ABQjournal NM: Public Input Sought on Wolf Rules, By Arthur H. Rotstein, The Associated Press

TUCSON— Federal wildlife officials hope the public will suggest ways to revamp and improve the troubled program to recover and reintroduce Mexican gray wolves along the Arizona-New Mexico border.
The program has been under fire from both environmentalists and ranchers.
Conservationists and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson are angered because of the number of wolves that federal agents have killed or removed after preying on cattle.
Many ranchers within the recovery area, particularly in New Mexico’s Catron County, have fiercely opposed the recovery effort since its inception in 1998, calling the program a nightmare that won’t go away.
“There are a lot of things that we could change about it to make it better, and we’d like to hear from people about what they think should be changed to make it better,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown.
Fish and Wildlife on Tuesday published in the Federal Register a notice of intent to take steps to potentially modify the rule that established the wolf program.
It will hold a dozen public meetings in November and December in Arizona and New Mexico and take public comments until the end of the year.
Afterward, the agency will draft a proposed amended rule, a draft environmental impact statement and a socio-economic assessment.
In a release, Benjamin Tuggle, the agency’s Southwest regional director, said the process “will provide an incredible opportunity for the public to collaborate in the future of wolf recovery in Arizona and New Mexico.”
A section of the Endangered Species Act allows “more flexibility to work with communities in managing experimental populations such as the Mexican wolf,” Tuggle said. “We have learned many lessons through the adaptive management process since establishing the program and recognize it is time for adjustments to be considered.”
In 1998, Fish and Wildlife introduced seven captive-bred endangered Mexican gray wolves into their historic range within the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area.
It encompasses 4.4 million acres of the Apache-Sitgreaves and Gila national forests in Arizona and New Mexico, plus the 1.6 million-acre White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona.
The intent was to have about 100 wild wolves living in the recovery area by last year. But the latest annual count found 59 wolves in Arizona and New Mexico, “and it waxes and wanes” through the year, Slown said.
She said about 10 animals have died, been killed or removed so far this year, with about an equal number of pups born.
“Everything is on the table,” Slown said. “We really want for people to come with an open mind and tell us. We will take their input and put it into a proposal.”
She said the process could take two to three years to change the rule.
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/584541nm08-08-07.htm
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ABQjournal Opinion: Forget the Hysteria, Get Real on Wolves, By Gene Tatum, President, Albuquerque Wildlife Federation

Are you a lobo fan?
It’s hard to travel anywhere in New Mexico without seeing the University of New Mexico’s mascot— the lobo. Plastered on bumper stickers, store windows, hats and T-shirts, the image of a wolf paw or snarling “Louie Lobo” reminds everyone we’re proud of our unique state.
Since 1920 the lobo has been UNM’s official mascot. That was about the time our real-life lobo, also called the Mexican wolf, was purposely exterminated from the United States through a federal poisoning and trapping operation.
But in 1998 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sought to right this wrong-headed extermination by reintroducing 11 endangered lobos into the remote border region between southern New Mexico and Arizona.
It was hoped these 11 lobos would grow into a population of 100 by the end of 2006, after which the federal lobo restoration program would no longer be necessary. These animals would represent the world’s only known lobo population.
But today, nearly a decade later, only six mating pairs of endangered lobos live in the wild, and the program is plagued by political conflicts between the cattle industry and federal, state and county agencies.
To make matters even worse, someone in southern New Mexico has been illegally killing lobos. In fact, so far the number of illegally poached lobos is greater than those that have died from natural causes, vehicle accidents and unknown causes combined.
As an Albuquerque-based volunteer organization that works to improve wildlife habitat throughout New Mexico, the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation, is seriously concerned about the lack of progress in the lobo restoration program.
It is clear that unless this situation is turned around, New Mexico will be facing a second extinction of the lobo. This would be incredibly shameful.
As such, the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation proposes:
# An honest discussion about the economics of lobo recovery take place. To date the number of cattle killed by lobos represents a fraction of all cattle in New Mexico and Arizona, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Given that ranchers who can establish that wolves took their livestock are compensated for the full market value of their animals, the New Mexico livestock industry should document why this arrangement is unsatisfactory.

# An honest discussion about the threats lobos pose to people. There has never been a documented case of a wolf killing a human being in U.S. history. Yet in a recent session of U.S. Congress, Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., told colleagues that “blood will be on your hands” if they opposed his elimination of funding for lobo restoration. Furthermore, some residents of Catron County have claimed they suffer from “post-traumatic stress disorder” after seeing lobos. Is there any hard data backing up either of these claims?

# The benefits of lobos also be weighed. Lobos help prevent elk and other big game from overgrazing their habitat, which causes harm to water, other wildlife and cattle. Wolf-related tourism can also be an economic boon, as the appearance of wolves in Yellowstone National Park has generated $70 million for its surrounding communities.
Not surprisingly, our beautiful state was the birthplace for the pioneering conservation ideals of Aldo Leopold, who started his career in the early 1900s down in the Gila country. In fact, he helped found the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation in 1914.
Some of Leopold’s ideals were shaped by his experiences with lobos, as he writes in his story “Thinking Like a Mountain,” in which he describes his misguided shooting of a lobo:
“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes— something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”
We thank Gov. Bill Richardson for his recent actions supporting lobo recovery, and now call upon our other New Mexico representatives, wildlife agencies, and fellow citizens to push hysteria aside, use common sense, and keep the “fierce green fire” of lobos in our state.
http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/guest_columns/584440opinion08-08-07.htm
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Center for Biological Diversity – Press Release

Due to politically driven limits on the areas where wolves can freely roam, poor management of livestock on public lands, and overly liberal recapture and kill rules, the wild Mexican wolf population is 55 or fewer today — well short of the recovery program goal of 102 wolves by 2006. Federal agents have killed or permanently removed 53 wolves from the program since 1998. Government killing of wolves began in 2003, reached a peak of five wolves in 2006, and is already at three wolves in 2007.

Potential new rules identified by the Fish and Wildlife Service include 1) allowing wolves to roam outside the designated recovery area (also known as the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area), 2) allowing direct reintroduction of wolves into New Mexico, 3) changing the current definition of “problem” and “nuisance’ wolves’ to exclude those which scavenge on dead cattle, and 4) reviewing other recovery actions requested by the Center for Biological Diversity in a 2004 legal petition. …

On June 10th, 2007, almost 600 attendees of the annual meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists passed a resolution calling on the Fish and Wildlife Service “to suspend all predator control directed at Mexican gray wolves at least until the interim 100-wolf goal of the current reintroduction program has been achieved … to protect wolves from the consequences of scavenging on livestock carcasses, ensure the recovery and sustainability of populations of Mexican gray wolves, and allow wolves to roam freely throughout the Southwest.”

On June 28, 2007, nine scientists, including retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator David Parsons, wrote a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service complaining that the recovery program has missed its goal of 102 wolves by nearly 50 percent. They blamed the failure on the high level of killing and removal by federal agents: “For the past four years, growth of the wolf population has been limited by management-related killing or permanent removal of wolves.”
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/mexican-wolves-08-07-2007.html
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[from nmwild.org]

Wolf Public Meeting August 13, 2007
PLEASE COME TO CONGRESSMAN STEVE PEARCE’S “LISTENING SESSION” IN SILVER CITY

YOUR VOICE IS NEEDED TO SUPPORT THE MEXICAN WOLF RECOVERY EFFORTS

What: “Listening Session” on the Wolf Recovery Program
When: Monday, August 13th from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. (please arrive at 2:30 to ensure good seating)
Where: Grant County Council Chambers
1400 Highway 180
Silver City, NM 88061

Congressman Steve Pearce has had it out for Southwest wolves for years — aggressively campaigning against the recovery program and trying to manipulate his constituents and Congress with misinformation and sensationalism. Now he’s holding an in-district “listening session” on Southwest wolves next Monday in Silver City.

Tell him – and the Fish and Wildlife Service – that New Mexicans support wolf reintroduction.

Pearce expects his constituents to show up and tell the Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies what he wants them to hear: that New Mexicans hate wolves, that they’re afraid of them and that they want wolf recovery efforts to stop.

But when it comes to wolves, Pearce is dead wrong. All public polls in New Mexico and Arizona have shown that the majority of folks support wolf recovery. Attend Monday’s meeting and help set the record straight.

See it on a map.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&q=1400+Highway+180++Silver+City,+NM&ll=32.780492,-108.289962&spn=0.008118,0.014462&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1

Pearce recently introduced an amendment that would end the Southwest wolf program entirely, making the outrageous claim on the House floor that “the most provocative sound to a wolf is a crying baby or a laughing baby,” and warning that it’s just a matter of time until a wolf catches a child.

Thanks to the help of activists like you, Congress didn’t fall for these old myths and soundly defeated his anti-wolf amendment 258 to 172. But Pearce is back on the warpath with his latest political maneuver: to get New Mexicans to go on the record against wolf reintroduction.

Please, come out and attend Monday’s meeting to help counter the lies and to show the world that New Mexicans want wolves in our state.

http://ga1.org/nmwildaction/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=5840551