Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Thursday announced the removal of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List/NPS file

Gray wolves in the lower 48 states were removed from Endangered Species Act protections Thursday, a move that was harshly criticized and drew promises of legal challenges.

"Today’s action reflects the Trump administration’s continued commitment to species conservation based on the parameters of the law and the best scientific and commercial data available,” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said during an event at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota.

"After more than 45 years as a listed species, the gray wolf has exceeded all conservation goals for recovery," the secretary added. "Today’s announcement simply reflects the determination that this species is neither a threatened nor endangered species based on the specific factors Congress has laid out in the law.”

But conservation groups criticized the decision, saying the animal is far from having returned to its historic range and still needs protections.

“Stripping protections for gray wolves is premature and reckless. Gray wolves occupy only a fraction of their former range and need continued federal protection to fully recover," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife. "We will be taking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to court to defend this iconic species.”

At the National Parks and Conservation Association, Bart Melton said now is not the time to remove the predator from the ESA list.

“Removing protections for gray wolves amid a global extinction crisis is short-sighted and dangerous to America’s conservation legacy," said Melton, NPCA's wildlife program director. “Gray wolves have recently returned to national parks and surrounding ecosystems where they’ve been absent for decades, from Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado to the North Cascades in Washington State and Lassen national forest in California. Rather than working alongside communities to support the return of wolves in these historic and prime habitat ranges, the administration essentially today said, ‘good enough’ and removed Endangered Species Act protections."

Bernhardt said state and tribal wildlife management agencies will assume responsibility for managing gray wolves in states with gray wolf populations, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service monitors the species for five years to ensure the recovery stands. According to Interior, there are more than 6,000 wolves in the lower 48, "greatly exceeding the combined recovery goals for the Northern Rocky Mountains and Western Great Lakes populations."

“In northern Minnesota, proper management of the gray wolf is important to maintaining our way of life. Therefore, I applaud President Trump, Secretary Bernhardt, and Director ( Aurelia) Skipwith for listening to sound science and rightfully delisting the gray wolf in the lower 48 states,” said U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minnesota. “With Minnesota’s whitetail firearm season so close, this announcement could not have come at a better time, as empowering state agencies to responsibly manage the gray wolf will help to conserve our deer herd for generations while putting cattle farmers at ease."

U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Washington, called the delisting of the gray wolf "an Endangered Species Act success story."

"By empowering states to manage gray wolf populations, the federal government is recognizing the effectiveness of locally-led conservation efforts, basing management decisions on sound science – instead of politics, and providing certainty to families, farmers, and rural communities in Central Washington and throughout the country,” he said. “This action is one of the many steps the Trump Administration is taking to modernize the Endangered Species Act and protect American wildlife, and I look forward to continuing to build upon these efforts in Congress.”

There was much opposition to the delisting, according to the Animal Welfare Institute, which said there were "approximately 1.8 million comments submitted by the public opposing delisting. Additionally, 86 members of Congress (in both the House and Senate), 100 scientists, 230 businesses, and 367 veterinary professionals submitted letters opposing the wolf delisting plan."

"By finalizing a rule to eliminate federal protections for gray wolves across the contiguous United States, the administration is once again putting politics ahead of conservation,” said Cathy Liss, president of the Animal Welfare Institute. “This attempt to return vulnerable wolf populations to state control is the latest chapter in a years-long quest to scapegoat a vital keystone species, despite the courts repeatedly finding a lack of scientific or legal basis for delisting. In the process, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has disregarded the voices of nearly 2 million Americans who opposed this delisting proposal.

"AWI strongly condemns the administration’s anti-wildlife agenda, and will continue fighting for effective Endangered Species Act enforcement based on science, not politics.”

At the Center for Biological Diversity, staff said the delisting is detrimental to wolves, "especially on the West Coast and New England, where gray wolf recovery is still in its beginning stages. Only the small Mexican wolf population in Arizona and New Mexico will still have endangered species protections moving forward."

“Wolves will be shot and killed because Donald Trump is desperate to gin up his voters in the Midwest,” said Brett Hartl, chief political strategist at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund. “Secretary Bernhardt’s nakedly political theater announcing the end to wolf protections in a battleground state days before the election shows just how corrupt and self-serving the Trump administration is.”

Interior officials said the Fish and Wildlife Service made the delisting decision "solely on the best scientific and commercial data available, a thorough analysis of threats and how they have been alleviated and the ongoing commitment and proven track record of states and tribes to continue managing for healthy wolf populations once delisted. This analysis includes the latest information about the wolf’s current and historical distribution in the contiguous United States."

While the delisting move will be challenged in court, on Tuesday voters in Colorado will be able to decide at the ballot box whether the state should work on its own wolf recovery plan.

Colorado Proposition 114, the Gray Wolf Reintroduction Initiative, is on the ballot in Colorado as an initiated state statute on November 3, 2020.

A "yes" vote supports requiring the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to create a plan to reintroduce and manage gray wolves on designated lands west of the continental divide by the end of 2023.

A "no" vote opposes creating a plan to reintroduce and manage gray wolves on designated lands west of the continental divide by the end of 2023.