I’m pretty sure there was another 10-year study prior to the one mentioned in this article (Hornacker?). That tactic appears to be to fund long studies, reject the findings, kill what you want. If you want to see a buncha good-old-boys slapping each other’s backs, go to a Game Commission meeting. You can’t tell the outfitters from the Commissioners. Just like the end of Animal Farm.

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: Proposed Rules Will Wipe Out N.M.’s Cougars

By Wendy Keefover-Ring
WildEarth Guardians
          The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish wants to wage war on the state’s cougars, but that will not make people or livestock safer, nor create more deer, elk or bighorn sheep for hunters. The government’s proposal focuses heavily on female cougars, and that will mean it will more quickly wipe out these majestic cats.
        As part of a perfect storm for cougars, Game and Fish also seeks to limit the public’s right to object by restricting access to the rule-making process.
        Right now, the public can weigh in on cougar-kill quotas every two years. But Game and Fish wants to move to a four-year, decision-making cycle that would effectively cut the public and even the Game Commission — the rule-making body that oversees the agency — out of the process.
        In comparison, most, if not all, Western states review cougar quotas annually. New Mexico’s cougars could very well be wiped out before our right to object comes around again.
        Game and Fish’s 2010 proposals represent a radical departure from years of prudent stewardship encouraged by the Gov. Bill Richardson administration.
        Game and Fish disposed of a comprehensive 10-year, peer-reviewed study on cougars, conducted in New Mexico and authored by Kenneth Logan and Linda Sweanor and hailed by U.S. conservation biologists as a seminal work. This $1 million study, paid for by New Mexicans, disappointed the agency because its data suggested that the cougar population was far lower than what was expedient for the agency.
        Undaunted, in 2010 Game and Fish threw out the Logan and Sweanor study and now relies on a student’s unfinished, unpublished and unavailable four-year study that the agency claims determines that the population is significantly larger than Logan and Sweanor had estimated. On top of that, Game and Fish assessed a high level of kill — by using a Wyoming study that it has grossly misinterpreted.
        Combined, these unscientific approaches provided Game and Fish with the "basis" for its extreme quota of 1,180 cougars per year, a 140 percent increase from the 490 figure used in 2008.
        Killing females particularly harms the population because they provide the resiliency needed to overcome overhunting. Further, with the death of mother cats, dependent kittens will likely suffer starvation and death after orphaning.
        To protect breeding females, in 2008 the New Mexico Game Commission unanimously approved measures to protect mothers and their kittens while continuing to allow limited sport hunting. The commission narrowed the total number of females that could be killed in each hunting zone, and it ordered an online education program that teaches hunters to differentiate between the male and female cats.
        But now Game and Fish wants to kill over 457 females annually, an astonishing 263 percent increase over the 2008 level of 126.
        Intuitively, it might seem like killing cougars would protect human safety, but there is no evidence that shows that sport hunting cougars makes people safer, according to "Cougar Management Guidelines" — a publication authored by 13 cougar biologists and reviewed by 30 others. In fact, abundant research indicates the exact opposite is true. By overhunting a cougar population, the age structure changes to one that is younger and more socially unstable. In other words, killing cougars might actually increase the number of harmful encounters between cougars, humans and even livestock.
        A far more prudent way to protect people and livestock is through education. Recreationists and those who live in cougar country can take common sense precautions while outside, such as traveling in groups, walking with young children in hand and keeping dogs on leashes. Furthermore, livestock growers can use non-lethal means to protect livestock from cougar attacks.
        Instead of waging war on cougars, we call upon the Game Commission to reject Game and Fish’s radical quota proposal and keep it at the 2008 level of 490; continue the biennial review process; make the online hunter education program mandatory to protect breeding females and kittens. We call upon Game and Fish to ramp up its nascent but promising Cougar Smart New Mexico program that promotes human-cougar coexistence.
        The vast majority of New Mexicans appreciate the beauty, majesty and charisma of cougars. New Mexican voters know that cougars are an important component of our natural heritage. In fact, New Mexican wildlife watchers far exceed other forms of wildlife recreation, including hunting.
        Cougars must be preserved for future generations and not squandered for short-sighted, ill purpose.
        Also signed by Phil Carter of Animal Protection of New Mexico and Mary Katherine Ray of Sierra Club, Rio Grande Chapter

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: Proposed Rules Will Wipe Out N.M.’s Cougars

» Two Wolves Killed in Past Month – Act Now to Save the Lobo — New Mexico Wilderness Alliance »

Updated: 7.13.2010 by Rachel

On July 1, the US Fish and Wildlife Service reported the shooting death of the alpha male from the Hawks’ Nest Pack in eastern Arizona.

Last week, the alpha male of the San Mateo Pack in New Mexico was found dead under suspicious circumstances. Both killings are under investigation by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Environmental groups are offering up to an additional $40,000 to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those involved with the deplorable killing of these wolves.

CLICK HERE to download the reward poster– and repost in your neighborhood or place of work.

This latest blow to the Mexican wolf reintroduction effort brings home the importance of supporting wolf conservation and public education efforts. NMWA is contributing to the cause with the launch of our Mexican Wolf Stamp program, which will raise awareness and raise funds for groups working in Mexican gray wolf conservation. Please click here to learn more about the 2011 Wolf Stamp.

In addition, the organization Lobos of the Southwest has started a letter-writing campaign in response to these latest crimes against  wild wolves. CLICK HERE TO VISIT THEIR WEBSITE and get involved.

» Two Wolves Killed in Past Month – Act Now to Save the Lobo — New Mexico Wilderness Alliance »

Monday, July 05, 2010
Traps, Snares Threaten N.M. Wolf Population
By Mary Katherine Ray
Wildlife Chair, Rio Grande Chapter Sierra Club
          Highly endangered Mexican wolves are being harmed by legally set leg-hold traps. These devices are illegal on public land on the Arizona side of the wolf reintroduction area but not in New Mexico.
        Since the reintroduction began, 12 wolves on our side have been trapped by accident or mistake. Several of those have sustained injuries to their paws or legs including lost toes as a result. Two have had to have their legs amputated.
        One of the still-living, three-legged lobos is the alpha male of the Middle Fork pack. His mate is also three-legged from an unknown cause.
        The case of the other amputee, M1039, is special to me.
        We live near the wolf recovery area in New Mexico and were delighted to learn that a lone collared male wolf was exploring the nearby forest. It was winter, though, the time when fur trappers lay their hidden menaces.
        Not long after, we noticed a helicopter flying low up and down the canyons. It did this for hours as if looking for something. It turned out that M1039 had indeed stepped into a trap set for something else and had managed to detach it from its anchor chain.
        He was now free to escape the place where the trap had been hidden, but he could not escape the trap.
        He had to be found, which required the helicopter, so he could be captured for medical care. But the trap had been clenched on him for too long and the leg had to go.
        M1039 was released back to the wild but went missing within a year and is now presumed dead. He had no pack mates to help him hunt. Having only three legs could have been so compromising he just couldn’t survive alone.
        The lobo population in New Mexico is down to only 15 animals; a reduction by nearly half from the prior year. No one knows why it fell so much, but with leg-hold traps and snares legally allowed where wolves can be, the threat is just one more of the human-caused reasons that keep our wolf population from thriving.
        Wolves in the Southwest were exterminated decades ago by people thinking they were making our wild lands safe for livestock. At last, we realize how important wolves are for the balance of nature and a functioning ecosystem and are restoring them to the Gila region where they belong.
        With so few wolves, it is imperative that no threat be overlooked or deemed inconsequential. Traps and snares are a threat to them and I fervently hope the Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will respond favorably to petitions filed by WildEarth Guardians, the Sierra Club, the Southwest Environmental Center and others to prohibit these cruel devices where wolves should be roaming freely.

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: Traps, Snares Threaten N.M. Wolf Population

Some craven coward, who considers himself a great hunter and even a hero, is slaughtering wolves and treating OUR shared land as his own domain. Dumbass. [spit on the ground]

ABQNews: Two Alpha Male Mexican Gray Wolves Dead

The effort to recover Mexican gray wolves in a swath of federal forests straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border has been beset by challenges since the first lobos were released in Arizona in 1998. Federal officials had expected the wild wolf population would grow to 100 wolves by the end of 2006, but the 2009 count totaled 42 wolves, down from 52 in the previous year.

A report issued by the Fish and Wildlife Service in May called illegal shootings the "single greatest source of wolf mortality in the reintroduced population." Between 1998 and June 2009, 31 of 68 deaths of wild-roaming wolves were caused by illegal shooting, according to the report. …

The Fish and Wildlife Service described the Hawks Nest Pack, which traditionally roamed an area east of Big Lake in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest for its spring-summer breeding territory, as having "a proven record of avoiding domestic livestock in favor of native prey animals like elk and deer."

ABQNews: Two Alpha Male Mexican Gray Wolves Dead