The most iconic predators in the American West are under attack, and top government officials and agencies are failing to uphold the law to protect them. Those are the allegations in a pair of lawsuits filed in federal and state court recently.

Though filed separately, the two claims share a common concern: that wolf and grizzly bear populations in the Northern Rocky Mountains will be decimated.

In the past year, leading wildlife biologists have spoken out with rising alarm about the fate of the predators in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, where Republican lawmakers have advanced some of the most aggressive laws and proposals targeting the two species in recent history.

“There’s urgency to this. You really can’t reverse the consequences of a dead animal.”

“I feel that our public officials at the federal and state levels do not care anywhere near enough about fish and wildlife,” Robert Aland, a retired attorney and longtime environmental activist who brought the federal case, told The Intercept. “There’s urgency to this,” he added. “You really can’t reverse the consequences of a dead animal.”

By law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should protect against threats to endangered species at the federal level. State wildlife […]