Judicial Watch: Another Chance for Red Wolves

The wild red wolf won a major victory in federal court this month.

U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle of the Eastern District of North Carolina ruled for wildlife conservationists and against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) on a series of agency orders which would have doomed the red wolf recovery effort to extinction. The permanently blocked orders would have greatly shrunk the wolves’ protected range, and authorized unregulated trapping and killing outside that range.

Strong public comment overwhelmingly supported protecting the wolves’ recovery efforts — over 78% of the comments from the wolves’ current five-county area, and over 99% of the more than 108,000 total public comments.

Even Gov. Roy Cooper wrote in support of continuing the wolves’ protection in their larger five-county range.

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) brought the litigation challenging the USFWS’s proposed changes, on behalf of the Red Wolf Coalition, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Animal Welfare Institute.

Up next, Final Counts Confirm Supermajorities Are Gone >>

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