Feds say wolverine doesn’t warrant listing, lawsuit promised

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last week said the wolverine did not warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Listing of the wolverine, which dens in brush and snags under deep snows, has been a battle between environmental groups and the federal government for years, with plenty of lawsuits sprinkled in between.

The latest announcement promised another round of legal action.

“This is yet another chapter in this administration’s war on science,” Matthew Bishop, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center said after the announcement. “Public records reveal the Service decided not to protect wolverine from day one and then worked backwards to figure out how to make the decision stick. It’s really unfortunate.”

In April 2016, a federal judge sided with WELC and the conservation groups it represented, agreeing that the Service’s August 2014 decision not to list wolverine as threatened was arbitrary and contrary to the scientific literature.

The court held: “[T]he Service’s decision against listing the wolverine as threatened under the ESA is arbitrary and capricious. No greater level of certainty is needed to see the writing on the wall for this snow-dependent species standing squarely in the path of global climate change. It has taken us 20 years to get to this point. It is the [court’s] view that if there is one thing required of the Service under the ESA, it is to take action

at the earliest possible, defensible point in time to protect against the loss of biodiversity within our reach as a nation. For the wolverine, that time is now.”

The wolverine could be threatened by climate change, as warmer winters have, in some places, reduced the amount of snowpack. Without snow, wolverines dens would be exposed, environmental groups maintain.

There’s about 250 to 300 wolverines in the Lower 48. The state of Montana banned trapping wolverines a few years ago.

“The best available science show that the factors affecting wolverine populations are not as significant as believed in 2013 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to list the wolverine found in the contiguous United States as threatened. New research and analysis show that wolverine populations in the American Northwest remain stable, and individuals are moving across the Canadian border in both directions and returning to former territories,” the Service said in a release. The Service also claimed that the wolverine in the Lower 48 was not a “distinct population segment” which would make it easier to list under the ESA.

“Wolverines in the lower 48 states do not qualify as a distinct population segment and they are instead an extension of the population of wolverines found further north,” the Service said.

The matter is headed back to court. “Recent scientific information makes clear that wolverines face threats from destruction of their snowy habitat due to climate change,” Earthjustice attorney Timothy Preso said. “We intend to take action to make sure that the Trump administration’s disregard of the real impacts of climate change does not doom the wolverine to extinction in the Lower 48 states.” Earthjustice will represent a coalition of conservation groups — the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Northwest, Defenders of Wildlife, Friends of the Clearwater, Idaho Conservation League, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Rocky Mountain Wild.