A coalition of 27 wolf advocacy groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) petitioned the U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (DOI/FWS) on August 4, 2022 to develop a rule that would find the states of Idaho and Montana ineligible for funding under the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act (Pittman-Robertson (PR) Act). The petition argues that to be eligible to receive federal aid the PR Act requires states to have laws in place that assent to the provisions of the Act. In response to a letter from the CBD to the DOI/FWS that made the same request (but only for Idaho) in May 2021, the FWS said the requirement for assent language only requires that hunting and fishing license revenue collected by the states was used exclusively for fish and wildlife conservation. By filing a formal petition, the coalition may be laying the basis to challenge the FWS’ interpretation of the PR Act in court.
