WASHINGTON — Representative Jack Bergman took part in a hearing by the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries, underscoring the need to remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List. Expressing his strong support for H.R. 845, the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, Rep. Bergman highlighted the Great Lakes Region’s overwhelmingly successful efforts in recovering the once-endangered species, and he emphasized the critical need to now return wolf management efforts to individual state wildlife agencies.

Rep. Bergman stated, “The gray wolf has made a remarkable comeback in the Upper Peninsula, and the data confirms it. Yet, local, state, and tribal wildlife officials remain unable to manage wolf populations due to Washington’s failure to adapt to changing conditions on the ground. The needs and circumstances of Michigan aren’t the same as those of other states, but rigid, one-size-fits-all federal regulation continues to ignore that. The people of Michigan – not bureaucrats in Washington or federal judges thousands of miles away – know what’s best for our state. I’m proud to support the Pet and Livestock Protection Act to return wolf management to the states, where it belongs.”

in 2020, the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under President Trump delisted the gray wolf across the lower 48 states based on the best available science and data. However, in 2022, a federal judge in California vacated this rule. The Pet and Livestock Protection Act requires the Secretary of the Interior to reissue the 2020 Department of the Interior final rule which delisted gray wolves in the lower 48 states and ensures this rule can’t be overturned through judicial review.

The current number of wolves in the U.P. is estimated to be about 715, based on approximations of the occupied range (11,972 square miles, which is 73% of the U.P.), the median pack territory of 82 square miles, and an average pack size of 4.9 individual wolves per pack, according to information from the DNR. In other areas where wolves hunt larger prey, packs contain more individuals, but in the U.P. the primary prey is deer, which doesn’t feed a large pack.

At the federal level, wolves are on the Endangered Species List because they have not reclaimed all the range they once did – which is nearly impossible, given how some of the landscape has changed to cornfields and cities. In Michigan, the population has surpassed recovery goals for well over 20 years, so they are not endangered or threatened in the state.

While the wolf count climbed from the time they began to regain footing in the U.P. in the ’90s through the early 2000s, the population has now stagnated. At a plateau of between an estimated 650 to 770 wolves between 2011 and now, it can be inferred that the U.P. has reached its maximum capacity. It is not likely that the wolf population will boom out of control.