Category Archives: wildlife

wildlife

Climate Change Brings Risk of More Extinctions

Climate Change Brings Risk of More Extinctions – washingtonpost.com

Around the world, scientists have found that climate change is
altering natural ecosystems, making profound changes in the ways that
animals live, migrate, eat and grow. Some species have benefited from
the shift. Others have been left disastrously out of sync with their
food supply. Two are known to have simply disappeared.

If warming continues as predicted, scientists say, 20 percent or more
of the planet’s plant and animal species could be at increased risk of
extinction. But, as the shrinking habitat at Blackwater shows, the bad
news isn’t all in the out years: Some changes have already begun. “This
is actually something we see from pole to pole, and from sea level to
the highest mountains in the world,” said Lara Hansen, chief climate
change scientist at the World Wildlife Fund,
a private research and advocacy group. “It is not something we’re going
to see in the future. It’s something we see right now.”

The temperature increase behind these changes sounds slight. The world
has been getting warmer by 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit every decade, a U.N. panel found this year, in part because of carbon dioxide and other human-generated gases that trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere.

By nature’s clock, the warming has come in an instant. The mechanisms
that helped animals adapt during previous warming spells — evolution
or long-range migration — often aren’t able to keep up. Scientists say
that effects are beginning to show from the Arctic to the Appalachian Mountains. One study, which examined 1,598 plant and animal species, found that nearly 60 percent appeared to have changed in some way.

“Even when animals don’t go extinct, we’re affecting them. They’re
going to be different than they were before,” said David Skelly, a Yale University
professor who has tracked frogs’ ability to react to increasing warmth.
“The fact that we’re doing a giant evolutionary experiment should not
be comforting,” he said.

wildlife

Say Bye to the Whales!

Warming May Be Hurting Gray Whales’ Recovery By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer

As many as 118,000 gray whales roamed the Pacific before humans decimated the population through hunting, and human-induced climate change may now be depriving those that remain of the food they need, according to a study released yesterday.

The research, based on a detailed analysis of DNA taken from gray whales living in the eastern Pacific, highlights how human behavior has transformed the oceans, the scientists said.

Today there are only about 22,000 Pacific gray whales, including about 100 in the western Pacific. …

Federal officials took eastern Pacific gray whales off the endangered species list in the mid-1990s, but a rise in sea temperatures appears to have limited the whales’ available food. A recent spike in deaths among gray whales may suggest “this decline was due to shifting climatic conditions on Arctic feeding grounds,” the researchers wrote in the paper, being published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“There definitely are large-scale ecosystem effects going on,” said Stanford doctoral student S. Elizabeth Alter, the lead author, in an interview yesterday. …

The decline in gray whales has affected the ocean in a variety of ways, according to the researchers. Because the animals feed on the ocean bottom by sucking in and expelling sediment that contains shrimplike creatures called amphipods, the scientists wrote, historic populations may have redistributed enough sediment to feed a million seabirds.

Aboriginal tribes are currently allowed to kill as many as 125 eastern Pacific gray whales a year under International Whaling Commission rules, though this practice has sparked controversy. In light of the new data suggesting that the whales’ numbers were more depleted than was previously known, international officials need to reconsider the amount of gray whale hunting they currently allow, the researchers said. …

[I]f humans are affecting the ocean’s “capacity to support life, it’s got to make you worry, it’s got to make your wonder.”
– – – – –

Hunter not ashamed of killing whale without a permit By Lynda V. Mapes, Seattle Times staff reporter

Around 9:30, the crew saw another whale. This one, about 40 feet long, surfaced and came to the two boats.

“It chose us,” Johnson said.

Into the animal’s flesh, crew members plunged at least five stainless-steel whaling harpoons and four seal harpoons “so we wouldn’t lose it,” Johnson said. They then shot the whale with a gun powerful enough to fire a slug four miles.

The former captain of the whaling crew that in 1999 took the Makah tribe’s first whale in 70 years, Johnson confirmed that the hunt that shocked his own tribe and anti-whaling activists Saturday was carried out without the permission of his Tribal Council or Whaling Commission. …

“I’m not ashamed. I’m feeling kind of proud. … There is only a few guys in Neah Bay that can get a whale and bring everyone home safely. You think one of the only whaling captains in 77 years could give it up? I should have done it years ago. I come from a whaling family … It’s in the blood.”

The tribe needs to whale to keep its culture alive, Johnson said. “The time is now, when the people are still interested. And the whales are robust.“

wildlife

Say Bye to the Polar Bears! (continued)

Polar bear population seen declining, By JOHN HEILPRIN – Associated Press Writer

Two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will be killed off by 2050 – and the entire population gone from Alaska – because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.

Only in the northern Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of Greenland are any of the world’s 16,000 polar bears expected to survive through the end of the century, said the U.S. Geological Survey, which is the scientific arm of the Interior Department.

USGS projects that polar bears during the next half-century will disappear along the north coasts of Alaska and Russia and lose 42 percent of the Arctic range they need to live in during summer in the Polar Basin when they hunt and breed. A polar bear’s life usually lasts about 30 years.

“Projected changes in future sea ice conditions, if realized, will result in loss of approximately two-thirds of the world’s current polar bear population by the mid 21st century,” the report says. …

Polar bears have walked the planet for at least 40,000 years.

http://www.centredaily.com/news/politics/story/200554.html

wildlife

Say Bye to the Polar Bears!

NOAA Scientists Say Arctic Ice Is Melting Faster Than Expected, By Doug Struck, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Arctic ice cap is melting faster than scientists had expected and will shrink 40 percent by 2050 in most regions, with grim consequences for polar bears, walruses and other marine animals, according to government researchers.

The Arctic sea ice will retreat hundreds of miles farther from the coast of Alaska in the summer, the scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded. That will open up vast waters for fishermen and give easier access to new areas for oil and gas exploration. It is also likely to mean an upheaval in species, bringing new predators to warmer waters and endangering those that depend on ice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090602499.html?wpisrc=newsletter

wildlife

wolf lottery

4 Comments

[via nmwild.org]
A New Way to Help Mexican Wolves

One of the ongoing battles for Mexican
Wolves is convincing the politicians and agencies that people
want to see wolves, and convincing reluctant locals that wolf
tourism really can help the economy.
Now, there’s an
easy way to bring home this message.  The New
Mexico Department of Game and Fish is offering an opportunity to
go out with their wolf biologist, Ellen Heilhecker, as
she monitors Mexican wolves in the Gila National
Forest.   They will use a lottery system to decide who
gets to go – and that’s the
opportunity!  We want them to be amazed when 1000
people sign up for the chance. 

Please help us reach this goal – even if you
don’t plan to go looking for lobos.  And if you do
win, the cost is $74. Just applying will cost you $6, but
believe me that 2-lattes-worth will send a great message about
wolves.  And if you do win, you will get to learn how
NMDG&F uses radio telemetry equipment, GPS units, and
digital trail cameras in keeping track of approximately 15
collared lobos currently in the wild in the state.

Please go to  www.wildlife.state.nm.us
and click on the “Wildlife Adventures” sheep photo at the top of
the page. The sign-up process is complicated, and it appears you
take pot luck on dates, but this is a really cool deal. The
three dates for the adventures are 9/23, 10/13, and 10/20. 
Good Luck!

Powered by ScribeFire.

newmexico, wildlife

Grappling with Fear

Following a link from “cred,” I ran across this article. Wolf supporters should read this and think about the situation. The reintroduction of the wolf will only succeed if everyone understands what it involves and we all do what we can to make it work for everyone reasonable.

I feel some compassion for people who are afraid of the wolf, especially anyone who has had a wolf march into their yard or kill a pet. At the same time, wolves will learn to avoid and fear people, as most wildlife does. It’s going to take time and some work, something ranchers are well-acquainted with. Times and conditions change and you adjust to those changes. mjh

Catron County Wolf pages – articles of interest
Under Siege in Wolf Country
The Mexican Gray Wolf: Killers and Thieves of Peace of Mind
copyright 2006 Lif C Strand

http://www.catroncounty.net/wolfhotline/articles/index.htm

[mjh: Arizona Game and Fish has an interesting page on the Mexican gray wolf, with photos.]

Mexican Wolf Conservation and Management
http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/es/wolf_reintroduction.shtml

newmexico, wildlife

Save the Lobo

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
– – – – –

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
– – – – –

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
– – – – –

[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

newmexico, wildlife

The Pride of Catron County

5 Comments

Catron County: Groups aim to overturn wolf law

The federal government has been reintroducing the wolves to the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area — 4.4 million acres of the Gila and Apache Sitgreaves national forests in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona plus Arizona’s 1.6 million-acre White Mountain Apache reservation, interspersed with private land and towns.

The program began March 29, 1998, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released 11 wolves that were bred in captivity.

The recovery area had 59 wolves as of January 2007 [mjh: That’s +48 wolves in 9 years.], and that number has fluctuated with wolf deaths and removals and the births of pups, said Elizabeth Slown, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman in Albuquerque.

The agency conducts one count of wild wolves annually.

By the end of June, only 26 wolves could be located [mjh: Is that -33 wolves in 6 months? Something doesn’t add up, but anyway you count it, this program is a miserable failure in large part because of local opposition.] through radio telemetry, the lawsuit said.
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/65651.html

newmexico, wildlife

Another Animal Slaughtered

ABQjournal NM: Bear Killed After Boy Bitten
The Associated Press

RATON— Game officers killed a small black bear believed to have bitten a 13-year-old boy camping at Sugarite Canyon State Park near Raton, a spokesman for the state Game and Fish Department said Tuesday.

The bear was killed with a shotgun blast about 4 p.m. Monday afternoon and its head was sent to the state laboratory in Albuquerque to be tested for rabies, Dan Williams said.

The boy, Matthew Ortiz from Raton, is undergoing rabies treatment as a precaution, Williams said. The teen was not seriously hurt.

State law requires rabies testing on any wild animal that bites or scratches a person and breaks the skin, Williams said.

He said the bear, which weighed about 100 pounds, was shot near the Soda Pocket Campground where the boy was bitten early Sunday.

“Judging from the size of the bear and the size of the tracks and other things at the scene like the tooth marks and their distance from the ground, they determined it was very, very, very likely it was the bear that bit the boy,” Williams said. [mjh: Is this the new standard for slaughter: very, very, very likely.]

The teen heard something brush against his tent about 2:20 a.m. Sunday and slapped the side, thinking a relative was playing a trick. He apparently slapped the bear, which bit his hand and ran away, state parks officials said.

They believe the bear was searching for food.”

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/577423nm07-11-07.htm

ABQjournal NM: Around New Mexico
Bear That Bit Boy Didn’t Have Rabies [mjh: oops!]

RATON— A small black bear believed to have bitten a 13-year-old boy camping at Sugarite Canyon State Park near Raton did not have rabies, a spokesman for the state Game and Fish Department said Wednesday.

The bear was killed with a shotgun blast Monday afternoon and its head was sent to the state laboratory in Albuquerque, where it was tested for rabies. The results were negative, Dan Williams said.

The boy, Matthew Ortiz from Raton, was not seriously hurt but underwent rabies treatment as a precaution.”

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/577659nm07-12-07.htm

The teen was more than 50% responsible for this: he provoked the bear. And the bear was brutally slaughtered with a SHOTGUN. Who are these wildlife killers? mjh

colorado, wildlife

Birds seen on Southern Colorado camping trip, 27-30 June 2007

Red-tailed Hawk
Spotted Sandpiper
Broad-tailed Hummingbird
Northern (Red-shafted) Flicker
Warbling Vireo
Gray Jay
Common Raven
Violet-green Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Mountain Chickadee
American Dipper
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Yellow-rumped (Audubon’s) Warbler
MacGillivray’s Warbler
Wilson’s Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
Fox Sparrow
Lincoln’s Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed (Gray-headed) Junco
Pine Grosbeak
Cassin’s Finch
Pine Siskin

wildlife

Endangered Falcons Released in New Mexico

ABQJOURNAL NEWS/STATE: Endangered Falcons Released in New Mexico, By Susan Montoya Bryan/

Associated Press

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE — An effort to reintroduce an endangered bird to the skies of southern New Mexico has taken another leap forward as 11 captive-bred aplomado falcon chicks got the first glimpse of their new home. …

The falcons are the second set being released in New Mexico as part of a recovery effort by the nonprofit Peregrine Fund, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state, federal and private land managers.

Expectations for the program are high since the last set, released in August 2006 on media mogul Ted Turner’s Armendaris Ranch east of Truth or Consequences, went on to produce at least one nesting pair and some wild-born chicks.

Biologists showed off the 11 chicks Friday at the Rio Grande Nature Center in Albuquerque before trucking them south in cardboard boxes to a remote site that straddles the western edge of White Sands Missile Range and state and Bureau of Land Management land. …

After successful reintroduction efforts in South Texas, The Peregrine Fund shifted its focus to West Texas in 2002 and to New Mexico in August 2006.

Those efforts appear to be paying off since nests were spotted this spring in both states.

Biologists were especially excited when they witnessed some of the wild-born chicks leaving one of the West Texas nests, marking the first fledging of aplomado chicks in that area in almost a century.

The Peregrine Fund plans to release more than 100 falcons in New Mexico and West Texas this summer. In New Mexico, another release is planned for the Armendaris, which offers 360,000 acres of grama grass, yucca, mesquite and insects — perfect for the falcons.

The falcons displayed Friday were born in captivity at The Peregrine Fund’s breeding facility in Idaho. They fall under a special provision of the Endangered Species Act.

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/apfalcons07-07-07.htm

wildlife

Stop the Massacre

ABQjournal NM: Richardson Chastises Federal Agency, By Jeff Jones, Journal Staff Writer

[Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Elizabeth] Slown said that during its annual wolf count early this year, her agency found 59 wolves in the wild. Some of those wolves have since had pups, boosting the total. …

She added that to her recollection, 16 wolves have been removed for depredation problems in New Mexico and Arizona over the past two years— eight by being trapped and placed in permanent captivity, and eight by being shot.

However, Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity said the actual number of wolves shot by federal sharpshooters is 11. [mjh: Mama, don’t let your boys grow up to be federal sharpshooters. Is it too much to wish one of these federal killers could find the tiniest spark of decency within and refuse to kill again?]

He said another 20 wolves have died as a direct result of federal capture operations.

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/576632nm07-07-07.htm

Richardson calls for suspension of ‘three strikes’ rule against endangered wolves, by Sue Major Holmes/, Associated Press

Gov. Bill Richardson is calling for the suspension of a policy that requires federal wildlife officials to trap or shoot to death any endangered Mexican gray wolf that kills three head of livestock in a year. …

The governor said the killing of the wolf is a setback to a program that began in 1998 to release endangered Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico. He wants the federal government to stop shooting or otherwise permanently removing wolves from the wild until the program’s rules can be overhauled. …

Michael Robinson, conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity in Pinos Altos, said the center supports Richardson’s call for suspending and reforming the federal rule.

“This wolf killing is a blatant abuse of federal power. It is undermining the recovery of the Mexican gray wolf, and is just the latest in a string of attacks on endangered species by the Bush administration,” he said.

John Horning, executive director of Forest Guardians in Santa Fe, said he heard the governor’s request with “a sigh of relief and a good measure of gratitude.” Horning said he’d been hoping someone would stand up against what he called a massacre of wolves.

The governor’s request did not meet with universal support.

Catron County Manager Bill Aymar said that “perhaps we should call them the ‘standard operating suggestions,”’ and likened Richardson’s request to changing the rules in the middle of a game. …

“I strongly support the effective recovery of endangered Mexican wolves in the Southwest, done in a responsible and sensitive way,” [Richardson] said. “Changes must be made to the protocol for the wolf re-introduction program.”

The government has killed three wolves this year for cattle kills. Last year, it shot five wolves for cattle kills and permanently removed three others from the wild. In 2005, one wolf was killed and four put into permanent capture.

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/apwolves07-07-07.htm

wildlife

Wolves to the Slaughter

ABQjournal NM: Wolf Killed for Depredations, By Rene Romo, Journal Southern Bureau

If we trapped, we may have gotten the male, which may have caused the female to move the pups,” Slown said in an e-mail. “This way the male will take over the pups’ care.”

At least four pups have been observed in AF924’s litter, Slown said. Federal officials will provide supplemental food, such as elk roadkill, to improve the wolf pups’ chances of surviving with only one parent.

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/576369nm07-06-07.htm

Aw, don’t those officials sound so damn caring and helpful? Except that their help comes after they deliberately slaughtered a mother with offspring.

The wolf reintroduction program is an absolute disaster and horrifically inhumane. No more wolves should be killed FOR ANY REASON short of an eye witness to wolves killing PEOPLE (won’t every happen). There are enough cows in the world to feed every wolf with plenty left over for people.

It is time to take the public lands back from the ranchers who believe they own those lands and their own profit is the only use for them. If ranchers can’t cope with protecting their cattle and can’t be satisfied by the money wolf supporters pay them, then they should move to town.

A female Mexican gray wolf released into the Gila Wilderness in late April was shot and killed Thursday by a federal agent due to repeated livestock depredation.

The alpha female of the Durango pack, designated AF924, was released into the wild with her mate on April 25, and within a short time she whelped a litter of pups. …

The Durango pack alpha female was the third wolf killed by federal officials for livestock depredation this year in the recovery area of southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico, said Elizabeth Slown, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

An entire pack— the Saddle pack with an adult male and female and seven pups— was trapped and removed from the wild in early April. Only four breeding pairs remain in the wild.

Slown said federal officials chose to kill AF924, rather than remove her from the wild for captive breeding, because trapping presented difficulties. …

“If they (Fish and Wildlife) had removed her like we asked them to three weeks ago, that wouldn’t have happened,” Catron County Manager Bill Aymar said Thursday of the slaying of the wolf.

It’s a topsy-turvy world when a Catron County official sounds like a humanitarian. This program is an appalling travesty managed by incompetents serving selfish public lands freeloaders. STOP SLAUGHTERING WOLVES! Cows are born to slaughter. mjh

wildlife

Steve Pearce (NM) would eliminate funding for the southwest wolf reintroduction program

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An amendment expected to be offered tomorrow by Representative Steve Pearce (NM) would eliminate funding for the southwest wolf reintroduction program — completely ending the program and dooming the wolves to extinction.

In preparation for the vote, Pearce and his anti-wolf allies have even stooped to spreading misinformation about the southwest wolf recovery program, circulating factually inaccurate reports of wolf attacks. At a recent hearing on the Endangered Species Act, Pearce even made the outrageous statement that “Nothing is more attractive to a wolf than the sound of a crying baby.”

For the record, there is not one documented case of a healthy, wild wolf killing a human in the United States. In fact, you are more likely to be killed by a meteorite than a wild wolf.

Please call Representative Pearce in Washington DC: (202) 225-2365. Take action right now to save Southwest wolves.

Please take just a few moments right now to help save this beautiful symbol of the American Southwest. [from nmwild.org]