Sophie Lamb (she/her), ELR Staffer, ‘27

On January 1, 2026, Illinois became the first state in the U.S. to codify rewilding into law, a promising progression in environmental restoration and regulation at the state level. House Bill 2726 grants the Illinois Department of Natural Resources broad power to effectuate rewilding–a practice that aims to restore lands to their natural states through the reintroduction of native species–as a conservation strategy, particularly apex predators and keystone species (such as beaver and bison). For Illinois, the law is a response to the federal rollbacks of the Clean Water Act, which have resulted in a detrimental lack of protections for the state’s wetlands. While the Illinois law symbolizes positive legislative action, some critics of rewilding have voiced concern about the reintroduction of predatory species, which they claim pose a danger to livestock and pets. In fact, the Trump administration recently introduced a bill–aptly named the “Pet and Livestock Protection Act”–that would delist gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) over these very concerns.

Concerns over rewilding, the ESA, and government control over wild animals is hardly a new issue. Farmers and ranchers whose property have been substantially affected (e.g., crops destroyed, fences damaged) or killed, such as livestock, by protected wild animals have brought claims under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, arguing that the government has illegally taken their property through these animals without just compensation. In 1988, the Ninth Circuit in Christy v. Hodel held that a Montana rancher did not have the right to kill the ESA-protected grizzly bear who had been attacking his sheep. The government imposed a fine against the rancher for shooting the bear, but the rancher argued that the ESA and related grizzly bear protections made the bear a “government actor” that took his property. The court noted that although the regulations were governmental in nature, they still left the rancher with his property “bundle,” or substantive property rights. Additionally, the court noted that the bears themselves were wild animals–not government actors acting on regulations–that killed his sheep. This established an early precedent that government regulation of wildlife does not, by itself, transform those animals into state actors for purposes of the Fifth Amendment.

While Christy and subsequent ESA litigation have clarified the Takings Clause in the context of protected species, Illinois’s rewilding law raises a distinct question: what is the government’s liability when it actively reintroduces animals into natural habitats? Courts will likely look to the nuisance exception and the total economic deprivation standards articulated in the Supreme Court cases Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council and Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, decided in 1992 and 1978, respectively. They may also look to the common law doctrine of ferae naturae–the principle that wild animals belong to no one, and no one is liable for their behavior unless the animal is captured or under an individual’s control. Christy established that ESA-protected wildlife are not government actors, but the reintroduction context complicates that holding: when the government selects, transports, and releases a specific animal, has it exercised enough control to change the analysis? As states, including California, Washington, and Colorado, step in to fill the gaps left by federal environmental rollbacks, new questions are sprouting for answers.