ABQjournal: Around New Mexico

Infected Deer Count Rises

SANTA FE— The state Department of Game and Fish has confirmed that three deer captured in southern New Mexico tested positive for chronic wasting disease, bringing the total number of infected deer in the state to 15.

Two of the wild deer were caught near the White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces, and the third deer was captured in the small town of Timberon in the southern Sacramento Mountains. The department received the test results last week from the state Veterinary Diagnostic Services Laboratory in Albuquerque.

Chronic wasting disease is fatal to deer, elk and moose, causing them to become emaciated, display abnormal behavior and lose control of bodily functions.

[mjh: we need more wolves!]

ABQjournal: Around New Mexico

Pack of Wolves Splits Up

A new pack of endangered Mexican gray wolves has split up since being released in the Gila Wilderness last month.

The interagency wolf reintroduction program released the Granite Pack— an adult male and two female yearlings— June 5 in the Gila Wilderness of southwestern New Mexico.

All three split within a week. The females, who had been captured as pups after their pack was involved in cattle killing last summer, stayed in the Gila. The male, who also had been involved in one depredation, moved more than 30 miles to the northeast, returning to the area where he was captured last summer.

Meanwhile, the alpha male of the Bluestem Pack was found dead June 4 on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona. The cause of death is under investigation.

ABQjournal: Feds Decline Jaguar Habitat Journal Staff and Wire Report

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday it will not designate critical habitat for the endangered jaguar in the Southwest.

U.S. habitat for the animal makes up less than 1 percent of the species’ range and is not critical to conserve it, the agency said. Thus, it doesn’t meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act for designating critical habitat.

But the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity disagreed and announced it intends to sue the agency over the decision.

Jaguars are occasionally seen in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona, but Fish and Wildlife officials believe those jaguars come from a population 130 miles south of the border in Mexico. …

[A] report by the interagency Jaguar Conservation Team identified more than 62 million acres of suitable habitat for jaguars in Arizona and New Mexico.

The jaguars were listed as an endangered species in the United States in 1997…. [T]he species’ range in the last century was as far north as Springer in New Mexico and the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Southwest Environmental Center

Dedicated to protecting and restoring the unique natural heritage of the Southwestern borderlands

See the Wolf Tourism page.

ABQjournal: Experts: Wolf Recovery Program Failing
By Tania Soussan
Copyright © 2006 Albuquerque Journal; Journal Staff Writer

The wild Mexican gray wolf population has been shrinking— rather than growing as it should— as wolves are removed from the wild for repeatedly killing livestock.

Almost an entire pack died in late May, and a separate lone wolf was shot by the wolf reintroduction program team last week, all for racking up too many depredations.

The conflict between livestock and wolves is nothing new. But expansion of wolf territories and ongoing drought are adding new stresses to the reintroduction program that aims to bring back wolves to southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.

Critics, both environmentalists who favor wolf reintroduction and ranchers who don’t want wolves near their cows, say the losses are a sign the program is failing. …

In 1996, the Fish and Wildlife Service set population goals for the wolf program— 15 breeding pairs and 83 wolves in the wild by the end of last year, and 18 breeding pairs and 102 wolves in the wild by the end of this year.

Program managers put the count for the end of 2005 at five breeding pairs and 35-49 wolves in the wild. (The current count is 31-45 adults plus an unknown number of pups.)

Morgart calls it “an absolute minimum count.” Ranchers agree and say there are likely twice as many wolves on the ground. Environmentalists say the numbers fall on the high end.

The wild population has also been declining since it hit a high point of 55 wolves at the end of 2003.
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Mexican Wolf Conservation and Management

About 50 to 60 along Arizona-New Mexico border now, due to releases beginning in 1998, and more than 200 in various captive breeding facilities in the United States and Mexico.

– View the latest 3-month wolf distribution map
– View printer-friendly version of 3-month wolf map

Habitat:
Principally oak, pine, and juniper woodlands and forests, grasslands, and riparian corridors, in broken, sloping country. Generally above 4,000 feet elevation, occasionally lower.

ABQJOURNAL: Wolf Killed After It Killed Livestock

A Mexican gray wolf that officials said was involved in at least three livestock killings in the past year has been shot and killed in the Gila National Forest.

A member of the wolf recovery team killed the male wolf last Sunday after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a permanent removal order for it. The order came after the wolf was confirmed to have killed a cow in southeastern Catron County.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began releasing wolves into the wild on the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1998 to re-establish the species in part of its historic range.

However, the animals under the program are designated as a ”nonessential experimental population.” That gives the recovery team greater flexibility to manage the wolves under the Endangered Species Act and allows permanent removal of a wolf — by capturing or killing it — after three confirmed livestock deaths.

Game and Fish Director Bruce Thompson said the state is working with Fish and Wildlife on federal rule changes “that will promote more effective recovery areas and diminish the likelihood of problem wolves in New Mexico.”

The reintroduction program allows Mexican gray wolves to be released in New Mexico only if they previously were released in Arizona and have experience in the wild.

The wolf recovery team said three Mexican wolves, an adult male and two female yearlings, will be released this month in the Gila Wilderness.

The male was captured and removed from the wild in 2005 after it was involved in a livestock death. The yearlings were removed from the wild last year after cattle killings by adults in their pack.

The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates 32 to 46 endangered Mexican wolves live in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico.

Last week, Fish and Wildlife officials said the alpha male of a pack that had been killing cattle on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona had been shot to death, and that eight other wolves captured from that pack had died — including six pups killed by a surrogate parent wolf.

ABQjournal: 12-Wolf Pack Is Down to Two By Tania Soussan
Copyright © 2006 Albuquerque Journal; Journal Staff Writer

The Southwest’s 12-member Hon Dah Pack of endangered Mexican gray wolves was down to just two Wednesday after a sharpshooter killed one, six pups were killed by another wolf and others died following capture.

“The loss of these wolves is a blow to the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program and everyone who is working to recover wolves in the Southwest,” said Benjamin Tuggle, acting Southwest regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. …

The wolves were targeted for permanent removal from the wild last month after being found responsible for seven confirmed and four probable livestock depredations on tribal lands since last June 7. Arizona’s White Mountain Apache tribe asked for their removal. … The alpha male was shot about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday morning by a tribal member of the wolf reintroduction program field team.[mjh: so much for Brother Wolf and living in harmony with everything.]

The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates there are 32 to 46 wolves and an unknown number of pups in the wild in New Mexico and Arizona. The number is far fewer than the federal endangered species reintroduction program had expected to have now.

Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity in an interview called the deaths “an atrocity” and said a moratorium on wolf killings and trappings is needed. “The Mexican wolf is facing an emergency,” he said.

The Hon Dah Pack included two adults, three yearlings and seven 4-week-old pups.

Blog Search Results for ‘wolf wolves’

KOBTV.com – Comment period extended for Mexican gray wolf plan
By: Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) – The public has more time to comment on a five-year review of an effort to reintroduce the endangered Mexican gray wolf in the Southwest.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service began releasing wolves into the wild along the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1998 to re-establish the species in part of its historic range.

As of the end of 2005, there were an estimated 35 to 49 wolves in Arizona and New Mexico.

The five-year review of the reintroduction program recommends expanding the range in which the animals are allowed.

The program is awaiting a response from the Fish and Wildlife Service, which has given the public another 14 days, until May 30th, to comment.

Ranchers have objected to wolf reintroduction, while environmentalists argue that wolf reintroduction is hampered by people more than biological concerns.

The Mexican Wolf Recovery Program Home – USFWS

Gray Wolf homepage

ABQjournal: Rare Falcon Spotted On Otero Mesa
The Associated Press

SANTA FE— An endangered northern aplomado falcon has been spotted on Otero Mesa in the southern part of the state, according to an environmental group trying to stop plans for oil and gas drilling in the area.
Forest Guardians reported last week that a young falcon was seen about two miles from where a pair of falcons was spotted in August. The young bird was photographed by an environmental consultant who is conducting falcon surveys.
The sighting was the eighth in as many months, and environmentalists are calling on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to hold off on a reintroduction plan that would remove habitat protection for wild falcons in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.
Environmental groups have said the falcon is being threatened by oil and gas drilling in its habitat— including Otero Mesa, site of a challenged Bureau of Land Management plan for drilling.

ABQjournal: Plan to Capture Jaguar Is Opposed
The Associated Press

LORDBURG— A team of government scientists has voted to capture one of a handful of jaguars known to live in the United States, drawing protests from environmental groups.
The scientists want use a radio collar to follow the jaguar’s movements, along river corridors or through mountain ranges, to help authorities figure out which areas most need protection in the name of the species.
The decision, voted on here last week, needs to be approved by game agencies in Arizona and New Mexico, meaning it could take until the end of the year before one is collared, Arizona Game and Fish officials said.
However, three environmental groups— the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sky Island Alliance— contend that the stress of capture is risky for the animal.
In 2002 and 2003, two jaguars died after being captured in Sonora, Mexico, for radio-collaring. That’s two out of the three research-based jaguar captures ever made in Sonora.

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Northern Jaguar Project

In the rugged Sierra Madre foothill mountains in the state of Sonora, Mexico, lies one of the largest areas of unfragmented, largely unprotected, wildlife habitats remaining in North America. The area contains some 3000 square miles of near-pristine wildlife habitat, marred only by the effects of range cattle grazing.

This dramatically beautiful region has unprecedented significance for the conservation of many threatened and endangered species.

The topography of rough mountains, deep canyons, and sheer cliffs, along with the vegetation mix of tropical thornscrub, tropical deciduous forest, and oak woodlands, provides a rich and regionally unique habitat for biodiversity of native flora and fauna. Rare wildlife species include:

* The northernmost viable breeding population of jaguars
* Military macaws in their northernmost nesting sites
* The northernmost breeding population of neotropical river otters
* The southernmost nesting site for bald eagles
* Ocelots, desert tortoises, Gila monsters, lilac-crowned parrots, eared trogons, and other rare and important species.

Protection of the area is crucial for preservation of viable habitat for all of the species present, but particularly for protection of the last remaining breeding populations of endangered jaguars in northern Mexico. Protection is essential for creation of a wildlife corridor between Mexico and the United States. The corridor will create connectivity and allow recolonization of endangered species in the United States, contributing to the maintenance of genetic diversity.

We have a brief window of opportunity to preserve this area of precious biodiversity and we must act now.

Ah, Wilderness! » Jaguar in New Mexico

For the first time in a decade, a jaguar has been sighted in the state.

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ABQjournal: Jaguar Seen In Hidalgo County By Tania Soussan, Journal Staff Writer

What’s spotted all over but rarely spotted in New Mexico?

For the first time in a decade, a jaguar has been sighted in the state.

The elusive big cats— known for their golden yellow coats with dark rosette markings— once roamed widely in Arizona and New Mexico.

Today, they are endangered and mostly restricted to Mexico. Mostly.

“We have a report of a jaguar sighting in Hidalgo County,” New Mexico Game and Fish spokesman Marty Frentzel said this week. “We’re still trying to get all the facts.”

The jaguar was sighted by a mountain lion hunter and “our understanding is he was using hounds,” Frentzel added.

Beyond that, the state isn’t saying much.

But word of the sighting is spreading. Jon Schwedler, a New Mexican and manager of the Northern Jaguar Project, heard the news recently.

“It’s exciting that this jaguar is here,” he said.

Jaguars are the largest cats native to North America. They are powerful, solitary predators and can travel hundreds of miles. They are often thought of as jungle animals but have also been found in desert grasslands and conifer forests.

“We don’t know what to make of it,” Frentzel said. “… Occasionally, there is use of New Mexico by jaguar. Other than that, it may not mean much.”

Years ago, a hunter took pictures of a jaguar his dogs treed in the bootheel of NM. Hunters are the only ones lucky enough to see these big cats — I hope they are all decent enough to let them be. mjh

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Northern Jaguar Project

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