TUCSON, AZ – The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a decision the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made last year to not release a national wolf recovery plan, saying the species doesn’t need federal protection.

Tuesday’s lawsuit is the latest legal filing in the saga of whether gray wolves in the United States are still eligible to be listed under the Endangered Species Act, and comes amid efforts by Congress to delist the species through legislation.

Wolves in the United States are managed in three different ways.

Wolves in the Northern Rockies — Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and parts of Washington and Oregon — were removed from the ESA more than a decade ago and are managed by their respective state wildlife agencies, which allow hunting.

A population of wolves in Minnesota are listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, while wolves in the remaining 44 U.S. states are listed as endangered species.

Under the first Trump administration in 2020, FWS had decided to delist gray wolves in the states outside of the northern Rockies, but a federal judge in California reversed that decision in 2022.

The current Trump administration is using the 2020 status review as the basis for its decision not to release a recovery plan, because the species no longer meets ESA requirements.

But the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been the foremost conservation group pursuing legal routes to secure protections for gray wolves, said the move circumvents established law.

“Instead of trying to illegally strip wolves of protections once again, the Fish and Wildlife Service must finally follow the law and develop a plan to achieve nationwide wolf recovery,” Collette Adkins, senior attorney and director of the Center’s Carnivore Conservation program said in a statement. “Wolves are so important to America’s biodiversity and they deserve a plan that guides conservation in places where they’re struggling like the West Coast and southern Rocky Mountains.”

The Center for Biological Diversity has previously sued to get the Service to come up with a comprehensive national recovery plan. In response to a previous settlement, the Biden administration in 2024 announced it would develop the first National Recovery Plan for gray wolves in the Lower 48, which was in the works until the end of the administration.

In a press release, the Center said a recovery plan “should describe actions needed to achieve full recovery of protected species,” but the current recovery plan — from 1992 — only focuses on wolves in Minnesota, failing to address places the species could recover such as the West Coast and southern Rocky Mountains.

Colorado began a wolf recovery program in late 2023, and released additional wolves in 2025.

And during the weekend the L.A. Times reported a wolf was documented in Los Angeles County for the first time in more than a century.

“I’m frustrated we have to go to court yet again to force the Trump administration to do its job and comply with the Endangered Species Act,” Adkins said. “If federal officials would let this landmark law truly work for wolves, we could see these amazing animals start to recover in places they once thrived.”

And in Montana

Montana, which has a wolf population of roughly 1,100, is in the middle of its hunting and trapping season for the species.

Conservation groups had tried to halt the state’s hunting season, saying a new quota established by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ wildlife commission was too high and could lead to devastating population losses.

But a judge in December ruled against the groups, as the season was already underway and citing there wasn’t enough evidence that the season would lead to irreversible drops to the state’s wolf numbers.

According to FWP’s wolf harvest dashboard, 211 wolves have been killed since the general hunting season opened on Sept. 15. The state’s trapping season began Dec. 1 and both seasons run through March 15, 2026.

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This story first appeared on Daily Montanan.