US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to determine within three months whether gray wolves and Mexican gray wolves have recovered sufficiently to be removed from federal Endangered Species Act protections. The order also instructs federal authorities to pressure states into loosening their own wolf-hunting restrictions, though gray wolves remain legally protected across most of the lower 48 states under a 2022 federal court ruling, meaning it is still a federal crime to kill one in most cases. Environmental groups swiftly condemned the move as politically motivated, warning they will challenge any premature de-listing in court, particularly for the Mexican gray wolf — a rare subspecies reintroduced to the American Southwest in 1998 — which conservationists say faces serious threats from lack of genetic diversity.