Somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico, one or more disgusting people are dedicated to destroying wolves – to slaughtering, murdering, extinguishing the creature who lived here before us and have every right to recover in some of their historic range. I can only hope that these idiots step in a leg-trap or shoot one another.
Another Wolf in Pack Killed
Alpha Female’s Body Discovered
By Rene Romo
Journal Southern Bureau
LAS CRUCES — A wolf pack in Arizona that lost three wolves in the last 14 months under suspicious circumstances has suffered another blow: the death of the alpha female.
Arizona Game and Fish Department personnel found the body of the Hawks Nest pack alpha female, identified as AF1110, Monday evening in the pack’s territory in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.
No obvious cause of death could be found during a preliminary examination, and the wolf’s carcass was sent to the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Ore., for a complete necropsy.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees the 13-yearold Mexican wolf recovery project, described the Hawks Nest alpha female as one of the most consistent breeding females in the last few years.
The alpha female in the spring whelped at least six pups, which had weaned. The pack was one of three in Arizona whose territory was scorched in June by the massive Wallow Fire, but the pups managed to survive the blaze’s march through the forest.
In June and July 2010, the Hawks Nest alpha male and another adult male from the pack were killed in cases that are under investigation.
In April, a young male that had wandered away from the Hawks Nest pack’s traditional territory in Arizona was found dead with an apparent gunshot wound near Grants.
After her mate was killed, the alpha female had formed a bond with another adult male earlier this year, wildlife officials said. The remaining members of the pack continue to feed the alpha female’s surviving pups, according to Fish and Wildlife.
The wild population of endangered gray wolves in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico numbered 50 at the end of 2010, an increase from the previous year but still well below the 100 wolves that biologists estimated would inhabit the recovery area by 2006. Illegal poaching was the primary cause of wolf deaths in 2010, when five wolves were shot.
Federal and state agencies, along with a variety of conservation groups, have pledged a total of $58,000 for information leading to the conviction of anyone responsible for illegally killing a Mexican gray wolf.
We make a mistake accepting the cold, dispassionate scientific notation for these animals. Let’s give each wolf a heroic, noble name and report: Hero shot down by villain.