The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a new rule on “biological integrity, diversity, and environmental health” for America’s national wildlife refuge system. The rule could have a far-reaching impact on the refuge system, which includes nearly 21 million acres of Wilderness.

The good: Included in the rule is a proposal to heavily restrict “predator control” activities in refuges.

The bad: The rule also includes extensive wildlife and ecosystem manipulation provisions that could undermine wilderness protection across the refuge system.

Much to many people’s dismay, tens of thousands of native carnivores—bears, mountain lions, bobcats, wolves, foxes, coyotes, and many others—are killed every year across America’s wildlife refuge system, including within Wilderness. Wilderness Watch has long supported and led efforts to end the wanton killing of carnivores, and this proposed rule is a step toward ending carnivore killing on wildlife refuges.

However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) needs to strengthen the rule by explicitly prohibiting the killing of all native carnivores under the rule’s “predator control” provision. Currently the provision prohibits carnivore killing that would “alter predator-prey population dynamics,” leaving it unclear whether individual animals could still be targeted, including at the behest of livestock interests.

The rest of the proposed rule focuses on broadening agency discretion to manipulate species and ecosystems, including “translocating” wildlife, in an attempt to resist changes brought about by a heating climate and other stressors on wildlands. Such activities—often associated with heavy helicopter and motorized uses, as well as unintended consequences—strike at the heart of the Wilderness Act’s untrammeled mandate and only serve to intensify the human signature on the land. The rule needs to expressly exclude Wilderness from these trammeling provisions. The future of Wilderness depends on it.

• Read our comments (March 4, 2024)

Photo: Bobcat by Sam Parks