On November 6, 2020, The Lands Council, along with partnering conservation organizations, filed a Notice of Intent to sue the US Fish and Wildlife Service and its parent agency the Department of the Interior for violations of the Endangered Species Act and its implementing regulations with regard to the Service’s November 3, 2020 final rule Removing the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife.

Gray wolves were among the first species granted federal protections, first under the legislative predecessors to the ESA –– the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 and the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969. The gray wolf is still recovering across much of the contiguous United States as it attempts to reestablish itself across its historical range, and as such, a determination that the wolf has recovered is premature. The gray wolf is still functionally extinct in 90 percent of its historic range, including many parts of Washington, and 70 percent of suitable gray wolf habitat throughout the lower 48 remains unoccupied. In the Pacific-west, the gray wolf maintains state endangered status in Washington and California but has lost those protections in Oregon. Gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming lost protections in 2011.