Yellowstone Gray Wolf Reintroduction

American Farm Bureau Federation et al v. Department of the Interior


Species Background:


Efforts to reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone National Park date back more than twenty years. Gray wolves once ranged over most of the United States but were eliminated from the northern Rockies by the 1930s: The last wolf was eliminated from Yellowstone National Park in 1926.

In 1987, the Fish and Wildlife Service approved a revised Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Pan which established three official wolf recovery areas in the northern Rockies: northwestern Montana, central Idaho, and the Yellowstone ecosystem. Although lone wolves had occasionally been sighted in both central Idaho and Yellowstone for more than twenty years, no evidence of breeding had been documented in these areas. Sixty-six wolves were released into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in 1995 and 1996 under a special designation of the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”).

Case Background:

In December 1994, the American Farm Bureau Federation and other groups in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho sued the Interior Department in an attempt to halt the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and Idaho. Federal District Court in Wyoming permitted reintroduction efforts to proceed while the case was heard but issued a final ruling in 1997 stating that the reintroduction had been illegal and that the wolves should be removed from the Yellowstone and central Idaho ecosystems.

Defenders of Wildlife intervened in the case and appealed to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. In January 2000, the Circuit Court overturned the lower court’s decision. Today, wolf population numbers in the northern Rockies have rebounded with 390 individual in Greater Yellowstone Area, 171 in Northwest Montana and 739 individuals in central Idaho.

Related documents:

Court decision

Co-intervenors:

National Wildlife Federation, Audubon

Status:


Intervenors, Concluded