Wolves

Wolves and humans have a long adversarial history. Though they almost never attack humans, gray wolves do attack domestic animals and livestock – and there has thus been an exaggerated concern about the threat and danger of wolves. Government bounties encouraged the hunting of wolves by any means, including by shooting, trapping, and poisoning. These programs left a legacy of wolf persecution and turned wolves into a feared – even hated – species. In fact, in the lower 48 states, gray wolves were hunted to near extinction (though some populations survived and others were reintroduced). (make highlighted portion into an image)

• Born Free USA helps secure federal protections: In August 2017, a Washington, D.C. appeals court ruled in favor of Born Free USA in striking down the government’s attempt to remove Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections from gray wolves in the Great Lakes region. In 2011, Born Free USA – along with a coalition of animal protection groups – sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) following its decision to remove ESA protections from Great Lakes-area wolves. Immediately following the delisting, officials in three states opened wolf hunting and trapping seasons, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 wolves. Thankfully, in 2014, the D.C. District Court ruled in favor of Born Free USA and our partner organizations, overturning the USFWS delisting decision. The August 2017 ruling by the appeals court reaffirms the 2014 decision, maintaining federal protections for wolves and blocking states from opening sport hunting and commercial trapping seasons that target them.
• Learn more about how Born Free works to end trapping »

The gray wolf has suffered fragmentation and destruction of its habitat, with resulting areas becoming too small for populations to have long-term viability.

Born Free has been successful to date in beating back legislation that would delist wolves in the Great Lakes states and prohibit any further challenge to that delisting in court. In January 2017, several U.S. representatives and senators introduced a bill that would strip gray wolves of their federal protections in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Wyoming. The Gray Wolf State Management Act of 2017 (H.R. 424/S. 164) – commonly called the War on Wolves Act – would hand wolf management back to the very states that have inadequate management plans, as determined by two federal court rulings. Born Free asked our supporters to urge their legislators to oppose this bill (which was also included as riders in fiscal years 2017 and 2018 appropriations legislation). While the standalone bill is still stagnant in Congress, we have been able to prevent it from moving forward – and we successfully removed the riders from the final budgets.

Ethiopian wolves suffer population declines due to lethal diseases carried by domestic dogs, such as rabies and canine distemper. In their stronghold in the Bale Mountains National Park, wolves live in close contact with the Oromo people. While this coexistence is encouraging, it places the wolves at great risk of catching the rabies virus from the dogs the Oromo use to herd livestock. The Bale population is reported to have dropped by 30% from these diseases since 2008.

Ethiopian wolves have suffered habitat loss due to high-altitude subsistence agriculture (which forces the species into higher and higher altitudes) and overgrazing by domestic livestock.

The presence of roads increases the likelihood of this species being killed by vehicles.

This imperiled species has endured population losses due to shooting.

Hybridization through breeding with domestic dogs is a concern for the perpetuation of this species.