Endangered Mexican Gray Wolves Get a Boost on Road to Recovery
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Endangered Mexican Gray Wolves Get a Boost on Road to Recovery
As Feds Scrap Wolf-killing Three Strikes Rule
TUCSON, Ariz.— The Mexican gray wolf recovery effort took a pivotal
turn in the right direction today as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service reclaimed its decision-making authority over management of
this highly endangered animal that roams Arizona and New Mexico’s
backcountry.
Settling a lawsuit brought by conservation organizations, the Fish and
Wildlife Service reasserted its authority over a multiagency
management team and scrapped a controversial wolf “control” rule that
required permanently removing a wolf from the wild, either lethally or
through capture, after killing three livestock in a year.
Conservationists had criticized the rigid policy, known as Standard
Operating Procedure 13 or SOP 13, for forcing wolves to be killed or
sent to captivity regardless of an individual wolf’s genetic
importance, dependent pups or the critically low numbers of wolves in
the wild.
“We’re happy to see the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service once again
accepting its responsibility for recovering these endangered wolves,”
said Eva Sargent, Defenders of Wildlife’s Southwest program director.
“With so few Mexican wolves in the wild, we need to restore the role
of science – and this is a good step in that direction. Now, the Fish
and Wildlife Service must begin to develop a credible recovery plan.”
At last count in January 2009, there were just 52 Mexican gray wolves
and only two breeding pairs in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico.
Another count will take place in January 2010. Before reintroduction
began in 1998, the Fish and Wildlife Service had projected 102 wolves
including 18 breeding pairs by the end of 2006, with numbers expected
to rise thereafter.
For several years, the Mexican Wolf Adaptive Management Oversight
Committee, also known as AMOC, had called the shots on whether or not
a wolf would stay in the wild. AMOC was organized to bring other
agencies to the table, but the Fish and Wildlife Service – in an
unusual move – had ceded control of the Mexican gray wolf’s
reintroduction to the committee.
Under AMOC’s direction, the Mexican gray-wolf recovery effort became
less about helping this endangered wolf return to its home range and
more about wolf control and appeasing anti-wolf interests in the
recovery area.
“With the Mexican gray wolf on the brink of a second extinction in the
wild, more wolves need to be left on the ground and wolves need to be
introduced in more areas in the Southwest,” said Michael Robinson, a
conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “A new
recovery plan is needed to identify more places for Mexican gray
wolves to be introduced, including potentially the Grand Canyon,
southern Rockies, and Mexico.”
Meanwhile, the Fish and Wildlife Service has recently signaled that it
is ready to make a change for the better, coming up with new programs
to help local landowners coexist with wolves.
“This settlement marks an essential step in refocusing the Mexican
wolf recovery effort, but the Service will have to get to work on a
science-based recovery plan in order to stop the Mexican wolf’s slide
toward extinction,” said Kim Crumbo, director of conservation for the
Grand Canyon Wildlands Council.
“We welcome a new management policy that will bring them closer to
recovery,” said Matt Kenna of the Western Environmental Law Center,
who represented the plaintiffs: “It is important that the power over
Mexican wolf recovery has been returned to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service where it belongs under the law.”
The plaintiffs in the case were Defenders of Wildlife, Center for
Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, New Mexico Audubon
Council, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, University of New Mexico
Wilderness Alliance, The Wildlands Network, Sierra Club, Southwest
Environmental Center, and Grand Canyon Wildlands Council.