Environmentalists are back in court in support of the fiction that gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains and Western U.S. are in short supply.

They argue, through their scores of lawyers, that wolves need more protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.

They are wrong.

First, some numbers.

2,797: the number of gray wolves in the Lower 48, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This doesn’t include Alaska, which has 7,000 to 11,000 wolves, according to the state Department of Fish and Game.

And right next door, Canada has 50,000 to 60,000 gray wolves, according to the federal government. Note that a Canadian wolf doesn’t need a passport to take up residence in the U.S.

Clearly, there is no shortage of wolves in the U.S. or Canada.

Second, some facts.

Gray wolves are thriving. Sixty-six were relocated from Canada to Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, and others have migrated from Canada to the Lower 48.

As a result, there are now nearly 2,800 wolves in 286 packs in seven states. This rapid spread and growth in numbers counter any argument of a need for protecting wolves. By any measure, wolves have succeeded in reestablishing themselves in the Northern Rocky Mountains and the Western U.S.

Yet the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Humane Society of the United States and its affiliate, the Humane Society Legislative Fund, have gone to court seeking protection for the wolves.

This is despite overwhelming evidence that gray wolves continue to thrive in both regions. They eat well, as the continuing attacks on sheep, cattle and game animals show, and they continue to spread.

The lawsuit is the environmental groups’ answer to a determination by the Fish and Wildlife Service that gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains do not warrant relisting under the Endangered Species Act. The agency also found that the gray wolf in the Western U.S. “does not meet the definition of an endangered species or a threatened species.”

Of course that won’t stop the lawsuit, since these groups have made the gray wolf a poster child for preservation. In our opinion, there could be a wolf on every street corner and the environmental groups would be in court somewhere hollering that there aren’t enough.

For the environmental groups, what’s especially concerning is that states are actually managing wolves. Instead of managing them as endangered species and letting their populations grow and spread as fast as possible, managers in some states are limiting their numbers. This will keep their populations — and the populations of other animals on which they prey — healthy.

The Fish and Wildlife Service published its species status assessment for the gray wolf in the Western United States last December. It says that Montana, where wolves were never reintroduced, had a population of 1,087 at the end of 2022. In two other states where they weren’t reintroduced, Washington and Oregon, the populations were 216 and 178, respectively.

In Idaho, where they were reintroduced, the population was 710.

Gray wolves are a success story in the West. They continue to spread into other states without help from the Sierra Club or anyone else.

It’s time for the environmentalists and their lawyers to declare victory and go home. Barring that, they can just go home.