decision that reinstated Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves across most of the U.S. If the government’s appeal to the 9th circuit is successful, a Trump-era rule removing federal protections for gray wolves would be reinstated, robbing the species of important tools and protections that are key to conservation and recovery efforts. 

“Endangered Species Act protections remain key to ensuring gray wolves return to the American landscape where they belong,” said Endangered Species Coalition Executive Director Susan Holmes, “It is bewildering that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is doubling down on the Trump Administration policy that would undermine wolf recovery. This faulty interpretation of the Endangered Species Act would halt wolf recovery in its tracks. We urge the Service to continue gray wolf recovery efforts, and we remain committed to working with them on a vision for recovery.” 

Historically, gray wolves numbered in the tens of thousands, but now there are less than 5,000 in the Lower 48, in just a few Western states. A successful USFWS-led restoration effort in the mid-1990s, in partnership with Nez Perce Tribe, brought wolves back throughout the N. Rockies region, and a voter-initiated effort to restore the species to Colorado has just begun. Other areas of suitable habitat in the U.S. do not yet have an established population of gray wolves yet. According to a recent poll by the National Parks Conservation Association, 84 percent of Americans support returning wolves to suitable national park landscapes in the Lower 48. 

The Service announced in February that they would do a first-ever recovery plan, as part of a settlement agreement for a separate court case. If the government is successful in reinstating the Trump delisting rule, it is possible that the USFWS would abandon those efforts. 

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Help the Endangered Species Coalition work on the ground in Montana to establish new protections for wolves around Yellowstone National Park. Your gift today to keep wolves safe will be matched by a generous donor.

Wyoming and Idaho have rightfully received much of the recent attention for their gruesome wolf killing programs. The number of wolves in Idaho dropped by more than 10 percent last year–and the state intends to kill as many as 60 percent of its wolves–leaving just 500 in the whole state.

In Wyoming, wolves can be killed without limit in 85 percent of the state. These pro-killing policies encouraged the recent torture and killing of a wolf in that state. Her brutal death at the hands of a snowmobile rider who paraded her around a local pub before killing her behind the establishment may finally lead to a ban on intentionally killing animals with snowmobiles. But there is an enormous amount of resistance to that change and work to be done to achieve it.

Montana has done little to discourage similar intolerance and killing and is proposing allowing up to 334 wolves to be killed in the coming year, an increase of two dozen over last year.

Help us fight to stop the wolf killing regimes with a gift during our Summer Match Campaign. Your gift will be matched by a generous donor giving you twice the wolf-saving impact.

Our Montana Representative is working to protect wolves everywhere but the immediate need is keeping wolves safe around Yellowstone National Park. Last winter, 13 wolves were killed and three of Yellowstone’s 11 packs were torn apart.These wolves are national treasures who draw visitors from around the globe.

The Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park recently asked¹ the state of Montana to do more to keep wolves safe when they cross the invisible border and step out of the park. We are asking Montana to do even more to keep Yellowstone wolves safe and organizing supporters to pressure Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission to act. Yellowstone’s wolves–all wolves–deserve to live wild lives free of the gruesome threats of neck snares, indiscriminate traps, and trophy hunters.

Please make a gift today to help us continue to work to protect wolves and a generous donor will match it dollar for dollar doubling your impact up to our campaign goal of $30,000. We are almost halfway there and need your help to close that gap.

Thank you for your commitment to wildlife and wild places.

Sincerely,

Susan Holmes
Executive Director
Endangered Species Coalition
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PS. Are the links not working? Please make your gift at this URL: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/wolfmatch2024

1. https://wyofile.com/yellowstone-superintendent-seeks-hunting-relief-for-wolves-after-another-deadly-winter/

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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.

The post WIN in Washington state! Wolves to remain protected as endangered appeared first on Endangered Species Coalition.

Make a gift to protect wolves and it will be matched dollar-for-dollar.

As the Executive Director of the Endangered Species Coalition, I am reaching out to you today with both a sense of urgency and hope. After years of conservation efforts, wolves have begun to return to their former homes. The first litter of pups has been born to the wolves reintroduced in Colorado and California has seven confirmed wolf packs. Yet, even as we celebrate this progress, their kin faces dire challenges in the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies, where threats loom.

That is why this summer, with your support, we are ramping up our efforts. We have initiated a new national campaign to stop the epidemic of cruelty and killing and to advocate for a strong National Gray Wolf Recovery Plan that will ensure wolves return to their rightful place on the American landscape.

Like me, you know that protecting and recovering wolves is more than just a cause–it’s a testament to our commitment to preserving the rich tapestry of life on our planet. That’s why I’m excited to share our Summer Matching Campaign for Wolves with you. Thanks to a generous donor, every gift you make will be matched, doubling your impact in our fight to safeguard wolves and other endangered species.

Donate now and have your gift matched to protect wolves!

But our work to save wolves cannot succeed without your generous support. Your gift today will fuel our advocacy and help to ensure wolves can thrive in their natural habitats without the shadow of extinction.

Join other supporters in making a stand for wolves. Imagine a future where the howls of wolves in the wild are not just echoes of the past but a living, breathing part of our natural world. With your donation, we can turn this vision into reality.

Make a gift now, and it will be matched dollar-for-dollar doubling your impact to save wolves.

By supporting the Endangered Species Coalition, you’re not just giving to an organization; you’re joining a community dedicated to making a lasting difference. Together, we can begin to overcome the challenges wolves face and ensure they remain a symbol of wilderness for future generations.

Thank you for your support and for standing with us in our campaign to protect and restore gray wolves.

With gratitude,

Susan Holmes
Executive Director
Endangered Species Coalition

P.S. Remember, your gift will be matched during our Summer Matching Campaign, amplifying your impact for wolves in Colorado and beyond. Don’t wait – act now to protect these incredible animals. (Make your matched donation here!)

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Denver, Colo. – Celebrate Colorado’s historic wolf reintroduction at the world premiere of the Endangered Species Coalition’s new film, Welcome Home. This beautiful, moving 20-minute documentary tells the story of wolves’ return to Colorado and how wildlife and people can live together in a state that cares for both.

WHAT:           Welcome Home—documentary film on wolf restoration, followed by panel discussion with filmmaker and wolf experts. Reception to follow.
WHERE:         Sie Film Center, 2510 E. Colfax Ave.
WHEN:           Thursday, July 18. 7:00pm (Doors open at 6:00pm)
WHO:             Endangered Species Coalition and Reel Earth Films
HOW:             Free–Limited seating—CLICK HERE to RSVP and to view the trailer

From time immemorial the family of people, wolves, and fire shared our world—until the 1940’s, when the last remaining gray wolves in Colorado were shot, trapped, and poisoned out of existence. In November 2020, the citizens of Colorado voted to restore wolves to the state. Three years later, in December 2023, state wildlife officials welcomed gray wolves home to Colorado by releasing the first of ten wolves into the wild.

“Welcome Home” celebrates the developing story of wolf reintroduction to Colorado. This incredible conservation success story in-the-making is unique in the world in that direct democracy led to the restoration of this iconic North American native carnivore. “Welcome Home,” includes interviews with biologists, ranchers, wildlife professionals, Native Americans, hunters, and of course, wolf advocates.

Welcome Home is directed by Alan Lacy, founder of Reel Earth Films. Alan’s first film, “Gray Area: Wolves of the Southwest” is an award-winning documentary that has screened internationally. Alan’s work has aired on National Geographic, Disney+, and PBS Nature, with more upcoming work soon to air on the BBC. The Coalition will host a reception in the theater immediately following the film and panel discussion.

Learn more about the film at https://www.endangered.org/welcomehome/

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