April 4, 2016

Missoula, MT — Describing the wolverine as a “snow-dependent species standing squarely in the path of global climate change,” a federal judge today overturned an August 2014 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refusing to grant this rare and elusive species any protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen rejected the Service’s determinations that climate change, an extremely small population size—there are only approximately 300 wolverines left in the northern Rockies and north Cascades—and genetic isolation do not threaten the wolverine’s survival in the lower-48 states.

“This decision gives the wolverine a fighting chance at survival,” said Earthjustice attorney Timothy Preso, who represented eight conservation groups in the case before Judge Christensen. “There is now hope for this icon of our remaining wilderness.”
Today’s ruling passes a harsh judgment on the Fish and Wildlife Service for an eleventh-hour reversal in considering new legal protections for the wolverine. In February 2013 the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to list the wolverine as a threatened species under the ESA after the agency’s biologists concluded global warming was reducing the deep spring snowpack pregnant females require for denning.

But state wildlife managers in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming objected, arguing that computer models about climate change impact are too uncertain to justify the proposed listing. Then, in May 2014 the Service’s Regional Director Noreen Walsh ordered her agency to withdraw the listing, ignoring the recommendations of her own scientists. The agency formalized that withdrawal in a final decision issued in August 2014.

In today’s ruling, Judge Christensen addressed the question of why the Service flip-flopped on this key conservation issue:

“[T]he Court suspects that a possible answer to this question can be found in the immense political pressure that was brought to bear on this issue, particularly by a handful of western states. The listing decision in this case involves climate science, and climate science evokes strong reactions.”

The judge also directed the Service to act promptly to correct its erroneous findings: “It has taken us twenty years to get to this point. It is the undersigned's view that if there is one thing required of the Service under the ESA, it is to take action at the earliest possible, defensible point in time to protect against the loss of biodiversity within our reach as a nation. For the wolverine, that time is now.”

The groups represented by Earthjustice in the wolverine case are the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Northwest, Friends of the Clearwater, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Idaho Conservation League, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, and Rocky Mountain Wild. They praised today’s court decision.