January, 03 2021, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Samantha Bruegger, WildEarth Guardians, 970-363-4191, sbruegger@wildearthguardians.org
Lindsay Larris, WildEarth Guardians, 310-923-1465, llarris@wildearthguardians.org
Gray Wolves Lose Federal Endangered Species Act Protections
WildEarth Guardians mourns loss of protections for all gray wolves across the lower 48 and vows legal action.
WASHINGTON
Today, the Trump administration's decision to prematurely strip gray wolves of federal Endangered Species Act protections takes effect. The decision, first announced on October 29, 2020, applies to all gray wolves in the lower 48 states despite the lack of scientific evidence showing true recovery across gray wolves' historic range. Starting today, management of wolf populations will return to individual state wildlife agencies, some of which are already reinstating hunting and trapping season on wolves.
"Tragically, we know how this will play out when states 'manage' wolves, as we have seen in the northern Rocky Mountain region in which they were previously delisted," stated Samantha Bruegger, wildlife coexistence campaigner for WildEarth Guardians. "In Idaho, nearly 600 wolves were brutally killed in a one-year span from 2019-2020, including dozens of wolf pups. Last year in Washington, the state slaughtered an entire pack of wolves due to supposed conflicts with ranching interests. Without federal protections, wolves are vulnerable to the whims and politics of state management."
According to data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), there are only 108 wolves in Washington state, 158 in Oregon, and a scant 15 in California. Nevada, Utah, and Colorado have had a few wolf sightings over the past three years, but wolves remain functionally extinct in these states. These meager numbers lay the groundwork for a legal challenge planned by WildEarth Guardians with a coalition of conservation groups to be filed later this month.
"The delisting of gray wolves is the latest causality of the Trump administration's willful ignorance of the biodiversity crisis and scientific facts," said Lindsay Larris, wildlife program director at WildEarth Guardians. "Even with Trump's days in office dwindling, the long-term impact of illegitimate decisions like the wolf delisting will take years to correct. Guardians is committed to challenging this decision in court, while working across political channels to ensure wolves receive as much protection as possible at the state level in the interim."
In delisting wolves, USFWS ignores the science showing they are not recovered in the West. The USFWS concluded that because in its belief there are sufficient wolves in the Great Lakes states, it does not matter that wolves in the West are not yet recovered. The ESA demands more, including restoring the species in the ample suitable habitats afforded by the wild public lands throughout the West. Wolves only occupy a small portion of available, suitable habitat in Oregon and Washington, and remain absent across vast swaths of their historical habitat in the West, including in Colorado and the southern Rockies.
BACKGROUND: The state of Idaho offers a perfect example of what state "management" of wolves may look like across the American West. According to an analysis of records obtained by Western Watersheds Project, hunters, trappers, and state and federal agencies killed 570 wolves in Idaho during a 12-month period from July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020. Included in the mortality are at least 35 wolf pups, some weighing less than 16 pounds and likely only 4 to 6 weeks old. Some of the wolves shattered teeth trying to bite their way out of traps, others died of hyperthermia in traps set by the U.S.D.A. Wildlife Services, and more were gunned down in aerial control actions. The total mortality during this period represented nearly 60 percent of the 2019 year-end estimated Idaho wolf population.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) recently announced it had awarded approximately $21,000 in "challenge grants" to the north Idaho-based Foundation 4 Wildlife Management, which reimburses wolf trappers a bounty up to $1,000 per wolf killed. The Foundation also has received funding for wolf bounties from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. A single individual may now kill up to 30 wolves under IDFG hunting and trapping rules--a new increase from the 20 wolves previously allowed.
WildEarth Guardians protects and restores the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West. Driven by passion, we've tackled some of the West's most difficult and pressing conservation challenges over the past three decades. We've celebrated small victories (banning leghold trapping in the state of Colorado), monumental triumphs (ending logging on more than 21 million acres in the Southwest), and everything in-between.
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As Deadly Heatwave Scorches Europe, Fossil Fuel Giants 'Have Blood on Their Hands'
"Stop fossil fuel giants from turning up the heat on our planet—and make them pay for the damage they are causing," one campaigner told lawmakers.
Jun 23, 2026
Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Belgium, and other European countries were under red-alert warnings on Tuesday as an alarmingly early heatwave continued to scorch the continent, underscoring the threat posed by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis.
Météo-France, the country's official meteorological administration, said Tuesday that "further record-breaking temperatures are expected, including some that could surpass all previous records, regardless of the time of year," as "sunshine continues to dominate across France, maintaining oppressive and exhausting heat throughout the country." In recent days, France has recorded dozens of deaths linked to the extreme temperatures, including two were children who died in a hot car and 40 people who drowned seeking relief from the heat.
“Heat is hurting children across Europe," Matilde Angeltveit, senior adviser and global climate advocacy lead at Save the Children, said Tuesday. "It affects their health and it is disrupting their education and the impact can sometimes be long term. This should be a joyous time as many children across Europe wrap up the school year, but for many it is not."
Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service said that while the ongoing heatwave is "remarkable for occurring so early in the year, this event is consistent with Europe’s rapid warming and with the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves already observed in summer."
"Europe is the fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising by approximately 0.56°C per decade since the mid-1990s, more than double the global average," Copernicus noted.
Reuters observed Tuesday that Europe "was the continent furthest above its historic temperature norm on Monday."
"Heatwaves are no longer freak weather anomalies. They are now a recurring crisis inflicting suffering, claiming lives and fracturing our health systems and infrastructure," said Hans Kluge, European regional director for the World Health Organization, which estimates that extreme heat has killed more than 200,000 people across Europe over the past four years.
Campaigners said the current heatwave marks the latest evidence of governments' failure to rein in the fossil fuel industry, which has raked in massive profits this year thanks to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
"This isn’t a natural disaster," said Aaron Regunberg, director of the Climate Accountability Project at the US-based advocacy group Public Citizen, which declared in response to the European heatwave that Big Oil "has blood on its hands."
"The fossil fuel industry’s pollution and decades of deception about the impact of burning fossil fuels has spurred this extreme heat, which has already killed multiple people," said Regunberg. "Decades ago, scientists at Exxon were discussing with other oil companies research connecting climate change with ‘suffering and death due to thermal extremes.’ These companies knew of evidence that their conduct would cause these harms, and orchestrated campaigns of climate denial to undermine that evidence. They should be held accountable.”
Areeba Hamid, the co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said political leaders "need to stop winging it on extreme weather and start treating it as the security and public health challenge it is."
"When classrooms become ovens, care homes overheat, transport starts to buckle and workers are forced to toil in dangerous temperatures, it’s clear the country isn’t ready," said Hamid. "Adaptation alone won’t be enough. Ministers must also stop fossil fuel giants from turning up the heat on our planet—and make them pay for the damage they are causing."
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'Humiliating String of Defeats' Threatens Trump's Plot to Rig 2026 Midterms: Election Expert
"As Republican electoral prospects wane, Trump will grow more desperate, and that desperation will lead to even more extreme actions by the administration."
Jun 23, 2026
President Donald Trump's unprecedented efforts to rig the 2026 midterm elections are on thin ice after having been repeatedly thwarted by courts, according to election law attorney Marc Elias.
In a Monday analysis published by Democracy Docket, Elias noted that the US Department of Justice has seen its attempts to obtain states' voter files shot down in court nine different times, most recently by a federal judge in Maryland who ruled the state was under no obligation to hand its voter file to the federal government.
Elias wrote that Trump needs states' voter files to build a national voter database, which would allow his administration to pick and choose which voters are eligible to participate in future elections and which should be purged.
"The problem for Trump is that his Department of Justice keeps losing cases that it needs to access this critical data," Elias explained. "This humiliating string of defeats threatens to derail Trump’s signature plan to subvert the 2026 midterm elections."
Trump will also have difficulty blaming these court losses on left-wing judges, Elias added, because Trump-appointed judges have been responsible for more than half of the defeats the DOJ has suffered, which he described as "nothing short of a debacle."
Elias, whose law firm has been involved in trying to block the DOJ from accessing voter files, said it was worth celebrating the latest victory over the Trump administration, but he warned that more fights are coming.
"As Republican electoral prospects wane, Trump will grow more desperate," he wrote, "and that desperation will lead to even more extreme actions by the administration. It will also require much more litigation."
Trump earlier this year signed an executive order instructing the United States Postal Service to not deliver ballots in any states that have not given the federal government access to its voter lists.
The order, currently being challenged in court by congressional Democrats and all 23 Democratic state attorneys general, could essentially eliminate mail-in voting in the US, opponents have warned.
CNN on Monday reported that the administration is also trying to squeeze states into changing their election laws by withholding "tens of millions of dollars in federal homeland security funds" from states unless they phase out specified electronic voting systems and move back to relying on paper ballots.
States wanting to receive funding must also "run their voter rolls through a controversial Department of Homeland Security citizenship verification database," CNN reported.
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Platner Says Collins Is 'Lying Through Her Teeth' in Her Latest Defense of Kavanaugh Vote
Republican Sen. Susan Collins falsely said the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a 6-3 vote.
Jun 23, 2026
US Sen. Susan Collins on Monday faced backlash, including from the Democratic candidate trying to unseat her, for falsely stating that the Supreme Court ruling overturning the federal right to abortion was decided 6-3 and that Justice Brett Kavanaugh was not a pivotal vote.
In a newly aired Fox News interview, Collins (R-Maine) said she "disagreed with the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, but the fact is, whether Justice Kavanaugh were confirmed or not, Roe v. Wade would have been overturned, given the 6-3 vote." The vote to overturn Roe, ending the constitutional right to abortion, was in fact 5-4, with Kavanaugh joining the majority despite Collins' repeated insistence during the judge's Senate confirmation process that he would not support toppling critical precedents.
“Susan Collins is lying through her teeth," Graham Platner, the Republican incumbent's Democratic challenger, said in a statement. "Roe v. Wade was not overturned 6-3. That is a lie. It was 5-4. Brett Kavanaugh was the deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, and Susan Collins was the deciding vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court."
"And let’s be very clear: Everyone knew that Brett Kavanaugh would overturn Roe," Platner continued. "She can lie and say she was misled. She can claim she’s disappointed. But the reality is, she knew exactly why Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh—and she voted to confirm him anyway."
She's lying. Roe was overturned 5-4. Kavanaugh was the deciding vote. Susan Collins is responsible. https://t.co/kV0viaPq9t
— Demand Justice (@WeDemandJustice) June 22, 2026
Collins said last week that she doesn't regret voting to confirm Kavanaugh in 2018, despite the devastating impact of the high court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. A new analysis by the National Partnership for Women & Families found that "more than 47 million women of reproductive age live in states with clinic closures" or "states that have attacked access to medication abortion" in the aftermath of Dobbs.
Earlier on Monday, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) endorsed Platner's campaign to deny Collins a sixth Senate term, noting that "in the four years since the Supreme Court ended the federal right to an abortion, the Trump administration and its backers in Congress and the states have repeatedly weaponized Dobbs and attacked reproductive healthcare."
“President Trump and his allies are using every lever of power at their disposal to make it harder for people to get the care they need, including by attempting to permanently ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood," said Alexis McGill Johnson, PPAF's president and CEO. "Mainers deserve a senator they can trust to have their backs at every turn. It is clear that is not Susan Collins."
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