On June 18, a federal district court in Missoula, Montana will hear arguments in our lawsuit challenging the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) 2024 finding that wolves in the Western U.S. do not warrant listing as an endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). We are arguing that the agency violated the ESA when determining in February 2024 that Western wolves do not need federal protections, and that the USFWS needs to re-analyze threats to gray wolf populations in accordance with the requirements of the ESA. You can watch the court proceedings on Wednesday, June 18 at 9 a.m. MDT at this link. If you’re in the Missoula area, please join us in the courtroom at the Russell Smith Federal Courthouse at 201 E. Broadway in Missoula to show your support for wolves. As you may recall, Congress stripped federal ESA protections for Western wolves in 2011 via an anti-wolf rider attached to a must-pass federal budget bill. This undemocratic rider turned wolf “management” over to the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Not surprisingly, since then state “management” has resulted in widespread slaughter of wolves in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming—including in Wilderness areas and along the border of Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park. These states have allowed some of the most brutal and unethical methods imaginable to kill wolves: aerial gunning, strangulation neck snares, night hunting with night-vision equipment, baiting, bounties for killing pups, and allowing hunters and trappers to kill an unlimited number of wolves. Idaho is even fighting to open airstrips all over the backcountry—including in designated Wilderness—to get more hunters to wipe out wolves in their most remote hideouts. Our lawsuit seeks to put an end to this senseless bloodbath. Joining us on our lawsuit to protect wolves are Western Watersheds Project, Friends of the Clearwater, Trap Free Montana, Protect the Wolves, International Wildlife Coexistence Network, Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, WildEarth Guardians, and Predator Defense. We’re represented by Western Environmental Law Center. Wolves belong, and the Wilderness areas of the Northern Rockies need wolves to truly be wild. While the fight to defend wolves seems never-ending, your support and your actions are more important than ever. Please join us in the courtroom—or virtually—on Wednesday, June 18 at 9 a.m. MDT as we stand together in defense of wolves and Wilderness. | 
