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

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

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]

News: In Montana’s Blackfoot Valley, ranchers learn to live with grizzlies, BY APRIL REESE, LAND LETTER

TWO CREEK RANCH, OVANDO, Mont. — When grizzly bears showed up on this sprawling ranch in the Blackfoot Valley in the 1990s, ranch manager Wayne Slaght was not happy. The new arrivals took down two calves, and several more over the next few years.

But now, almost a decade later, Slaght is no longer all that worried about grizzlies. An electric fence keeps the bears off the range, and under a local program any carcasses are removed to prevent the bears from becoming habituated to eating cattle.

“Living with the dang bears is a little awkward, but we’re learning to deal with it,” Slaght said, standing next to the electric fence. …

But the biggest challenge may be still to come. Wolves have begun to colonize the area, and many ranchers are worried.

“That’s a whole different cat,” Slaght said. “Wolves are just killers.”

Wilson said he is unsure how the challenge will go about trying to help the community live with wolves. “There aren’t many examples of people coexisting with wolves,” Wilson said. “How to coexist with them? I don’t know.”

http://www.redlodgeclearinghouse.org/news/06_14_07_blackfoot.html

Montana’s ranchers learn to live with grizzlies (unfortunately, it took miles of fencing), but not with wolves. Well, they say that now, though they said the same of grizzlies. mjh

ABQjournal: New Mexico Species are Among 20 in Rapid Decline, Audubon Says, By Polly Summar, Journal Northern Bureau

In New Mexico, the top five common birds in decline during the past 40 years are:

1. the mountain chickadee, declined by 83 percent;
2. the horned lark, 81 percent;
3. the loggerhead shrike, 74 percent;
4. the Western meadowlark, 57 percent; and
5. the pinyon jay, 54 percent.

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/571447nm06-16-07.htm

National Audubon Society – Birds in Decline – Browse Species
List of Top 20 Common Birds in Decline

The following are the 20 common North American birds with the greatest population declines since 1967. [mjh: follow link below]

http://www.audubon.org/bird/stateofthebirds/CBID/browseSpecies.php