The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is considering a proposal to take the gray wolf off the Endangered Species List in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Wolves would still be protected in Michigan once they come off the federal list. They are currently classified as a non-game, protected species in Michigan. They would continue to be so once the federal designation is lifted. Federal endangered classification supersedes the state designation which is more lenient.
Michigan gray wolves were downlisted from threatened to non-game protected by state officials in 2009 after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first delisted the Great Lakes gray wolf population - a decision that was later overturned in the courts.
Michigan State University (MSU) associate professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and Lyman Briggs College talks about the ethics behind such a decision and what it means for the interaction between humans and wolves.