After being nearly hunted to extinction in the lower 48 states, gray wolves have returned to the Great Lakes, Northern Rockies, California and the Pacific Northwest.
Despite this monumental progress, gray wolves have yet to re-establish sustainable populations in much of their available habitat in the continental United States. Federal protections are critical for wolves to recover, but the threat to remove them from the Endangered Species List is putting all wolves at risk again.
Delist Wolves?
The Trump administration issued an executive order in September 2026 directing the Secretary of Interior to decide if gray wolves and Mexican gray wolves warrant downlisting or delisting from the Endangered Species Act.
This was done under the guise of supporting ranchers, but wolf predation accounts for less than 1% of livestock loss across the country, significantly less than weather, old age and illness. The better solution to truly help ranchers is to support nonlethal deterrents, which are proven to keep wolves and other predators away when implemented early and correctly.
President Trump’s order has also amplified misinformation and misunderstandings around gray wolf recovery and the various populations around the U.S. There is no magic number of wolves that will guarantee the long-term survival of the species in a given area.
Many gray wolf populations need continued federal protection until they have more established packs and are better accepted by the communities sharing the landscape with them.
Meet the Gray Wolves of the U.S. by Region!
The largest population of wolves in the U.S. reside in Alaska, with an estimated 11,000 wolves. These wolves are not federally protected under the ESA.
While not protected under the ESA, all wolves inside a U.S. national park, like Denali for example, are protected under National Park Service regulations. Per regulations, hunting and trapping are prohibited within park boundaries.
This population is not currently listed under the ESA. There are an estimated 2,900 wolves split between Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
These states encompass prime wolf habitat but have continuously displayed an intolerance toward gray wolves, often resulting in the tragic loss of wolves needed to fully recover their populations. Defenders continues to advocate for federal protections to be restored in this region.
With education and advocacy from organizations like Defenders of Wildlife, Colorado voters passed a ballot measure in 2020 requiring Colorado Parks and Wildlife to reintroduce gray wolves to the state. This has resulted in the first paws of the program hitting the ground in December 2023.
The Colorado population consists of 32 wolves as of March 2026.
Colorado’s reintroduction program continues to be challenged. In May, Defenders sent a comment letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service urging continued support from the federal government for the Colorado gray wolf reintroduction program. Additionally, Defenders continue to be heavily involved in community education and support.
The Western Great Lake States region, as formally called by the FWS, is listed under the ESA. There are between 4,200 and 4,400 wolves in this region, primarily found in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Uniquely, wolves in these states are not all listed as endangered. Wolves found in Michigan and Wisconsin are currently listed as endangered, while Minnesota wolves are listed as threatened.
The gray wolves found in New Mexico and Arizona are a subspecies of gray wolf, called Mexican gray wolves (Canis lupus baileyi). Defenders helped return Mexican gray wolves to the wild in Arizona in 1998, after they were wiped out in the U.S. by the mid-1980s. To this day, Mexican gray wolves are considered to be the most endangered subspecies of gray wolf in the world.
This region has a total of 317 Mexican gray wolves. Their recovery plan calls for a wild population of 320 wolves over four years.
Wolves were federally delisted in the eastern third of Oregon and Washington in 2011. Any wolves living in the western 2/3 of both states, and those found in California, are still listed under the ESA.
There are a total of about 570 wolves in this region. Most interestingly, Washington reported that while they saw an increase of wolves in 2025, there was also a decrease in wolf-livestock depredation reports from the previous year. Defenders is working alongside partners to help implement methods and strategies to address wolf-livestock conflicts, many of which seem to be paying off.
Read more about the full history of wolves in this region. Then, check out what work is being done to secure their future!
Red Wolves once roamed throughout the Eastern U.S. but were extirpated from their historic range and declared extinct in the wild in 1980. In 1987, they became the first large carnivore to be reintroduced to a landscape on the Albemarle Peninsula in North Carolina.
When reintroduction efforts stalled, and Red Wolves in the wild dwindled to just 6 animals, Defenders and our partners won legal action that restarted their releases and secured renewed federal commitments to their recovery.
Today there are about 30 adult Red Wolves in the wild, all found in North Carolina. As the U.S.’s only native wolf population, Red Wolves are also the world’s most endangered canid and are protected under the ESA.
*Red Wolves (Canis rufus) are a different species of wolf and are treated separately from gray wolves both scientifically and legally under the Endangered Species Act.
Read About Wolves
History of Wolf Recovery
1995 Yellowstone Gray Wolf Reintroduction
25 Years of Mexican Gray Wolves in the Wild
Coexisting with Wolves
Coexisting with Gray Wolves
Coexisting with Red Wolves
Coexisting with Mexican Gray Wolves