Wolf recovery began in 1974, when the gray wolf was listed as Endangered under the new Endangered Species Act. Per federal law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was mandated to form a recovery plan for the species. The possibility of reintroducing wolves to some parts of their former range had been suggested as early as 1947, and Yellowstone National Park was put forth as the most likely site for this. However, any wolf reintroduction efforts would be years in the making. Meanwhile, in 1979, wolves slowly began moving into northern Montana. These wolves, known as the Magic Pack, inhabited the edge of Glacier National Park. Recovery began slowly. A number of newly returned wolves got into trouble with livestock. The first recorded wolf den in the western United States would not be discovered until 1986. As time went on, livestock conflicts and illegal killings kept the recovering Montana wolf population low. In the early 1990’s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, under pressure from conservation groups, finalized a reintroduction plan aimed at restoring sizeable gray wolf populations to the Northern Rockies. Approved by the Clinton Administration amid strong controversy, the reintroduction efforts began in the winter of 1995. Eighteen wolves were captured near Hinton, Alberta. Whole packs were destined for Yellowstone, single wolves went to Idaho. On January 12, 1995, after court battles, protests and threats of violence, the first wolves were driven through Yellowstone’s famous Roosevelt Arch and taken by mule-drawn sled to waiting acclimation pens. Two days later in Idaho, the first four wolves were released at Corn Creek, on the edge of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. Over the next two years, a total of 66 wolves would be released into the Northern Rockies.
Over the next 15 years, the reintroduced wolves did better than anyone could have expected. By 2010, an estimated 1,600 wolves inhabited the Northern Rockies. In the Midwest, wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan made an impressive rebound. In 2009, under pressure from ranching and hunting interests, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began the process to remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List. Leading scientists and conservation groups decried the move, accusing the USFWS of using bad science and caving to political pressure and of ignoring the usual process of delisting, one that gradually relaxed protections, from Endangered to Threatened, and then to state management, with a five-year moratorium on hunting or taking and careful population monitoring. Instead, the USFWS handed over management of wolves to the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, with little restrictions. In 2009, these states held the first wolf hunts in the Lower 48 in 40 years. Conservation groups turned to the courts for help, and in 2010, a federal judge ruled that the USFWS had acted rashly in delisting the wolf. Federal protections were restored, for a time. In 2011, after several failed attempts at passing delisting legislation, Senator John Testor (D-Montana) attached a rider to a must-pass budget bill that would strip federal protections from the gray wolf in the states of Idaho and Montana. In complying with the new law, the USFWS also removed protections for wolves in the Midwest states of Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. Wolves in Wyoming remained under federal protections for another year, until the state drafted a management plan. in 2011, wolf hunts resumed, with deadly effect. By 2014, an estimated 3,200 wolves have been killed in the Northern Rockies states alone.
Most recently, two lawsuits spearheaded by The Humane Society of the United States and Defenders of Wildlife have restored federal Endangered Species protections to wolves in Wyoming and the Midwest. The delisting rider for Montana and Idaho contained language that prevents judicial review. Currently, a delegation from Wyoming has gone to Washington D.C. in an attempt to pass another bill to remove protections from Wyoming wolves.
Wolves in California 