Lawsuit challenges classification of wild red wolves as 'nonessential'

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to classify the wild population of red wolves as “nonessential.”

There are only 13 known wild red wolves in eastern North Carolina, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. The center also states the red wolf is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

“It’s absurd for the Fish and Wildlife Service to conclude that the world’s last wild population of red wolves isn’t essential,” said Perrin de Jong, Southeast staff attorney at the Center. “It’s time for the agency to acknowledge that this persecuted population of endangered wolves is an irreplaceable part of Southeastern ecosystems.

“These severely imperiled animals deserve the highest level of protection.”

Wednesday’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, notes that the Endangered Species Act defines an experimental population as “essential” if the loss of the population would significantly reduce the likelihood of the species’ survival in the wild.

Because the red wolf experimental population is the only wild population of the species, its loss would eliminate the species from the wild.

The suit claims the law compels the federal entity to designate red wolves as “essential” and provide them with greater protections.

The Center for Biological Diversity claims red wolves once roamed the American Southeast and beyond, from Texas to Florida and as far north as New York. The center also claims people killed the predators after the colonization of the Americas until only a handful remained.

“The agency must follow the letter and spirit of the Endangered Species Act and start treating red wolves with the utmost level of care,” de Jong said.

The suit also aims to remove the agency’s rules allowing private landowners to shoot red wolves.

Wednesday’s lawsuit challenges the denial of a January 2023 petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity.

The petition, which began in 2016, sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sought to reclassify red wolves as “essential” and eliminate allowances for private landowners to kill non-offending wolves.

In 1995, the agency created allowances for private landowners to kill red wolves. In 1986, the service established an experimental population of red wolves in North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and designated it as “nonessential.”

Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a red wolf recovery plan that calls for important conservation measures, including the establishment of new wolf populations and a reduction in human-caused wolf deaths.

The analysis found the endangered red wolf can survive in the wild, but only with “significant additional management intervention."

Specifically, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's recovery plan is for “Canis rufus” — the only wolf species unique to the United States. It calls for spending nearly $328 million over the next 50 years to get the red wolf off the endangered species list.