When humans arrived in north america there were many wolves. We cannot say how many for sure, but it is thought that there were between 250,000 and 2 million.
Wolves have had federal protection for 45 years but it has been decided that this is no longer necessary. David Bernhardt the USA interior secretary argued that the species had exceeded all goals for recovery”. 45 years ago there were just 1000 wolves in the lower 48 states, but that this number has climbed to 6000 now.
Obviously this is a patently absurd suggestion. To say the population now is 600% of what it was 45 years ago, ignores the fact that the population is 2.4% of what it was 300 years ago. Furthermore, wolves are still missing form more than 80% of their former territory.
By removing federal protections, you rely on each state and district to set up sensible rules on hunting and conservation, leading in the best of worlds to a patchwork of successful and less so policies. Furthermore, given wolves capabilities to travel large distances, it is a country wide decision.
100 biologists wrote to Donald Trump arguing against the change, and arguing that any losses as a result of predation of livestock are small, and easily manageable.
The Trump administration has delisted 13 species, though they suggest that this should be looked at as a conservation success. Critics suggest that actually Trumps moves have made it harder to list species as threatened, and have also opened up large tracts of pristine wildlife habitat to fossil fuel exploration and extraction.