Action timeline

January 4, 1974 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed gray wolves as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

April 1, 2003 – The Service issued a final rule to reclassify and reduce federal protections for northern Rockies gray wolves.

January 31, 2005 – Ending a suit brought by the Center and allies, a federal judge overturned the Service’s 2003 downlisting of the wolves.

June 25, 2007 – The Center and Western Watersheds Project filed suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for failing to assess the ecological impact of a federal sheep-grazing station in Montana and Idaho west of Yellowstone National Park. The USDA Sheep Experiment Station grazes more than 6,000 sheep on more than 100,000 acres of public land, threatening the habitat of northern Rockies gray wolves and other imperiled native species.

January 28, 2008 – Seven conservation organizations, including the Center, sued the Service for adopting a rule allowing the states of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana to kill up to half of the Rocky Mountain wolf population.

February 19, 2008 – The Center’s case against the Department of Agriculture was settled when the Department agreed to assess the ecological impact of its Sheep Experiment Station.

February 27, 2008 – The Service announced the removal of northern Rockies wolves from the endangered species list, to be effective March 28. The Center and 10 allies filed a notice of intent to sue the Service for the decision.

April 28, 2008 – The Center and 11 allies filed suit against the Service for delisting the wolves.

July 18, 2008 – A federal judge issued a temporary injunction restoring northern Rockies gray wolves to the endangered species list pending the conclusion of the lawsuit challenging their delisting.

September 16, 2008 – The Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was giving up its attack on the wolves and withdrawing its rule removing them from the endangered species list.

October 25, 2008 – The Service reopened for public comment its 2007 proposal to delist the wolves.

January 4, 2009 – The Service announced a final rule to remove Endangered Species Act protections from all northern Rockies gray wolves except for those in Wyoming. The rule also stripped protections from gray wolves in the Great Lakes region.

January 20, 2009 – President Barack Obama began his administration by issuing a freeze on publication of federal regulations planned under the Bush administration but not yet published. The move effectively halted the premature removal of gray wolves from the endangered species list.

March 5, 2009 – The Fish and Wildlife Service moved forward with the Bush administration’s plan to remove gray wolves in the northern Rockies and the upper Midwest from the federal Endangered Species list.

March 25, 2009 – In passing the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, Congress approved a demonstration project involving federal compensation for livestock losses to wolves, as well as federal funding for nonlethal activities to reduce the risk of livestock losses to wolves.

April 2, 2009 – The Fish and Wildlife Service’s rule to delist northern Rockies and Great Lakes–region wolves was published in the Federal Register; the Center and allies, represented by Earthjustice, filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue.

May 4, 2009 – The rule removing protections for gray wolves in the northern Rockies, and Great Lakes region officially took effect. The rule also removed federal protections from any wolves residing in a third of eastern Oregon and Washington, as well as a portion of northern Utah.

June 2, 2009 – The Center and allies filed suit to restore Endangered Species Act protections to gray wolves in Idaho and Montana.

August 20, 2009 – The Center and allies requested that a federal district court block wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana. Idaho had authorized the killing of 225 wolves in a hunt to begin Sept. 1; Montana had authorized the killing of 75 wolves in a hunt scheduled for Sept. 15.

September 8, 2009 – A federal district court found that the delisting of northern Rockies wolves was probably illegal, finding merit in our case against the administration for removing the wolves’ protections. However, the judge declined to stop the wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana.

June 2010 – The Center sent a letter to the federal agency Wildlife Services, asking it to withdraw authorization for killing two eastern Oregon wolves because not enough had been done by area ranchers to avoid depredations.

July 1, 2010 – The Center, Cascadia Wildlands,  Hells Canyon Preservation Council and Oregon Wild sued Wildlife Services for its role in killing the two Oregon wolves.

July 2, 2010 – In response to our July 1 lawsuit, Wildlife Services voluntarily agreed not to kill any wolves in Oregon for at least four weeks.

July 20, 2010 – The Center petitioned the Obama administration for a national recovery plan to establish wolf populations in suitable habitat in the Pacific Northwest, California, Great Basin, southern Rocky Mountains, Great Plains and New England.

August 6, 2010 – In response to our lawsuit, a judge reinstated Endangered Species Act protections for northern Rockies gray wolves, ruling that the federal government had illegally subdivided the northern Rockies wolf population when eliminating protections for most of the region’s wolves while allowing them to remain protected in Wyoming.

September 30, 2010 – The Center condemned four newly introduced bills that would strip Endangered Species Act protections from wolves around the country before full recovery.

December 21, 2010 – With no response to our July 20 petition, we filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to establish a national recovery plan for gray wolves.

March 9, 2011 – The Center and 47 other conservation organizations, representing millions of Americans, called on Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.) to use her power as chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to put a stop to legislation removing Endangered Species Act protection for gray wolves.

March 11, 2011 – New federal records were released showing that the number of gray wolves had fallen in 2010, declining from an estimated 1,733 in 2009 to 1,651 in 2010 in the population ranging through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington. The number of breeding pairs also declined from 115 to 111. The decline was largely due to federal trapping and aerial gunning, which killed 260 wolves in 2010.

April 14, 2011 – In part to aid the re-election campaign of Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Congress approved a budget bill including a rider removing wolves in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Utah from the federal endangered species list and setting the stage for near-term delisting in Wyoming.

April 15, 2011 – The Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposal to remove Endangered Species Act protections from gray wolves in the Great Lakes region.

May 4, 2011 – The Fish and Wildlife Service issued rules removing Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon and Washington, and northern Utah.

August 3, 2011 – The Obama administration announced finalization of an agreement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Wyoming Governor Matt Mead whereby the wildlife agency would remove wolves in Wyoming from the federal endangered species list; the state would only be required to keep alive 100 wolves, or 10 breeding pairs, outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

August 3, 2011 – A federal judge denied a challenge brought by the Center and other conservation organizations to a congressional budget rider that stripped Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. The federal judge upheld the constitutionality of the rider but also condemned Congress’s actions as an infringement on the judiciary.

August 11, 2011 – The Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project and Cascadia Wildlands filed an appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the constitutionality of the anti-wolf congressional budget rider.