Judge Rules Feds Improperly Refused to Protect Wolverines 

Submitted by Brian Sweeney, Communications Director with the Western Environmental Law Center, Taos, N.M.

MISSOULA – On April 4 the federal district court for Montana rejected a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) to deny protections for wolverines in the contiguous U.S. The court ruled the Service improperly ignored science and violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA). A broad coalition of conservation organizations challenged the Service's refusal to protect imperiled wolverines by listing them under the ESA.

Wolverine number just 250-300 individuals in the contiguous U.S. and are dependent on high elevation habitat with deep winter snows. Imperiled by climate change, habitat loss and trapping, wolverine were first petitioned for ESA protections in 2000. The Service found the petition did not contain adequate information to justify a listing.

A federal court overturned that decision in 2006. The Service then issued a negative 12-month finding in 2008, which was challenged in court resulting in a settlement that led to a new finding that wolverine should be protected under the ESA but that other priorities precluded the listing at that time. A landmark settlement with WildEarth Guardians, which resolves the backlog of imperiled species awaiting protections, then guaranteed a new finding for wolverine.

In February 2013, the Service proposed listing the wolverine as "threatened" under the ESA. In August 2014, however, the Service reversed course and issued a decision not to list the species, contradicting its own expert scientists' recommendations. The April ruling is in response to the organizations' legal challenge to that decision.

"Today's win is a victory not just for wolverine but for all species whose fate relies on the scientific integrity of the Fish and Wildlife Service," said Bethany Cotton, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians. "We call on the agency to stop playing politics and start living up to its mandate to protect our country's most imperiled species."

Often called "southern polar bears," wolverines are custom built for cold, snowy climates and depend on areas with spring snow for denning and year-round habitat. Science shows climate change may eliminate nearly two-thirds of the snowy habitat needed by wolverines in the contiguous U.S. within 75 years.

The Service originally identified climate change, in conjunction with small population size, as the primary threat to wolverine existence in the contiguous U.S. Published, peer-reviewed research, the larger scientific community – including the Society for Conservation Biology – an independent scientific panel, the majority of experts who reviewed the decision, and the Service's own biologists all verified this finding.

The court noted that the ESA directs the Service to make listing decisions based on the best available science, not the best possible science. This means the agency cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good. Instead, it must use and rely on the best science available when making listing decisions, which it failed to do in this case.

"The court sent a clear message to the Service: don't let politics trump science," said Matthew Bishop, a Western Environmental Law Center attorney who represented the conservation groups. "The Service cannot ignore the published literature and advice of its own biologists when making important listing decisions."

The ruling requires the Service to make a new final listing determination for wolverines. The ruling also restores the Service's proposed rule to list wolverine and the wolverine's status as a candidate species under the ESA.

"We hope the Fish and Wildlife Service wastes no more time in granting wolverines Endangered Species Act protection," said Keith Hammer, chair of Swan View Coalition. "This rare species deserves all the help it can get as we hit record-setting temperatures here in Montana."

"Wolverines deserve protection, not political shenanigans," said Arlene Montgomery of Friends of the Wild Swan. "The Fish and Wildlife Service must now do its job to protect and recover this imperiled animal."

"It is reassuring to know that our court system is doing its job, even while other branches of government flounder," said Larry Campbell of Friends of the Bitterroot. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is apparently willing to illegally sacrifice an awesome species and good science while ineptly playing politics. Go wolverines!"