Wolves and Bears

SCI has defended the downlisting or delisting of recovered gray wolf populations for more than 20 years.  SCI intervened to defend the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s science-based decision in the first lawsuit filed by animal rights interests in 2003.  We have been involved in all subsequent delisting suits.  In 2025, SCI is engaged in six wolf cases—all in support of keeping wolves off the ESA lists because they are not a threatened or endangered species.

SCI has also defended the delisting of grizzly bears for over 15 years.  We were involved in litigation over both the 2007 and 2017 science-based rules to remove Yellowstone grizzly bears from the ESA list of threatened species.

In 2019, SCI was the only organization to step in and successfully defend the removal of black bears in Louisiana from the ESA list of threatened species.  That legal victory paved the way to a new hunting season in the Sportsmen’s Paradise—the first bear hunt since the 1980s.

SCI has also submitted numerous comment letters regarding responsible wolf and bear management:

• 2025 Grizzly Bear Listing
• Grizzly Bear Reintroduction in the Bitterroot Ecosystem

These legal efforts are aimed at one end: to promote science-based decision-making and proper implementation of the Endangered Species Act.

Protecting Access in the U.S. and Abroad

SCI has repeatedly gone to court to ensure that hunters maintain access to public lands, public trust species, and methods of harvest that are important to properly manage wildlife.  For example, SCI has spent years in court over black bears in New Jersey.  SCI sued the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection over a political decision (made as a campaign promise) to close black bear hunting on state lands.  That suit resulted in expert evidence showing that the closure was causing extensive bear population growth and increased human-bear conflicts.  Two years later, the Governor of New Jersey capitulated to this science and reopened state lands to hunting.

Similarly, to maintain Wyoming’s Western elk population, SCI defended the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s adaptive management of supplemental winter feeding.  Animal rights groups sued to stop this feeding—essentially, a starvation order for elk in the Jackson area with little access to winter range.  That case was successfully dismissed with the adaptive management plan still in place.

As another example, SCI was the only organization to defend the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s issuance of import permits for leopards from well-managed hunting programs in southern Africa.  Those imports comply with the ESA’s directive to “encourage foreign conservation programs.”  More than that, they help incentivize the protection of wildlife habitat in hunting areas.  SCI’s arguments helped obtain a successful dismissal of the plaintiffs’ challenge.

Ensuring Agencies Follow the Law

In 2024, SCI and our colleagues at Sportsmen’s Alliance sued two Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioners over their failure to comply with commission regulations and demonstrably false statements made about mountain lion and bobcat hunting.  The lawsuit’s goal was to ensure that state wildlife commissioners follow the law.  In 2024 as well, we sued the Bureau of Land Management over its decision to close 99% of the Sonoran Desert National Monument to target shooting in violation of the Dingell Act.  That law limits closures of hunting, fishing, or target shooting to the smallest area for the least amount of time.  SCI has committed to promoting Congress’ intent in the Dingell Act against agency bureaucrats and their anti-hunting allies.

SCI’s team also regularly submits comments on proposed agency actions, covering proposed ESA listings to federal lands management plans to importation of hunting trophies and much more.  Here are just a recent few of the hundreds of comments SCI has submitted:

• Proposed Listing of Giraffe
• Bears Ears National Monument Resource Management Plan
• S. Fish and Wildlife Services Annual Hunt Fish Rule
• New Firearms Export Regulations
• Draft BIDEH Policy
• Department of the Interior Proposal to Add Seats to Federal Subsistence Board
• African Elephant Import Rule
• Environmental Review for Continued Supplemental Winter Feeding on National Elk Refuge
• Rock Springs Field Office Draft Resource Management Plan and Associated Draft Environmental Impact Statement

Keeping Alaska Open

To roll back federal agency overreach in Alaska, SCI has challenged multiple federal agency actions that overturned state hunting regulations.  We have also defended federal actions that appropriately deferred to state authority to manage wildlife.  These efforts have taken us to the Supreme Court in Alaska-specific cases three times, for a total of five briefs, in the past several years.  (These represent a few of the dozen Supreme Court dockets in which SCI has been involved.)

SCI also recently helped achieve victory in the Alaska Supreme Court on behalf of hunting guides and non-resident hunters in Alaska.  Approximately 40% of Kodiak brown bear permits are allocated to guided hunts, which are primarily taken by non-residents.  The Alaska Supreme Court upheld this allocation and found that non-resident hunting generally benefits the conservation of wildlife and hunting in Alaska.

Protecting Second Amendment Rights for Hunters

Some states have declared war on hunters’ rights to bear arms or to talk favorably about firearms.  SCI has stepped up to challenge unconstitutional restrictions.

In 2024, we obtained a major victory against the State of California overturning a state law restricting the marketing of firearms in a broadly worded “manner attractive to minors.”  The court’s ruling means that organizations like SCI and our California Chapters can continue to promote the responsible use of firearms for youth hunting.  We filed an amicus brief raising similar issues about the importance of being able to freely discuss the use of firearms, and the protection of this topic under the First Amendment, in a lawsuit against a number of firearms manufacturers.

SCI and partners are also suing the State of New Jersey over its prohibition on the possession of suppressors.  Suppressors are lawful for hunting in almost every statebut New Jersey is in the tiny minority of states that still ban their possession.  This lawsuit will reinforce the Second Amendment rights of hunters and shooters in the Garden State.

SCI protects sustainable-use conservation of every species, in every place, with every lawful means of harvest.  That means we show up where needed in courts and commissions across the country.