Several wolf researchers recently published a policy article in Science proposing a new view of state responsibilities toward wolves (with one author discussing it on his blog.) They argue that there is a very long common law history for wildlife falling under the umbrella of the public trust doctrine—in short, wildlife belong collectively to the citizens of the state. The state, then, is obligated to preserve wildlife for the benefit of the public. This duty has been cited by the US Supreme Court on several occasions, including cases involving wildlife as well as navigable waterways.
One reason that many conservation groups have opposed the delisting of the wolf is that there appears to be no way to force states to preserve wolf populations. The researchers consider the public trust doctrine to be a duty that compels states to ensure a sustainable population of wolves or, indeed, any species.
That would be a big step, because as the authors put it, “formal recognition of a duty to preserve species under the wildlife trust would, at minimum, require states to maintain a viable population of wolves. Such an acknowledgement from states could help assuage fears that state-led wolf management will lead to a second wave of wolf eradications and could move debate about population baselines and distributions back into the scientific—as opposed to political—arena.”
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