Posting a gut-wrenching video to Twitter X, Minnesota congressman Pete Stauber continues his appeal to House leadership to reconsider delisting the gray wolf in 2024.
“A logger from northern St. Louis County just sent me this video of a wolf running through his job site and taking down a whitetail deer,” Stauber wrote in the post. “As you can see, wolves lost any fear of humans and are increasingly dangerous to livestock & pets and decimating our deer herd. Delist!”
A logger from northern St. Louis County just sent me this video of a wolf running through his job site and taking down a whitetail deer. As you can see, wolves lost any fear of humans and are increasingly dangerous to livestock & pets and decimating our deer herd. Delist! pic.twitter.com/XxNbMUsJKn
— Pete Stauber (@PeteStauber) February 7, 2024
The call comes as the viral video shows how voracious and brazen gray wolves have become, even in the presence of humans. Gray wolves continue to be federally protected as a ‘threatened’ species under the Endangered Species Act, despite a healthy population. While gray wolves have spent some time off the list in the past, they were relisted in 2022 and have since bounced back in dramatic fashion.
State biologists are currently pegging Minnesota’s gray wolf population at around 2,900 wolves. With the original delisting goal of between 1,250 and 1,400, Stauber and many others are drawing attention to this goal being met and petitioning that the animals be delisted once again.
Stauber filed a letter earlier this month requesting that the fiscal year 2024 appropriations package include language delisting gray wolves – a tactic known as a ‘bill rider’ in which wolf management legislation can be slid in under the auspices of an annual budget bill.
“We ask that the final Appropriations package for FY2024 include language passed by the House last fall, requiring the Secretary of the Interior to reissue the November 2020 final rule delisting [gray wolves],” reads the letter, signed by Stauber and 16 other members of Congress. The language referred to within the letter is in reference to the “Trust the Science Act,” which passed the House in November 2023 attached to a different bill.
At the moment the state’s DNR’s hands remain tied. Until gray wolves are removed from the list, there isn’t much that can be done. As the hot-button topic of wolf management remains one in conversation across much of the west as well, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of developing a first-ever national wolf management program which could indicate more delisting decisions across the country. That package isn’t expected to be presented until late in 2025, so until then, Stauber and the state of Minnesota remain on their own.
