The Gray Wolf has been put back on the endangered species list. The Bush administration declared that the gray wolf should be taken off, but a federal court overruled them Monday.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington sided with environmental groups that accused the government of misreading the law last year when it lifted protections for about 4,000 wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

It is the second time that the Bush administration has been overruled by a court in a short amount of time.

“The Bush administration’s repeated attempts to push the limits of the Endangered Species Act have been decidedly rejected by the courts,” said Amy Atwood, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“In our judgment, this is an animal that deserves protection,” said Howard Goldman, central states regional director for The Humane Society of the United States. “It has taken so long for their numbers to recover, we’ve got to be very careful before removing any protections from them.”

At this moment only 2,921 wolves live in Minnesota, at least 537 in Wisconsin and 520 in Michigan.

The gray wolf once ruled over America. He was everywhere. Mankind, however, nearly destroyed the gray wolf population, after which the goverment decided to protect them. This resulted in the population recovering and even making a comeback.

Historically, wolves have been the ‘black sheep’ of nature. Their presence has never been appreciated, with mythical stories about wolves haunting for human beings abounding. Wolves, it was made clear, were highly dangerous, a true enemy to mankind.

Reality is very different, however. Wolves are certainly not man’s friend, but they’re also not overly dangerous. When a wolf sees a man, he does not approach him, he runs away and hides.

The mythical stories did their damage, and continue to do damage though. Society has been influenced by those stories, resulting in a general lack of sympathy for the gray wolf, often even downright fear. This often translates into violence against wolves, and, as history has shown, in their going nearly extinct.