Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday directing the Interior department to consider de-listing gray wolves and the Mexican wolf under the Endangered Species Act. The order gives Doug Burgum three months to decide whether the wolves have recovered enough for federal removal from ESA protections.
That review reaches far beyond one species count. Gray wolves remain under a 2022 federal court order across most of the lower 48 states, while the Mexican gray wolf is still rebuilding after reintroduction to New Mexico and Arizona in 1998.
Doug Burgum and the three-month review
The executive order tells the Interior department to weigh whether gray wolves and Mexican gray wolves can be removed from federal protection and whether it should be easier to authorize killing gray wolves. It also directs federal authorities to urge states to remove protections for gray wolves and loosen local restrictions on wolf killing.
The process now sits with Burgum. The three-month clock matters because it forces a federal judgment on recovery rather than leaving the issue to open-ended review, and that judgment will shape whether the administration moves toward de-listing or leaves protections in place for now.
Gray wolves in the lower 48 states
The gray wolf already sits inside a legal clash. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has tried to de-list the gray wolf before, but a 2022 federal court order has left wolves protected by the ESA across most of their range in the lower 48 states. The major exception is Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, where states manage wolves. In Minnesota, wolves are classified as threatened rather than endangered.
That split leaves the Interior department dealing with a species that is protected in most places but managed differently in a few states. Any new push to remove federal protections would run into the same legal structure that has already held the previous effort in litigation.
Mexican gray wolf in Arizona and New Mexico
The Mexican gray wolf is in a different position. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has not attempted to de-list it, yet the current recovery plan says federal authorities should consider de-listing only after the population averages more than 320 animals for four years in a row. Arizona and New Mexico counted 319 animals at the end of 2025, which marked the first year officials can start counting toward that test.
Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity said environmental groups would oppose the move. “We’re going to be fighting every step of the way, with information, with science,” he said. “That should be the core of the decision-making process.”
WildEarth Guardians on political pressure
Leia Barnett, the New Mexico conservation lead for WildEarth Guardians, criticized the order as an attempt to weaken federal safeguards. She said, “Once again, we see this administration attempting to override the checks and balances provided by bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act in order to create industry carveouts and distract from other bad policies that are proving unpopular,” and added, “Directing federal agencies to pressure states into rolling back their own wildlife protections isn’t just bad policy, it’s an attempt to bypass the very framework Congress built to keep species recovery decisions insulated from political whims.”
Trump also suggested during the signing ceremony that the order would make wolf killing easier. While speaking with an Arizona rancher, Trump asked, “You can shoot them as of today?” Burgum now has three months to decide whether gray wolves or Mexican gray wolves have recovered enough to be de-listed, and that ruling will determine whether the administration’s order becomes a new federal push or collides with the existing court limits on wolf protection.
