MAINE ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS • June x, 2020
As part of an effort to limit the scope of the Endangered Species Act, the US government plans to remove the gray wolf from the list of protected species throughout the lower 48 states based on a claim that the law allows a species to be declared recovered when only a single population (in this case in the Great Lakes states) is thriving. In a new peer-reviewed study published in the journal Bioscience, a team of researchers identify key errors in the science underpinning the wolf delisting rule, and propose a science-based approach to enhance the ESA’s effectiveness in stemming loss of biodiversity.