In mid-December a federal district court ordered that wolves in the Great Lakes region be put back on the federal Endangered Species Act, where they had been for four decades prior to 2012. After making promise after promise to persuade the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist wolves, including a pledge to wait several years before opening up hunting and trapping programs, state authorities immediately let loose trophy hunters and commercial trappers. They killed more than 900 wolves, which was on top of the toll taken by poaching, road kills, disease and injuries, weather and other mortality factors.