Species recovery as a half empty process: the case against ignoring social ecology for gray wolf recovery

Abstract The criteria used to assess recovery under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) often fall short when considering social, group-living species. To illustrate this, we use recent insights on sociality in gray wolves to highlight how such definitional failures in implementing the ESA limit the efficacy of recovery efforts for species with complex societal arrays. The loss of conspecifics in social species has an enhanced impact on demographic viability that is not captured by estimates of population abundance. The reproductive skew in social species reduces effective population size and exacerbates threats to genetic health of populations. For group-living species such as wolves, it is critical that regulations consider sociality in recovery guidelines. Biological processes that include social behavior and group structure need to be more fully considered for the ESA to effectively reflect biological reality. Until regulations and policy include language that incorporates these considerations, the species we try to protect will lose.