A single email from a Trump administration official stopped an endangered wolf release — and the paper trail leads straight to a conflict of interest.

In mid-June 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was days away from transferring a pack of endangered Mexican gray wolves to Ted Turner's Ladder Ranch in New Mexico — a critical step toward releasing them into the wild during the optimal June-July window. Then Karen Budd-Falen, the third-ranking official at the Interior Department, sent a terse email to Fish and Wildlife staff. "Those wolves will not stay on Ted Turner's ranch," she wrote.

The transfer was cancelled within hours. A Fish and Wildlife coordinator emailed his colleagues: "Sorry for this mess, but it's coming from the top 2 people in the Secretary's office."

Here is what makes this a corruption story and not just a policy disagreement: just days before sending that email Budd-Falen had attended a meeting in Ruidoso, New Mexico with ranching groups — including former legal clients she had represented as a private attorney. Those clients had specifically requested that the federal government halt wolf releases. Budd-Falen was barred from working on grazing matters when she joined the Trump administration. She appears to have ignored that restriction entirely.

The wolves eventually reached the wild in August — missing their critical window. Mexican gray wolves are among the most endangered mammals in North America. Their recovery cannot survive being used as a bargaining chip for ranching interests.

Sign this petition to demand a federal ethics investigation into Karen Budd-Falen's role in blocking the endangered wolf release and her ongoing conflicts of interest at the Interior Department.