Ninth Circuit weighs appeals over Trump-era gray wolf delisting and habitat rulings

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing three separate appeals arising from 14 lawsuits that target federal actions weakening gray-wolf protections. One appeal seeks to overturn a district-court order that stopped the Trump administration’s 2020 effort to delist the species nationwide. A second challenges the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision not to relist the northern Rocky Mountain population, while a third disputes the agency’s classification of Mexican gray-wolf habitat in Arizona and New Mexico as “nonessential.”

Government attorneys argue the species is no longer at risk, whereas NGOs such as Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Biological Diversity contend that smaller and emerging populations still require Endangered Species Act safeguards. The panel, including Judges Daniel Bress, Carlos Bea and Richard C. Tallman, has not set a date for rulings. If the delistings stand, monitoring would continue for five years and the BLM would treat wolves as a “sensitive species.”