A lawsuit seeking a national gray wolf recovery plan has been filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/USFWS file

There needs to be a national gray wolf recovery plan to help the species fully recover, according to a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The filing, made Tuesday by the Center for Biological Diversity, argues that the Fish and Wildlife Service has "prematurely and illegally" worked to reduce Endangered Species Act protections for the species. At least twice in the past five years courts have vacated agency decisions that went against providing ESA protections for gray wolves, the Center notes in its lawsuit.

Recovery plans should describe actions needed to achieve the full recovery of species listed under the ESA, the nonprofit organization said in a release. But the gray wolf’s outdated recovery plan was developed in 1992 and mostly focuses on Minnesota. It neglects other places where wolves have lived and could recover, like the West Coast, southern Rocky Mountains, and northeastern United States, it added.

This past February a federal judge restored ESA protections for the gray wolf across much of the country, ruling that the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2020 removed the protections based on two core populations of the canid, not on the species' status in a significant portion of its historic range, and did not consider whether that range was needed to achieve full recovery.

In his 26-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White agreed with the plaintiffs that the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to "assess the ESA’s threat factors for West Coast wolves or wolves in the Central Rocky Mountains," and instead focused only on wolves in the Northern Rockies and the Great Lakes regions.

"However, similar to its previous rulemaking, the Service did not adequately consider threats to wolves outside of these core populations," wrote White. "Instead, the Service avoids analyzing these wolves by concluding, with little explanation or analysis, that wolves outside of the core populations are not necessary to the recovery of the species."

On Tuesday a staff attorney for the Center, Sophia Ressler, said that the Fish and Wildlife Service "can’t rely on its outdated, unambitious, and piecemeal approach to wolf recovery any longer. The agency’s refusal to complete a national wolf recovery plan, besides violating the law, neglects both the people who want this majestic species to recover and the wolves who are so important to our country’s biodiversity.”

The Center's release said the Fish and Wildlife Service's wolf-recovery planning focused on wolf populations in three separate geographic areas: the “eastern timber wolf” in Minnesota, the now-delisted gray wolf population in the northern Rocky Mountains, and the now separately listed Mexican gray wolf in the Southwest. No plan comprehensively addresses gray wolf recovery across the country, the group maintains. Many areas where wolves currently live and breed — and where their reestablishment is in its infancy, such as California and Colorado — have no plan to guide their recovery.

The lawsuit also challenges the Service’s failure to complete a required status review for the gray wolf in a timely way. The last review was completed more than a decade ago, even though the Endangered Species Act requires the agency to complete these reviews every five years.

“The Endangered Species Act is one of the most powerful tools we have to protect this country’s wildlife,” said Ressler. “We’re only asking that the Service do its duty and allow the Act to truly work for wolves.”