President Donald Trump last week directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to launch a 90-day review on whether gray wolves and Mexican wolves should be removed from Endangered Species Act protections.

The order drew mixed reactions for Colorado’s wolf-reintroduction effort, with ranchers and some state leaders calling it a step toward more flexible management while wolf advocates argue it strips away key safeguards.

If Burgum determines delisting or downlisting is warranted, the order said states would be encouraged to remove gray wolves and Mexican wolves from their own protected-species lists and loosen lethal-control standards to help ranchers respond to predation.

The order says the Interior Secretary would also weigh regulatory changes that revise the department’s criteria for authorizing lethal removal of gray wolves and Mexican wolves, and allow faster emergency response — including more precise targeting — in situations involving threats to human safety or domestic livestock.

How delisting would impact Colorado and its nearly three-year-old relocation program is unclear.

Erin Karney, executive director of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, told Colorado Politics she views the order as a step in the right direction, but one that wouldn’t do much for Colorado in the immediate future.

It could help with wolf management down the road, she indicated. For now, she said, “it just muddies the water for us.”

Karney said delisting, or even downlisting, the gray wolf would allow more flexible wolf management if the state followed the wolf plan. They don’t do that now, she said.

Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, of Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, said Tuesday, “Colorado producers should not have to watch wolves tear through their herds while Washington ties their hands.” She called Trump’s order “real progress.”

Boebert’s legislation — the Pet and Livestock Protection Act (H.R. 845) — passed the House last December but is stalled in the U.S. Senate. The act would direct the Secretary of the Interior to remove protections for the gray wolf under the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

Wolf advocates threatened lawsuits.

The Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement, said Trump’s executive order “encourages the federal agencies to meddle with states’ protected species laws to remove protections and directs the agencies to weaken evidentiary standards related to predation of livestock.”

Michael Robinson, a senior conservation advocate for the center, said they’re prepared to challenge the order in court.

Humane World for Animals and Humane World Action Fund, formerly the Humane Society of the United States, said in a statement, “Scapegoating wolves is a cynical and performative gesture given the immense harm that the Trump administration has inflicted on our nation’s ranchers with irresponsible tariffs.”

In 2020, the Trump administration ordered the delisting of gray wolves, but a California federal court overturned that decision in 2022. That decision is now on appeal, with a hearing scheduled next month.

Twenty-five gray wolves were relocated to Colorado from Oregon and British Columbia in 2023 and in January 2025. Thirteen of those wolves have since died from a variety of causes, including being killed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife or U.S. Fish & Wildlife for killing livestock in Colorado and Wyoming.

State officials say the wolves are now breeding in four packs, bringing the total population to 32.

Colorado’s relocation program has been plagued with problems, including cost overruns for compensating ranchers who have lost livestock to the wolves. That has cost the state more than $1 million over each of the past two years, despite a state budget of just $350,000 per year.

Livestock losses now number more than 100 in the program’s three-year history. That includes at least 20 livestock — ewes, a bull, cows and calves — since July 1, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s wolf depredation website and ranchers who spoke to Colorado Politics.