Trump Orders Interior to Decide Within 90 Days Whether to Strip Endangered Species Protection From Gray and Mexican Wolves

Trump signed an executive order, "Supporting America's Ranchers," on September 4, 2026, giving Interior Secretary Doug Burgum 90 days to determine whether the gray wolf and the Mexican wolf have met Endangered Species Act recovery criteria and, if so, to begin delisting or downlisting them. It also directs Burgum to send the President a legislative recommendation to delist the animals, to press states to drop them from state protected lists, and to consider revising the criteria for authorizing lethal wolf removal. Trump announced it in the Oval Office flanked by ranchers.

The order does not itself change either species' legal status; it directs an agency determination that would have to survive rulemaking and near-certain litigation. The first Trump administration delisted gray wolves across most of the Lower 48 in 2020, and a federal judge vacated that rule in 2022. The contested feature is directing a listing outcome by executive order, since the ESA conditions listing on the best available science rather than presidential preference.

Burgum's determination is due within 90 days. Conservation groups condemned the order; Humane World for Animals president Kitty Block said rolling it back "would jeopardize decades of recovery."