The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today for failing to designate critical habitat for wolverines in a timely manner. Wolverines were protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2023, but still haven’t received protections for the places they live. “The Fish and Wildlife Service’s delay in protecting the wild places that wolverines call home threatens to push them closer to extinction,” said Andrea Zaccardi, carnivore conservation legal director at the Center. “In the face of climate change, it’s crucial to protect the rugged, snowy areas that the wolverine needs to survive.”

The County Administrative Board in Jämtland decided at the end of August that 25 wolverines may be hunted until 31 December. Last year, the number of wolverines in the county was estimated to be 290 adult individuals, where the minimum level for the stock to be sustainable is 176, according to the County Administrative Board. The Swedish Predator Association appealed the decision, arguing, among other things, that it is better to have protective hunting of the wolverines that cause the most problems for the reindeer industry. The County Administrative Board agrees that protective hunting is good, but “when it comes to wolverines, serious damage often occurs during the period when the wolverine has cubs and the risk of shooting a female away from her cubs is then great”, the authority writes in its decision. On Tuesday, the Administrative Court announced an injunction, that the hunting of wolverines may not begin pending the outcome of the case.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that it will protect the wolverine population in the lower 48 states as threatened under the Endangered Species Act — a decision that will provide this rare wilderness species with new legal protections and programs for recovery. The decision represents the culmination of a campaign by conservationists over decades that required six rounds of successful litigation to secure federal protections. Most recently, conservation groups succeeded in 2022 in persuading a federal judge to vacate a 2020 decision by the service denying Endangered Species Act protections for wolverines in the lower 48 states. That victory sent the agency back to the drawing board to reconsider its determination and set the stage for today’s listing decision.