Gray wolf federal protections removed by Trump restored across much of US

California ruling does not affect wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming

Federal protections for gray wolves were restored across much of the US on Thursday, after their removal in the waning days of the Trump administration exposed the predators to hunting that critics said would undermine their rebound from widespread extermination early last century.

US district judge Jeffrey White in Oakland, California, said the US Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to show wolf populations could be sustained in the midwest and portions of the west without protection under the Endangered Species Act.