Livestock Payments May Change

One branch of the federal government, the Agriculture Department’s Wildlife Services, set traps in the northern edge of the Gila National Forest last week in a frustrating, monthlong effort to capture the elusive alpha female of the Fox Mountain wolf pack, blamed for a string of recent livestock kills.

Meanwhile, officials in another agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, fretted over the difficult decision to impound the wolf, one of an official count of 58 in New Mexico and Arizona.

The tug of war over what to do with the Fox Mountain wolf has illustrated again the deep divide that has plagued the recovery of the endangered Mexican gray wolf.

On one hand, conservationists want a native predator that was nearly hunted to extinction restored to the landscape under the Endangered Species Act; on the other, critics, dominated by the livestock industry, argue the lobos are a menace that take a bite out of their pocketbooks by killing cows and other livestock.

Now, the Fish and Wildlife Service appears poised to endorse a new approach, dubbed coexistence, aimed at creating more tolerance for lobos in the ranching community.

Details won’t be released until next month at the earliest. However, according to a broad outline provided by people familiar with the plan, it would do this: Rather than compensate ranchers for confirmed wolf kills of livestock, the program would pay ranchers and those who own property in wolf country, based on a formula that would take into account a number of factors, such as the proximity of a wolf pack, the number of livestock exposed to the threat of wolves, a ranchers’ willingness to take steps to reduce wolf-livestock conflicts and the growth of the wild wolf population.

The idea of shifting to a new way of compensating ranchers in wolf country is, in part, a recognition that ranchers sustain losses for which they are not compensated, for instance, cattle that disappear or stressed cattle, said Craig Miller, Southwestern representative of Defenders of Wildlife and a member of the Mexican Wolf Interdiction Fund Stakeholders Council. The Council makes recommendations on how much to pay ranchers for livestock killed by wolves, with payments from a privately managed fund financed by Defenders and the federal government.

A baseline payment, of a still undetermined amount, would recognize that “there are costs of living in the presence of wolves,” Miller said. “The program is trying to get away from postmortem compensation. That begins with dead livestock and ends with dead wolves.”

As Miller envisions it, Arizona-based Defenders of Wildlife would continue, as it does now, to provide funds to ranchers for measures aimed at avoiding wolf-livestock conflicts, such as hiring range riders to guard herds, moving cattle to pastures away from wolf dens, or the purchase of hay. According to Miller, ranchers could be paid to take steps to reduce conflicts with wolves, and then be rewarded when those measures result in the growth of the wolf population.

“It’s trying to get cooperation on both sides,” said Sherry Barrett, wolf recovery program coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service. “There’s a lot of emotion around wolves, both pro and con. … So we are trying to find something that reduces some of this conflict.”

A key part of the plan — securing a big enough pot of money to pay ranchers an amount that would allay concerns about cattle losses — has yet to be accomplished. Money in the existing Interdiction Fund managed by a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group can only be used to pay ranchers for livestock losses.

To succeed, the plan would have to be embraced by the livestock industry, and several ranchers in Arizona and New Mexico said this week that they knew little or nothing about it. Laura Schneberger, president of the Gila Livestock Growers Association, said she doubted such a program would work for small ranchers who are less able to endure wolf depredations.

In the case of the Fox Mountain packs’ cattle depredations, ranchers called for wolf removals, while hundreds of wolf supporters pushed back against the initial kill order issued Aug. 8. Many wolf advocates celebrated when the kill order was rescinded two days later, after permanent housing for the wolf was secured in an Arizona sanctuary, while others maintained that the wolf should be allowed to remain free.

Before a few wolves were reintroduced to the wild in 1998, federal officials projected there would be about 100 wolves in the forests of southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona by the end of 2006. As of January, the official population count was 58.

Illegal poaching and the removal of wolves in earlier years for cattle depredations have been major factors in keeping down the number of wild-roaming lobos.

The desire to respond to rancher concerns was, in no small measure, what motivated Fish and Wildlife to exercise the discretion it has to manage, or remove, a “problem” wolf that repeatedly preys on livestock, Barrett acknowledged.

Whether a new approach to compensating ranchers for living with wolves is enough to bridge old divides is far from certain. Just in the past week, an online petition was launched that calls for blocking new releases of wolves and, eventually, the removal of wolves from the Southwest.

“I suspect we’ll get backlash from all sides,” Barrett said. “I’ve never seen a plan that didn’t get backlash, but what we are doing is trying to find a middle ground.”

Meanwhile, one freedom-loving lobo continues trying to steer clear of traps.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Rene Romo in Las Cruces at rromo@abqjournal.com or 575-526-4462. Go to ABQjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.

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State has spent more than $200K defending wolf lawsuit

 State wildlife managers spent more than $216,000 on outside attorneys in less than half a year to defend against a claim that they violated the federal Endangered Species Act relating to Mexican gray wolves.

This confrontation began when the New Mexico Game and Fish Department last year lifted a ban on trapping in southwestern New Mexico, where the federal government reintroduced the endangered wolves. It meant state lands again were open to potential adversaries of the rare wolves.

WildEarth Guardians sued the Game and Fish Department, alleging a state agency had created a system that could harm or kill wolves guaranteed protection by federal law.

The suit, filed in February in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, named state Game and Fish Director James Lane and Game Commission Chairman Jim McClintic as defendants.

"No permit is necessary to trap skunks or coyotes. Wolves that should enjoy protection are in danger of being harmed or killed," said Wendy Keefover of WildEarth Guardians.

Every death of a Mexican gray wolf is statistically significant, she said, because its population in the wilds of New Mexico and Arizona numbers no more than 42.

Lane, through a spokesman, said money the state is using to defend against the lawsuit came from fishing, hunting and trapping licenses. He declined to say anything else.

State records show that most of the money spent so far by the Game and Fish Department has gone to the law firm of Kelley Drye in Washington, D.C. It had received $199,801 through June, the end of the state government's budget year.

Another $16,238 for the wolf case went to the Albuquerque law firm of Keleher & McLeod.

The suit is still being litigated, and seven agencies opposed to wolf reintroduction have intervened as defendants.

They include the New Mexico Council of Outfitters and Guides, the New Mexico Farm & Livestock Bureau and the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association.

Caren Cowan, executive director of the cattle growers, said her group opposes the wolf as an unwanted and dangerous predator. She said she also resented WildEarth Guardians trying to create policies for the state.

"We need the ability to use our own lands," Cowan said in an interview.

Keefover of WildEarth Guardians said federal protection for the wolf trumps the state trapping program. Her group maintains the wolf's future is being threatened because of political maneuverings in New Mexico.

When Democrat Bill Richardson was governor, he issued an executive order prohibiting leg-hold and body-crushing traps within the Mexican gray wolf's New Mexico recovery area. He said he wanted to protect the wolves as much as possible until their population grew. Richardson's order came in July 2010, six months before he left office.

Republican Susana Martinez succeeded Richardson. The Game and Fish Department, as part of her administration, rescinded Richardson's trapping ban in July 2011.

It meant that trapping could occur year-round on lands where it had been prohibited. They included portions of the Wild Rivers Recreation Area of the Rio Grande, the Valle Vidal, Vermejo Ranch and the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

WildEarth Guardians is no happier with President Obama's administration than it is with Martinez's.

In 2010 the conservation group filed petitions with the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in hopes of receiving an emergency exclusion of trapping in the Mexican gray wolf's range.

The Forest Service rejected the request and the Fish and Wildlife Service ignored it, Keefover said.

The wolf's territory also extends into Arizona, where it is safer.

Trapping is outlawed on Arizona's public lands. Voters, not politicians, made that decision in a public vote in 1994.

Cowan of the cattle growers association said the lawsuit amounted to little. Even the U.S. government describes Mexican gray wolves in the wild as a "nonessential experimental population," she said.

Cowan also said the chances of wolves dying or being hurt in traps were small and had occurred infrequently since their reintroduction in New Mexico and Arizona in 1998.

A study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of the Interior found that 14 Mexican gray wolves were captured in foothold traps set by people other than Fish and Wildlife employees. Thirteen of the trappings occurred in New Mexico.

Two of the wolves died and two others were hurt severely enough that leg amputations were necessary.

The same study found that 37 wolves were illegally shot, 12 were hit by vehicles, 11 were "lethally removed" by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, one was shot legally by a member of the public, and one died from a trap injury that was part of government research operations. Given the Mexican gray wolf's minuscule population outside captivity, Keefover said, the species could vanish, especially with programs such as state trapping that allows for year-round, unlicensed operations.

New Mexico residents pay $20 for a license to trap furbearers. But, as Keefover pointed out, no license for state residents is needed to trap coyotes or skunks.

Nonresident trappers can buy a license for $345. They must be licenses for coyote and skunk trapping.

Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or 505-820-6898. His blog is at nmcapitolreport.com

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Rancher, wolf battle escalates

When Laura Schneberger sent out an email over the weekend about her suspicions in regards to a wolf trap being tampered with, her frustration was clear.

Schneberger is president of the Gila Livestock Growers Association and said the association, now at 95 members, once was 150 or so members strong.

She blames this, in part, on wolves.

Or rather on the wolf program as managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

“Its like dealing with the dang mafia,” Schneberger said in reference to Fish and Wildlife. She said GLGA does not believe the department is doing enough to protect the ranchers.

Representing Fish and Wildlife, Tom Buckley said his department is doing what it can.

He said there have been four confirmed wolf depredations since March.

A single wolf, the alpha female of the Fox Mountain pack in Western Catron County, had been singled out by the service to be killed earlier this month, but because of public concern, Fish and Wildlife rescinded the kill order two days later, Aug. 10, and agreed to trap her instead.

“Our business is to recover the Mexican wolf,” Buckley said. “We don’t have any answers yet.”

A Mexican Wolf Interdiction Fund has been set up to provide compensation for confirmed wolf kills of cattle, Buckley said. The fund pays for the depredations, range riders and hay for cattle that can’t graze on their normal ranges.

The range riders generally stick around where the cattle are and put themselves between the wolves and the cows, he said.

“That’s usually enough to deter the wolves,” he said. “Most cattle don’t get bothered by the wolves at all.”

The environmental group Defenders of Wildlife generally covers the cost of the range riders, Buckley said.

He said statistics are very low when looking at wolf kills as compared to cattle killed in other predator attacks.

“Many more are killed by wild dogs and coyotes than wolves,” he said. “It’s just such a sensitive subject to some people.”

But to rancher Corwin Hulsey, it’s more than a sensitive subject, it’s his life.

With his cattle endangered after several losses in the last 12 months, Hulsey felt he had to move them off of land he leases at a cost of $1,600 a month.

“I moved all my cows in trailers with two pickups,” Hulsey said.

And because he moved the animals to his own land, quickly overgrazed, he had to buy hay to feed them.

“I fed them $8,500 worth of hay,” he said. “It took $800 in fuel just to move them back and forth.”

“Last year we lost 25 out of 200 calves,” Hulsey said. “You could attribute maybe two or three of those to other predators.”

Three days after Hulsey took his herd back to the leased land earlier this month, the wolves took another cow.

He said there are three range riders up there now, but the wolves attack mostly at night, and the riders can’t be taking their horses across the land at night.

Hulsey himself has been spending nights near the herd, getting up every hour and a half to walk through the area and watch for wolves.

He doesn’t feel the removal of the alpha female will stop the depredation.

“The whole pack is involved,” he said. “It’s discouraging to me.”

After an overall estimated monetary loss of $16,000, of which about $3,500 has been compensated, Hulsey doesn’t know if he can keep the business alive.

“Sooner or later they run everybody (the ranchers) down and they just give up,” Hulsey said. “I don’t think there is any answer. Several have quit because of the wolves.”

Hulsey said he understands Fish and Wildlife are just trying to do their job.

“Their job is to raise wolves and I have a different approach,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of bad feelings toward a lot of the people. It’s just business-wise, it’s running us out of business.”

Hulsey believes things can only be changed in Washington, by legislation.

He suggested the people in the government offices donate $5,000 each out of their paychecks to help him cover the cost of his losses. But, he said, they don’t want to do that.

Jess Carey, wolf interaction investigator for Catron County, said the Hulsey’s livestock is at continuous risk and his monetary loss has not been compensated.

“The stress of the possibility of losing his family ranch, no sleep and constant vigil has taken its toll,” Carey said.

Michael Robinson, with the Center of Biological Diversity, said the removal of the alpha female could be damaging to the wolf recovery efforts.

“Four stock have been lost at a time when mechanisms that have been set up should have prevented it,” he said. “Fish and Wildlife is in charge of this and needs to have a system. The wolves are being made to pay the price.”

Robinson said the magnitude of what is at stake has to be considered.

When the wolf program started it was projected there would be 102 Mexican grey wolves, including 18 breeding pairs by 2006. But today there are only 58 wolves and six breeding pairs on the ground.

Wolf recovery efforts in other locations have proven positive results restoring balances once lost, Robinson said.

In one example, in Yellowstone National Park, he said, wolves were reintroduced in 1995. Up until then, elk had been destroying streamside vegetation and river valley bottoms at the park. Because of the wolf reintroduction, the elk stopped browsing the unsafe areas in river canyons and many of the tall trees and riparian habitats have been restored.

“The question we have to answer as a society is ‘do we want to be responsible for extinction of an intelligent and creative animal?’” Robinson said. “The answer is ‘no.’”

In the meantime, Corwin Hulsy is driving back to his herd this week because something has killed one of his cattle again and he needs to check it out.

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Support waning for Mexican gray wolf program - NMDA pulls out

For the third time in recent weeks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has had one of its partners abandon an agreement that was meant to bring more collaboration to the troubled effort to reintroduce Mexican gray wolves to the Southwest.

While it's no secret the effort has been a point of contention among ranchers and environmentalists, one federal official says there will undoubtedly be a loss of perspective with fewer partners at the table.

"We like to have that collaboration and that kind of thought process that leads to better decisions," said Wally Murphy, supervisor of the Fish and Wildlife Service's ecological services field office in New Mexico.

Murphy called the recent developments "disheartening," given that the wolf program is facing critical decisions this year that will affect its future direction. The Fish and Wildlife Service is working on revamping the wolf recovery plan, which, among other things, will spell out what it will take to eventually get the animal off the federal endangered species list.

"We really need all of our partners in that decision-making process," he said. Several counties, state agencies and tribal governments in Arizona and New Mexico had signed on to a memorandum of understanding in 2010. The purpose was to provide a framework of collaboration in hopes of balancing the program's goals of returning wolves to the wild with pressures on ranchers, their livestock and other wildlife. Now, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the White Mountain Apache Tribe and three Arizona counties — Greenlee, Navajo and Graham — are the only remaining partners aside from federal land and wildlife management agencies. The exodus started last summer with the New Mexico Game and Fish Department. In late March, Grant and Sierra counties abandoned the agreement, and the New Mexico Department of Agriculture joined them earlier this week. Caren Cowen, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Grower's Association, said the withdrawal is "indicative of how far awry the process is with people on the ground." "There just doesn't seem to be any headway being made and input hasn't made a difference," she said. Sierra County Manager Janet Porter Carrejo said residents were concerned that millions of dollars have been spent on the program since 2003 without much return. She also said residents feel the federal government hasn't been forthcoming with information about how many wolves are in the wild. The Fish and Wildlife Service's most recent survey, completed in January, puts the wolf population in New Mexico and Arizona at about 58. Captive-bred wolves were first released in Arizona in 1998 as part of the reintroduction effort. Biologists hoped to have at least 100 in the Blue Range Recovery Area after eight years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has acknowledged that the effort to increase the population has been hampered by everything from illegal shootings, removals due to livestock kills and court battles over program management. For New Mexico Agriculture Secretary Jeff Witte, the decision to withdraw came down to staffing levels, budget limitations and the program's lack of progress. "If we get to the point where we get staffed up again and things start moving and input is requested and desired, then we'll reconsider," he said. Some wolf supporters argue that the local partners that bowed out have done little to advance recovery of the Mexican wolves. "This is not a great loss to wolf recovery," said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has pushed for the release for more wolves into the wild. "They used their positions to organize against wolves and to try to be insiders in a process that should be more open to the public." Murphy described all the partners as critical and said he hoped they would sign on again once the agency comes up with a new recovery plan. "One hundred wolves in the Blue Range was the best information we had in 1998. It's 14 years later, so we've got better information now and going through this recovery planning process gets us to even a better place," he said.

Pressure resumes for trapping ban in wolf area

Now that state game officials have cleared the way for trapping to resume in southwestern New Mexico, environmentalists are renewing their calling for the federal government to do more to protect the Mexican gray wolf in the Southwest.

The U.S. Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service received letters this week from the group WildEarth Guardians and its supporters. They asked that officials reconsider a 2010 petition seeking to end trapping throughout the wolf's range in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.

Supporters contend trapping presents a threat to wolf recovery and that the agencies have a legal obligation under the Endangered Species Act to maintain fit wolves that can hunt for native prey.

"As a direct result of trapping activities in the recovery area, two wolves have had entire limbs amputated. Some wolves lost digits and others sustained different injuries," the group said in its letters.

Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, another pro-wolf group, said any additional injuries or deaths are "of grave concern just given the numbers and the genetic plight of the Mexican wolf."

The federal government has been trying to reintroduce wolves to the region since 1998. Biologists had hoped to have more than 100 wolves in the wild within a decade, but that number is closer to 50.

Regulated furbearer trapping on the Gila and Apache national forests was banned last summer by former Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, a supporter of the wolf reintroduction effort.

The state Game Commission extended the ban last fall, giving researchers more time to study the risks of trapping and snaring to wolves. While the results of the study have yet to be made public, the commission voted last week to lift the ban.

Environmentalists want the Fish and Wildlife Service to amend the wolf reintroduction rule to ban the use of all traps and snares in the wolf's range. They want the Forest Service to impose emergency trapping closures on the Gila and Apache forests and amend any planning documents to ban trapping in the future.

Regional Fish and Wildlife spokesman Tom Buckley said Friday the agency isn't going to be doing anything differently in the area now that New Mexico has lifted its trapping ban.

"There's always a concern when there are additional threats in an area and this of course will entail an additional threat to the wolves, but they've had that before," Buckley said, noting that the ban had been in place for only a year.

According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, there have been 14 incidents involving wolves caught in traps since 2002. In six cases, the animals were injured.

"It's something we'll keep an eye on," Buckley said. "We would encourage anybody who does any trapping out there to check their traps regularly so that any wildlife, including wolves, if they get caught they don't have to sit in the trap and suffer."

The Mexican gray wolf was added to the federal endangered species list in 1976 after it was all but wiped out due to hunting and government-sponsored extermination campaigns.

The reintroduction effort along the New Mexico-Arizona border has been hampered by illegal shootings, court battles, concerns from environmentalists and complaints from ranchers. Another blow came last month when the New Mexico Game and Fish Department voted to pull out of the project.

Buckley said the Fish and Wildlife Service is still trying to make progress on revamping the wolf's recovery plan and the agency is getting its new interdiction program up and running so ranchers who lose livestock to the wolves have another place to seek financial help.

In fact, the interdiction program had its first claim from a New Mexico rancher in June. The claim, which is being processed, sought $1,500 for a pair of calves that were confirmed to have been killed by wolves.

Buckley said wildlife managers are also hopeful after seeing pups with some of the packs during surveys in the wake of the Wallow fire, which burned hundreds of thousands of acres in Arizona and New Mexico.

"If they survive until the end of the year, they will be part of our count," he said. "But between now and then, we're just keeping our fingers crossed."

Mexican gray wolves face new challenges in struggle for survival

Life isn't getting any easier for Mexican gray wolves struggling against extinction.

Both politics and nature have produced new hurdles for an animal reintroduced in 1998 to vast native ranges in Arizona and New Mexico. Currently, about 50 wolves live in the wild.

The Wallow Fire, which scorched more than a half-million acres, mostly in Arizona, blazed through prime wolf habitat. A June 21 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service update said there was no evidence wolves had been killed in the fire. Adult wolves wearing radio collars were located near three dens in the burn area, but wildlife officials were still trying to determine whether pups survived. The report gives a status report on 10 packs, all of which were "exhibiting denning behavior."

It appears the wolves will survive the devastating wildfire. The politics, however, are influenced by a variety of competing ideologies ranging from ranching economics to ecosystem health that have given the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program a herky-jerky gait.

New Mexico's new governor, Susana Martinez, provided the most recent turn. Martinez replaced four members of the New Mexico State Game Commission, which on June 9 voted to end the state's participation in the recovery program. State wildlife personnel officially ceased their activities on Friday.

"The governor's concerns remain the same about the real and various risks of the program - everything from the cost of livestock that is lost to basic safety concerns of parents and families," said Martinez spokesman Scott Darnell in an email. "She believes we must find an equitable and fair solution to this problem, one that, in particular, provides for compensation to our hard-working ranch families for the loss of their livelihood."
Before the commission voted, Michael Robinson, with the Center for Biodiversity, sent a letter to Martinez endorsed by 12 other national and local conservation groups.

"There is strong and growing support nationally, throughout New Mexico and in the Gila National Forest region for this beautiful, intelligent, social animal that is uniquely adapted to the arid Southwest but is beleaguered and at great risk of extinction," Robinson wrote. He exhorted Martinez and her game commission appointees to "take a stance consistent with dependable science and the broad public interest."

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson - a Democrat who preceded Republican Martinez - had directed state wildlife officials to stop trapping and killing wolves that were preying on cattle. Wolf advocates hailed that decision and supported state efforts to protect cattle, which included fencing livestock out of wolf denning areas, hazing wolves that venture into potential conflict areas and wolf feeding programs.

That approach, Robinson said, kept packs intact and caused the number of cattle killed by wolves to drop from 36 in 2007 to nine in 2010.

Nonetheless, officials in New Mexico's Catron County - which has large areas of public land designated for wolf recovery - are committed to ending the recovery program. With dwindling water supplies and other hardships, the last thing the livestock industry needs is another predator, said Catron County Commission chairman Hugh B. McKeen. County officials had asked Martinez to end the state's participation.

"Catron County engineered the ouster of New Mexico Game and Fish from the program," Robinson said in a telephone interview. "If there is depredation, I can see them (Catron County ranchers) immediately start clamoring for wolf removal."

McKeen has a different explanation for the drop in wolf attacks. He said wildlife officials under Richardson were feeding the wolves in an effort to ensure those numbers went down. Yet he also says that fewer area ranchers are reporting livestock depredations.

"So many ranchers are fed up with losing cattle," McKeen said. "And we don't want these federal people on our land."

Tod Stevenson, director of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, does not believe the changes will significantly impact the program.

"We will not have a direct hand in dealing with those on-the-ground, day-to-day issues," Stevenson said. "But this is a federal program and it always has been a federal program. We expect the (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) will staff up to continue providing those services."

Fish and Wildlife Service officials did not respond Friday to numerous phone messages requesting an interview.

New Mexico wildlife officials still will conduct biennial status reviews of state endangered species, Stevenson said. And they will continue to conduct law enforcement activities related to taking, possessing, selling or transporting any species on the state's endangered list.

"We will continue to fully investigate and prosecute violators to the best of our ability," Stevenson said.

Since the recovery program began 13 years ago, New Mexico has invested about $507,644. Federal funds obtained by the state over that time amounted to more than $1.4 million bringing the total investment to slightly more than $1.9 million. Two full-time staff members were involved, both of whom will be given the opportunity to find other positions within the department, Stevenson said.

State wildlife officials trapped and transplanted wolves; collared and tracked them; conducted feeding programs, provided range riders, fence modifications and other livestock management tools; made recommendations about wolf removals; and provided wolf location information to landowners and livestock producers, Stevenson said.

Still unknown is whether a $60,000 federal grant that requires a dollar-for-dollar state match will be maintained, Stevenson said. The money was used to reimburse ranchers whose livestock are killed by wolves and to pay for projects that minimize wolf impacts on livestock. Stevenson said his department is negotiating with the FIsh and Wildlife Service to keep that money in the program.

"We haven't got that completely resolved as to what mechanism we use," Stevenson said. "I'm pretty confident, one way or another, that we will get that done."

McKeen said he hopes they get the money "with no strings attached." He would like to see less bureaucracy involved in getting reimbursed for wolf kills and he said prevention techniques do not work.

Wolves are "not going to stay there in the Gila Wilderness," McKeen said. "They came out and started killing cattle again."

The wolf program is just the most recent example of forest mismanagement, McKeen said. A series of bad decisions - Forest Service actions that cut back on grazing and logging - are killing the livestock industry in Catron County, said McKeen, whose grandfather arrived there in 1886.

Logging would have reduced the severity of the Wallow Fire by removing deadwood that has been building up for decades, he said. Periodic wildfires in uninhabited areas also should be left to burn, he said. Without such thinning, trees suck groundwater and dry up wells, he said. Ranchers already deal with numerous other predators, including mountain lions and black bears.

McKeen has heard reports from Yellowstone National Park, where biologists say wolves are benefitting the ecosystem. Elk and deer herds are culled, making them healthier. Wolves also push the herds out of stream beds, allowing them to recover and support a wide variety of plants and animals.

"It's just a lot of hype," Mc-Keen said. "The wolves are here to further put us out of business."

In the meantime, the Mexican gray wolf hangs on.

Robinson said a successful program, which would result in a self-sustaining population, depends on more frequent releases, particularly in New Mexico.

In a May report, an interagency reintroduction team ranked 32 potential wolf release sites based on a formula that considered the results of past releases; appropriate distances from residences, towns, livestock, the recovery area boundary and other territorial wolves; and proximity to deer and elk, Robinson said. "The three top-ranked sites were all in the Gila Wilderness" part of which is in Catron County, he said.

In his letter, Robinson told Martinez that the Fish and Wildlife Service appears to be holding back on releases "in deference to perceived lack of support by your administration."

Chris Roberts writes for the El Paso Times, a member of the Texas-New Mexico Newspapers Partnership, and may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; (915) 546-6136.

Complaint Lodged With Agency Over Cow's Death

        The Catron County Commission has lodged a complaint alleging that state Game and Fish Department biologists tried to alter the finding of a federal investigation into a cow's cause of death.
        At stake in the verdict by Wildlife Services, a U.S. Department of Agriculture agency, is whether the cow's owner can receive compensation for the loss.
        If Wildlife Services confirms that a cow was killed by a Mexican gray wolf, an endangered species, a rancher can be reimbursed $747. But if the finding is not definite, if a wolf kill is only considered "probable," the rancher is not eligible for compensation.
        According to Catron County officials, two Wildlife Services employees, as well as the county's own "wolf incident investigator," concurred that a cow discovered Jan. 18 near the Arizona border had been killed by a wolf. Catron County officials allege Game and Fish biologists sought to change that conclusion to a "probable" wolf kill.
        According to Catron County's own news release issued this week, Game and Fish Director Tod Stevenson denied that his staff tried to modify the Wildlife Services finding from "confirmed" to "probable" wolf kill, but simply suggested federal personnel take into account the presence of feral dogs in the area of the cow carcass.
        The Game and Fish Department is looking into the matter, but administrators won't discuss the case at this time, said spokesman Lance Cherry.
        In response to emailed questions, Alan May, Wildlife Service's New Mexico director, said the exchange between his staff and Game and Fish employees in the case "was appropriate."
        During their meeting April 6, Catron County commissioners complained about the matter to Stevenson and two Game Commission members. The Catron commission in late February also filed a complaint with Gov. Susana Martinez asking for a review of the Game and Fish biologists' actions.
        "We have taken a no-wolf stand," Catron County Commission Chairman Hugh McKeen said in a written statement directed at the governor. "I'm requesting that you take a no-wolf stance, too."
        Martinez spokesman Scott Darnell said members of the governor's staff discussed Catron County's concerns with Game and Fish staff, adding: "We have instructed the Department of Game and Fish that this is a federal issue and DGF should not be playing such a role in the federal (wolf) repopulation efforts."
        May said that in trying to determine the cause of a domesticated animal's death, Wildlife Services personnel "routinely solicit input from others," including Game and Fish employees, "in order to ensure that the most informed decision is made."
        A private conservation group, Defenders of Wildlife, stopped paying ranchers compensation for wolf depredations last year; the group paid $19,203 to eight individuals in 2009 for wolf depredation claims.
       

Future of Southwest’s Mexican Gray Wolf Uncertain

A program to reestablish the Mexican gray wolf in New Mexico and Arizona narrowly dodged a defunding proposal recently. With only 50 of the wolves living in the wild, what kind of protection will they receive?


By Bobby Magill, 3-02-11

Like many outfitters and ranchers in Catron County, New Mexico — one of the counties of the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 70s and 80s — Tom Klumker wants Mexican gray wolves out of the Gila National Forest, where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been releasing the endangered wolves into the wild since 1998.
“They’ve been successful at wiping out a bunch of livestock and hurting a bunch of ranchers,” Klumker said. “As a result, they’ve made a big difference on the livestock industry in Catron County. I don’t think we need them. The early settlers worked very hard to get rid of both the wolf and the grizzly for a very good reason.”
Klumker, based in Glenwood, N.M., is a board member of the vehemently anti-wolf Americans for the Preservation of Western Environment, or APWE, and the Southwest Director of the New Mexico Council of Outfitters and Guides, a group now part of a new Fish and Wildlife Service Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Planning Team. The team will create a new recovery plan that may eventually lead the way to a healthy and sustainable population of Mexican wolves in New Mexico and Arizona.
Whether it’s in New Mexico or the Northern Rockies, efforts to restore native gray wolf populations must face ranchers and sportsmen worried and angry that wolves will prey on their cattle and run elk into places difficult to hunt. And, just as in Montana, whose Democratic senators have introduced a bill to remove federal Endangered Species Act protections from the gray wolf of the Northern Rockies and where Gov. Brian Schweitzer declared in February that the state will not prosecute ranchers who kill wolves that attack livestock, efforts to help the recovery of the gray wolf’s southern counterpart face numerous political challenges.
Smaller and lighter than its Northern Rockies cousin, the Mexican gray wolf is one of five subspecies of gray wolf native to North America. Today, Mexican wolves, which roam the Gila and Apache-Sitgreaves national forests in western New Mexico and eastern Arizona, are the controversial subjects of the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program, which began after the species was listed as endangered in 1976.
So far, about the Fish and Wildlife Service has released about 90 wolves since 1998, according to agency data. Today, about 50 Mexican wolves exist in the wild.
Originally, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s goal was to have 100 wolves in the wild by 2006, but because of conflicts with ranchers and the broiling politics surrounding the Mexican wolf’s reintroduction, that goal has yet to be met.
“The idea is to get enough wolves out there where we can step back, get them de-listed, and they can generate their own self-sustaining population, and the states will then have management of them,” said Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Tom Buckley.
The Mexican wolf recovery area straddles the eastern reach of the Mogollon Rim country, where the rim disappears into the remote Blue Range in Catron County, one of New Mexico’s biggest and least populated counties. The lobos’ new turf includes the rugged Gila and Aldo Leopold wilderness areas — together totaling more than 750,000 acres of wilderness broken only by a single unpaved road — and the Blue Range Wilderness and Primitive areas of New Mexico and Arizona.
The deep sense of wildness there is as legendary as the wilderness areas’ founder and namesake — Aldo Leopold, the “Sand County Almanac” author who in the 1920s demanded the U.S. Forest Service protect the Gila region as the nation’s first wilderness area 40 years before the passage of the Wilderness Act.
In those days, there were still wild Mexican wolves roaming the Gila. By the 1970s, they were nearly extinct.
The Mexican wolf was protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1976 and efforts began to reintroduce the wolf into New Mexico and Arizona not to restore balance to the ecosystem, but to simply return an endangered species to the wild as the law demands, said ReWilding Institute carnivore biologist Dave Parsons, a former Fish and Wildlife Service Mexican wolf recovery coordinator.
But the absence of the wolf since the mid-20th Century took its toll on the balance of the ecosystem, he said.
In Yellowstone National Park, the return of the gray wolf has given elk a long-absent predator, providing for healthier aspen stands and riparian vegetation and an ecosystem that supports more bird species than before, he said.
“What we’re seeing in the Gila is very similar, and the riparian vegetation is pretty well gone in a lot of places,” Parsons said.
Researchers working in Yellowstone studied the Mexican wolf reintroduction area in the Southwest and discovered a “reverse trophic cascade where the ecosystem has simplified in the absence of the wolf,” Parsons said. Once some of the wolves were returned to the wild, the health of aspen groves began to improve.
But cattle growers aren’t impressed.
Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, said the lagging Mexican wolf numbers show the program isn’t working, especially as ranchers continue to deal with wolves killing cattle.
Officially, there were 185 confirmed cattle depredations from wolves from 1998 through 2009 in New Mexico and Arizona, said Arizona Department of Game and Fish wolf biologist Jeff Dolphin.
But the real number of depredations, Cowan said, is difficult to nail down because many ranchers fear the level of proof needed to confirm that a wolf killed a cow is so high that they don’t bother to report a suspected killing.
With the Fish and Wildlife Service’s population goals unmet as it dealt with livestock industry concern about widespread cattle depredations, the future of the recovery program remains uncertain.
In February, the program survived an attempt by U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., to de-fund the program for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year after his amendment was dropped from the continuing resolution that will fund the government for the rest of the year.
In November, a group of 13 Democratic congressmen, including Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Rep. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado, asked Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to release 22 captive Mexican wolves into the wild immediately, create a new Mexican wolf recovery plan and complete a draft environmental impact statement allowing changes to the program’s rules that will ensure the Mexican wolf’s full recovery.
Their letter to Salazar claims the Fish and Wildlife Service has been ignoring scientists’ recommendations for the health of the wolves, jeopardizing their viability in the wild.
Cowan said Pearce, long an opponent of the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program, has championed the cattle growers’ cause and wants to see the program ended immediately.
Pearce’s press secretary, Eric Layer, said Pearce is concerned mainly with cutting federal spending and reducing the national debt, but he doesn’t know if Pearce will attempt to de-fund the program again as Congress takes up President Obama’s 2012 budget request.
Though the politics of the program may be daunting, some important biological questions vital to the Mexican wolf’s recovery still need to be answered, particularly: How many wolves does it take for the species to fully recover?
“Would it be 100, 200, 500 wolves on the landscape?” said Buckley of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The new Mexican wolf recovery planning team will attempt to answer that question because a previous plan for the recovery program didn’t, he said.
A 1982 Fish and Wildlife Service plan for the Mexican wolf failed to specify recovery criteria, according to the agency’s 2010 Mexican Wolf Conservation Assessment, which concludes that the wolves now in the wild are threatened by illegal shooting and the lack of an adequate recovery plan.
On Feb. 22, the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Planning Team, composed of a group of cattlemen, hunters, conservationists and representatives of a handful of state and federal agencies, met for the first time in Albuquerque to begin the two-year process of drawing up a revised and more detailed recovery plan.
In 1982, “there were no Mexican wolves in the wild anywhere, and it wasn’t foreseen that there would be,” said Eva Sargent, who represents Defenders of Wildlife on the recovery planning team. “The idea for this team is to write a proper recovery plan with goals of how to get there and de-listing criteria.”
Cowan, who is a member of the recovery planning team, said she hopes the team will create a recovery plan that will make ranchers’ needs a top priority.
“I hope that we accomplish some sort of situation that allows ranchers and livestock producers to stay on the ground,” she said. “How do we do that? I certainly don’t have any bright ideas on that at this point in time. It’s vital that we allow the ranching industry to survive in that area.”
But the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, one of the most zealous voices for wolf recovery, claims the team is stacked against conservation interests.
“The selection of participants was heavily influenced by politics,” said Michael Robinson, conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity. “Our organization is the reason that Mexican wolves are in the wild now. By any stretch of the term ‘stakeholder,’ we qualify, but we’ve been excluded because we believe very strongly in upholding the science. There are others on the team who take the same view, but they are very few.”
The team is full of well-qualified scientists, he said, and he hopes wolf biology won’t get watered down on the team amid ranchers’ concerns.
Even though Cowan and other ranchers are participating on the team, another group of ranchers, led by APWE and the Gila Livestock Growers, hopes a judge will stop any effort to continue the Mexican wolf recovery program.
Last year, those groups and Otero and Catron counties filed a lawsuit aiming for a court ruling allowing ranchers to kill Mexican wolves they believed were responsible for livestock depredations. The lawsuit claimed that no problem wolves had been removed from the wild since 2007, and the ranchers want the right to defend their cattle from attack.
Part of the ranchers’ anger stems from the Fish and Wildlife Service’s abandonment of a “three strikes” rule in 2009, which allowed the agency to kill or trap wolves that had attacked livestock three times.
Cowan’s group didn’t join the lawsuit because it felt it was time to give up on taking its cause to the courtroom.
“New Mexico Cattle Growers has already participated in two lawsuits on this issue and we lost them both and we didn’t feel we had the funds to devote to another lawsuit in that venue,” Cowan said.
In February, the rancher groups and Catron and Otero counties withdrew their suit on a technicality, but they’re planning to re-file soon.
“It was a fatal flaw on our part,” Klumker said. Environmentalists “were really crowing and happy that we dropped the case, but we’re going to slam them again. We’re going to file it right back at the dirty bastards.”
Bobby Magill can be found online at www.bobbymagill.com.

Court: Wolf data exempt from disclosure

Environmental groups are not entitled to specific locations of where wolves have killed cattle, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.

In a unanimous decision, the court said the specific data sought by the organizations is exempt from disclosure under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The judge said that means the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has the information, can keep it secret.

Thursday's ruling met with disappointment from members of the groups. They said the data is needed to provide crucial information they believe ultimately would help preserve Mexican wolves in Arizona and New Mexico.

The wolf was reintroduced to eastern Arizona and western New Mexico in 1998. But efforts to preserve it in the wilderness often have run headlong into the concerns of ranchers when the animals prey on their cattle. What happens, according to Michael Robinson, a conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, is that wolves which are linked to cattle deaths are relocated -- or shot. He said the last census at the beginning of this year found only 42 animals in the wild, a 19 percent decline from the prior year.

Much of that, the groups argued, is because of government action.

In 2007, for example, they said 19 wolves were removed from the wild. That, they said, left a year-end population of just 52 wolves and three breeding pairs anywhere in the world.

Eva Sargent, director of southwest programs for the Defenders of Wildlife, said the data sought would help her organization work with ranchers to prevent "depredation" of cattle by wolves.

For example, she said ranchers can put extra cowboys into the field.

"Wolves are generally discouraged by humans' presence," Sargent said. She said cattle can be moved away or electric fencing can be installed.

And Sargent said there even is a way to have alarms go off when a wolf with a radio tracking collar approaches the fence to scare the animal off.

"In order to know where to center those programs, we need to know where hot spots of depredation are," Sargent said. "And they usually are hot spots, a particular ranch, a particular area."

Matt Kenna, the attorney who represented the environmental groups, said there are other uses for the information.

He pointed out that most of the losses to ranchers occurs on leased public lands and not on private property.

"When the renewals came up, or even before then, we could provide public comment on them," Kenna said. He said that could include requiring ranchers to modify their operations to reduce wolf attacks -- or even proposing that certain lands be off limits to cattle grazing.

The program run by Wildlife Services, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, works with ranchers and others to remove or capture wolves that are causing problems.

The environmental groups sued for the specific locations, saying these federal programs are the "largest factor limiting population growth" among the wolves.

In 2006 they filed a public records request for details of the wolf-removal program. What was not released was the specific location of the removals as computed by global positioning system coordinates.

U.S. District Court Judge John Roll ruled in Tucson last year the groups were entitled to the information. But the appellate court said that conclusion was wrong.

Judge Pamela Rymer, writing for the court, judges said the Freedom of Information Act says the making information public has an exception for data that is specifically exempt from disclosure in other statutes.

And in this case, she noted, the USDA is prohibited from releasing "geospatial information" it maintains about agricultural operations.

Rymer said "agricultural operations" include livestock. The wolf-removal program falls under that, the judge said, because the information concerns "depredations that limit the ranchers' livestock production."

And Rymer said the fact that many of these sites are on public grazing lands leased by ranchers, rather than on their private property, does not change that exemption.

Enviro group sues over NM, Ariz. wolf listing

An environmental group has sued Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, seeking to force him to rule on a petition to list the Mexican gray wolf in New Mexico and Arizona as an endangered species separate from other gray wolves in North America.

The wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians, Nicole Rosmarino, said the Mexican gray wolves face potential extinction in the wild.

WildEarth Guardians filed its lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Phoenix, alleging Salazar's decision is overdue.

An Interior Department spokeswoman, Kendra Barkoff, said Thursday the agency cannot comment on pending litigation.

Another conservation group, the Center for Biological Diversity, filed a notice Wednesday of its intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in federal court in Washington, D.C., saying the agency failed to respond to petitions to list the wolf and three other species.

WildEarth Guardians, the Center for Biological Diversity and The Rewilding Institute filed petitions in August 2009 for a separate listing for the Mexican gray wolf.

The Fish and Wildlife Service agreed this August to review the status of the species.

Such a positive finding triggers a one-year status review—an in-depth look to decide if the species should be listed.

But WildEarth Guardians' lawsuit contends Salazar should have decided last November whether to review the wolves' status.

Rosmarino said he had 90 days from the date the petition was filed.

The lawsuit said Salazar should have decided by Aug. 12 whether the listing was warranted.

Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity said Fish and Wildlife "is placing the Mexican gray wolf and other endangered species at increased risk for extinction" by missing deadlines...

NM commission extends trapping ban in wolf area

The New Mexico Game Commission on Thursday approved changes in state rules to temporarily ban trapping throughout the Gila and Apache national forests in southwestern New Mexico. That will allow wildlife managers time to study the risks of trapping and snaring to the Mexican gray wolf.

The prohibition will begin Nov. 1 and last at least six months while the state Game and Fish Department assesses whether some methods of trapping would pose less risk for the wolves.

The changes follow an executive order issued last summer by Gov. Bill Richardson that called for a temporary ban on trapping on the New Mexico side of an area where Mexican gray wolves have been reintroduced along the New Mexico-Arizona border.

Richardson's executive order noted that traps do not differentiate between wolves and the animals for which traps were set.

His order said there have been six confirmed and three probable Mexican gray wolves trapped in New Mexico's portion of the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area in the past eight years. Five wolves were injured by the traps, two severely enough to require leg amputations.

Injuries can harm wolves' ability to catch prey and could increase the risk of wolves preying on livestock instead of faster elk and deer, the order said.

Environmentalists applauded the commission's decision to adopt the trapping ban, calling it a milestone for wolves in the Southwest.

Mexican gray wolf found dead in NM; 4th this year

By SUE MAJOR HOLMES / Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE - Another Mexican gray wolf has been found dead in southwestern New Mexico, dealing a further setback to a struggling program to reintroduce the endangered animals along the Arizona-New Mexico border.

The female wolf was found dead on Oct. 12 in Sierra County. It was the fourth wolf found dead since June.

A spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque, Tom Buckley, said the wolf's body was sent to the agency's forensics laboratory in Ashland, Ore., to find out what killed the animal.

The male wolf that had been traveling with her has not been spotted, but Buckley said there's no reason to believe something happened to him.

He said there had been no mortality signal from the male wolf's radio collar. The signal is set off when an animal does not move for a set time.

The two animals, known as Morgart's Pack, were in the Gila National Forest in September, according to the program's monthly update.

Government agencies began reintroducing Mexican gray wolves into the wild in the two states in 1998. Biologists had predicted a self-sustaining wild population of 100 wolves before now, but a count early this year found 42 between the two states, down from 52 the year before.

The subspecies of the gray wolf had been exterminated in the wild by the 1930s.

Fish and Wildlife officials announced earlier this month they were postponing the release of eight wolves in Arizona's Apache National Forest until next year. The program originally expected to release the animals this fall, but managers decided it was not the right time for a successful release. The three other wolf deaths this year include two males from Hawks Nest Pack in eastern Arizona who were found shot to death this summer, and the alpha male of the San Mateo pack in New Mexico that was found dead in June from an undetermined cause.

In addition, the alpha male from the Paradise Pack in Arizona disappeared in April. Buckley said the program still doesn't know what happened. The federal agency, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, the Arizona Game and Fish Department's Operation Game Thief and private groups and individuals have offered a reward of up to $58,000 for information leading to the conviction of anyone responsible for shooting deaths of Mexican gray wolves.

Resigned to Living With Wolves, More Ranchers Are Giving Deterrence Projects a Try

SPRINGERVILLE, Ariz. -- On a luminous fall afternoon, a couple of Carey Dobson's sheep graze in a pasture stretching across a high valley edged with ponderosa pines. A wire fence keeps them from wandering into the adjacent road.

But this is no ordinary fence. All along its length, long slips of magenta plastic flagging wave in the wind, like streamers on a parade float. No one knows exactly why, but wolves typically stay clear of these decorated fences. Dobson put up the "fladry" and electrified the fence about three years ago after losing nine sheep to wolves in one year.

So far, the combination of visual repellent and electric shock seems to be working.

"From the time we started doing that in 2007 up to now, we've had zero wolf depredations," Dobson said, sitting at the kitchen table of his family's spacious log home on a private inholding surrounded by the Apache National Forest. "I think the fence has a lot to do with it."

A few miles away, rancher Sydney Maddock and Eddie Lee, her ranch manager, have hired a range rider -- a cowboy or cowgirl who monitors the herd -- to make sure her cattle stay safe. They have also started allowing calves to grow bigger before turning them out onto their federal grazing allotment so that they are less vulnerable to depredation.

Wolves tend to prey on young, old or weak livestock, although they do sometimes kill healthy adults.

"I don't know if it's going to work out or not," Lee said, standing around a late afternoon campfire at his camp near a cattle and horse corral. "But it's been two years, and it seems to be working."

Meanwhile, on the New Mexico side of the Mexican wolf reintroduction area, about 70 miles to the east, rancher Alan Tackman is putting up a fence to keep his cattle from wandering up the mountain toward a known wolf den.

"They're not smart enough to remember, 'A wolf ate my baby here,'" said Pat Morrison, district ranger for the Glenwood District of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico, where Tackman's fence is being erected.

An elk calving area lies between the den and the fence line, and the hope is that the wolves will eat the elk calves -- typically their preferred prey -- and leave the cattle alone, Morrison said.

'Something everyone can get behind'

Such deterrence projects are slowly gaining favor with ranchers living in wolf country, and they reflect a new, more collaborative way of dealing with Mexican wolves, which the Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced to Arizona and New Mexico in 1998.

For most of the Mexican wolf program's history, the focus has been on removing "problem" wolves that prey on livestock, either by killing the animals, relocating them in the wild, or retiring them to a holding facility. But wildlife officials and some ranchers say it is better for both livestock and wolves to prevent conflicts from happening in the first place.

"Nothing is as divisive as this," Chris Bagnoli, Mexican wolf interagency team leader for Arizona, said of the Mexican wolf reintroduction program. "But some folks have come to understand that they're here, and there are ways to live with it."

About 15 ranchers in Arizona and about a dozen in New Mexico have tried wolf deterrent strategies over the past several years, and many of them -- particularly in Arizona, where grazing is for the most part seasonal instead of year-round -- have seen some benefit.

"One of the most effective things you can do is separate cattle and wolves," said John Oakleaf, a senior Fish and Wildlife Service biologist with the Mexican wolf program. "Reducing wolf depredations -- that's a common goal for sure. That's something wolf biologists and ranchers and everyone can all get behind."

That does not mean, however, that ranchers have come to embrace having wolves in their midst.

"If they were to take the wolves out tomorrow, I'd be happy," said Barbara Mack, who has worked closely with Bagnoli to keep her 110 cattle and two dogs away from the local Blue Stem wolf pack in the Apache National Forest's rugged Alpine District. "But they are here, and we have to work with everybody to try to get along and to survive."

Antipathy toward the program is still strong, however, and some ranchers who are working with agencies and advocacy groups on deterrence projects have experienced a backlash -- even from family members.

"I got flak from my father, my neighbors," Dobson said. "But I want to stay here. I'm a fourth-generation rancher. The wolves are on us, so what are we going to do?"

But it took several years for Dobson to warm to the idea of taking a proactive approach to reducing wolf-livestock conflicts. Ten years ago, he was a vocal critic of the Mexican wolf reintroduction program.

In the winter of 2000, Dobson suspected that wolves "chewed up" the leg of a newborn stud colt. But after wildlife officials assured him there were no wolves in the area, he concluded that his guard dogs had attacked the colt and reluctantly put the dogs down. Soon after, he spotted a FWS agent in the area and was told a wolf had been shot, confirming his earlier suspicion.

"I lost a colt, two guard dogs, and I'd been lied to," he said. "I was so upset."

At the time, Dobson was so angry that he refused compensation from Defenders of Wildlife, which had set up a program to pay for confirmed wolf depredations of livestock.

But around 2006, after a spate of wolf depredations, he changed his mind and began collecting compensation while also working with Defenders and state and federal agencies on new deterrent strategies. He now receives weekly calls from FWS and the Arizona Game and Fish Department with updates on wolf activity in his area.

"I just got to the point where I'd had enough," he said. "It wasn't the wolf's fault. The wolf's an animal. It was the way things were being managed. I said, 'We need to come together and figure out what we're going to do.'"

Changes in funding

Money to fund prevention projects comes from a mix of private and government sources.

For more than a decade, Defenders of Wildlife paid ranchers for their losses and helped fund deterrence projects, but the group phased out its compensation program last month after the federal government established its own program, which will pay ranchers for livestock depredations and support conflict prevention projects.

The money for the federal interdiction fund comes from a $1 million outlay authorized under the 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act and issued last April to Arizona, New Mexico and eight other Western states to help support non-lethal programs to prevent wolf-livestock conflicts (Land Letter, April 1). Arizona and New Mexico each received $140,000 to fund such efforts.

The states will add matching funds, either by direct cash payments or through in-kind payments of labor, supplies and other supports. Craig Miller, who ran Defenders of Wildlife's compensation program for the past several years, said the group contributed about $45,000 to help establish the federal interdiction fund, but will now shift focus to its own conflict prevention program. The Mexican Wolf Fund, a non-advocacy group that funds wolf deterrent projects, will also contribute to the interdiction fund.

Both Defenders and ranchers say the new federally administered program should bring some advantages. A livestock compensation board made up of a range of stakeholders, including both ranchers and wildlife advocates, will decide what types of losses and deterrence projects merit funding.

Dobson and other ranchers hope the new system will allow compensation not only for the loss of livestock, but associated losses such as lower animal weights due to stress or fewer calves resulting from the loss of a cow that would have borne offspring over the course of her life.

"It allows people to feel they have some say in what's going on," Bagnoli said.

'Everyone's getting a little smarter'

Stakeholder groups will also likely benefit from several years of trial and error in implementing conflict prevention projects. Patrick Valentino, director of the Mexican Wolf Fund, said that agency officials, funders and ranchers now have a better understanding of what works and what does not.

"Given the experience over the past few years, I think everyone's getting a little smarter, maybe combining a couple of things, like fencing with feed, or feed with range riders," said Valentino, whose organization has funded conflict prevention projects since 2006. "These programs can work well together sometimes."

Variations in livestock operations, topography and behavior of both the livestock and the wolves also need to be considered when determining which method, or combination of methods, are likely to work best, added Bagnoli.

Relocation of cattle, use of fladry, range riders, fencing and radio-alarmed guard boxes, or "RAG boxes," that emit loud noises and flashing lights have all been used in the northern Rockies as well to deter wolves, with some success (Land Letter, March 18).

In the Great Lakes region, researchers are experimenting with "howl boxes," which play digital recordings of wolf howls in the rendezvous areas of five wolf packs. The goal is to trick the wolves into believing that another pack has claimed the same territory, in hopes that they will move to other areas (Land Letter, July 29).

These deterrent strategies are essential to the recovery of Mexican wolves in the Southwest, where after 12 years, there are only about 42 wolves -- 27 in Arizona and 15 in New Mexico -- those involved with the program say.

"I think in order for wolves to achieve recovery in ecologically meaningful levels, tolerance from landowners, from people using the landscape, is the most important component," Miller of Defenders of Wildlife said. "This isn't a biological problem, it's a social problem. The real challenge is in helping humans accept wolves as part of the landscape."

Yet Miller acknowledges that deterrence projects do not always work. In some cases, wolves have lost their fear of the deterrent, or ranchers lose interest in continuing the projects, which they typically contribute some funding or labor to.

But with more than two-thirds of the Blue Range Mexican wolf recovery area permitted for grazing, they are worth a try, agency officials say. "We're trying to make both the wolf and the grazing permittees viable here," said Morrison of the Gila National Forest's Glenwood District in New Mexico.

At the same time, even some ranchers who are trying deterrence projects still actively oppose the reintroduction program.

Tackman, for instance, is named as one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in August by Catron and Otero counties and other New Mexico ranchers over changes to the program that they say have resulted in fewer removals of wolves that attack livestock. Tackman did not return calls seeking an interview for this story.

While some ranchers remain highly skeptical of conflict prevention projects, Dobson and others say the lack of depredations in areas where they have been tried demonstrates that wolves and livestock can co-exist.

Yet he wonders what will happen as wolf populations increase. FWS biologists set an informal target of 100 wolves on the landscape when the program first began, and a forthcoming update to the Mexican wolf recovery plan is likely to call for at least that many and possibly more (Land Letter, July 22).

"It can always come back and bite me on the rear. ... Everything could be taken away from ranchers," Dobson said. "But at least I know I've tried."

Reese writes from Santa Fe, N.M.

'Problem Wolves' Spur Suit

Ranchers and two southern New Mexico counties sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in federal court Friday for changing a policy about capturing cow-killing Mexican wolves without first conducting a study on the change's impact on humans.
The lawsuit says that rules governing the federally-managed wolf reintroduction effort, launched in 1998, provided for the removal of wolves that prey on livestock in the recovery area of southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico.
But since last year, Fish and Wildlife, in an effort to bolster the population of wild wolves, has stopped adhering to a 2005 standard operating procedure, known as SOP 13, that called for the removal or killing of wolves that preyed on three or more cattle in a one-year period.
The lawsuit says that the rule about removing "problem wolves" is being ignored, and that a change in the policy requires an environmental study on the impact of the change under the National Environmental Policy Act.
"The defendants' efforts to leave problem wolves in both the primary and secondary recovery areas" of Arizona and New Mexico, respectively, "was never part of the original proposed action and was not a practice contemplated or condoned in the ... final rule," the lawsuit says. "It is a 'substantial change' justifying the need to prepare an entirely new (environmental impact statement)."
Officials of the Fish and Wildlife Service could not be reached for comment late Friday.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court by Otero and Catron county commissioners; the Catron County-based group Americans for the Preservation of the Western Environment; the Adobe Ranch and the Beaverhead Ranch, both in the Gila National Forest; the Gila National Forest Livestock Permittees' Association; and Glenwood area rancher Alan Tackman. The plaintiffs are represented by Ruidoso attorney Daniel Bryant.
Bryant and Tackman could not be reached for comment late Friday. Neither could representatives of Catron County or the Gila National Livestock Permittees' Association.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has long been criticized by conservationists for deferring too much to the cattle industry and for not doing enough to grow the population of Mexican wolves in the wild. Ranching groups, particularly in Catron County, have been hostile to the program because wolves have killed cattle, horses and other livestock and frightened some rural residents.
The recovery project has foundered in recent years. Federal officials expected that by the end of 2006, more than 100 wolves would be in the wild, but the count at the end of 2009 was 42, down from 52 the previous year.
The illegal shooting of endangered wolves, a practice that has claimed more than 30 lobos since 1998, has been the "single greatest source of wolf mortality" in the wild population, according to federal officials.
In response to the faltering wild wolf numbers and litigation by conservationists, in May 2009 a multi-agency committee, including members of Fish and Wildlife and the Arizona and New Mexico game and fish departments, approved a "clarification memo" stating they were "authorized and expected" to be flexible in removing cattle-killing wolves.
After that, the Fish and Wildlife Service's Southwest regional director, Benjamin Tuggle, decided several times to leave a wolf in the wild even though it had killed more than three cattle in a year.
Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity said he believes the lawsuit will fail.
"There's nothing in (the recovery project rule) that requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to remove any particular wolf," Robinson said. "It gives them the authority to do that, as long as it doesn't get in the way of conservation."

New Mexico ranchers' use of technology to track wolves debated

Should ranchers have access to the technology that allows humans to track endangered Mexican gray wolves?

One advocacy group says no, given that the number of Mexican wolves living in the wild in the Southwest has dropped from 42 to 39 in recent weeks.

Radio-telemetry receivers used by ranchers to track Mexican wolves in New Mexico and Arizona should be returned to federal wildlife authorities, according to the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which is worried about illegal killings of the vanishing predator.

"In addition, the government should assume the wolves' radio-collar frequencies have been compromised and should change the frequencies to prevent any tracking of the wolves via privately owned telemetry receivers," wrote Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. Robinson's letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was the center's second effort in a little more than two years to have the equipment returned.

Ranchers, though, say they use the equipment to locate dead cattle, not to hunt wolves.

Finding the location of a collared wolf with the receiver is not an exact science, said Laura Schneberger, who has a ranch on the north edge of New Mexico's Gila National Forest, where Mexican wolves are trying to establish packs. Schneberger, president of the Gila Livestock Growers, said the receivers have been used on her ranch.

"If you are on a ranch with 42 square miles, you're going to need that monitor," Schneberger said. "It will get you in that general area, then you look for buzzards. You use it to make sure the wolves are out of the cows. They (wolves) know you're coming way before you get there and find what they've been eating."

Robinson, who works out of the center's Silver City office, said the receivers can be used to pinpoint the wolves.

"As you get closer the telemetry signals get stronger," he said. "The population is getting gunned down one by one, for the most part."

Reintroduction advocates say the dwindling population means each lost wolf shrinks the gene pool. About 300 Mexican wolves are in captivity, in addition to the 39 in the wild.

Research indicates inbreeding is causing smaller litters and lower survival rates for pups, Robinson said. That could signal the end for a creature that once roamed large areas of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico.

The most pointed argument for retrieving the receivers, advocates say, is the fact that illegal shooting has been the main cause of death for the Mexican gray wolf since its reintroduction in 1998.

A total of 75 wolves have been released, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife data. Some of those wolves had pups that reached maturity. Thirty-five were shot illegally. Three have been killed since the beginning of June, said Tom Buckley, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman. Vehicles hitting wolves accounted for 12 deaths, which was the second-largest category.

Robinson said another 46 wolves, all but three with radio collars, have disappeared. Sometimes batteries die, but in 2009, two animals with collars dropped off the radar between weekly surveys, which suggests they were illegally killed, Robinson said.

Since 1998, only two people have been convicted of illegally shooting a Mexican wolf, Robinson said. Another who admitted to killing a Mexican wolf was not prosecuted.

"Given the high rate of illegal shooting of Mexican wolves, as well as the large number of wolves disappearing under suspicious circumstances, wolf-frequency-programmed receivers should only be in the hands of government employees responsible for protecting and recovering the wolves, and in the hands of scientists studying them," Robinson wrote.

Removing the receivers would take away a tool used by small family ranches that account for 95 percent of the grazing activity in the Gila, Schneberger said. "We've had people go out of business," she said. "Most of them have a very limited number of cattle."

A rancher can legally kill a wolf caught attacking livestock on private property, Buckley said. On public land, which includes the Gila National Forest grazing allotments, they must have a permit. It is not legal to shoot a wolf walking through or near cattle, he said.

Schneberger said no permits have been issued in Arizona or New Mexico, even in cases where ranchers had confirmed wolf kills.

To get a "shoot-on-sight" permit, there must be at least six breeding pairs in the area, Robinson said. That is a rarity, he said, which is why no permits have been issued.

The Fish and Wildlife Service provided the receivers at the beginning of the program "to elicit support" and give ranchers a method of depredation control, Buckley said.

About 11 receivers are in the hands of New Mexico ranchers and three are in Arizona, Buckley said. But the service cannot account for about four receivers loaned out early on, he said.

It may be one person who is misusing the equipment, Buckley said, "although I would acknowledge that even one loss (to poaching) is significant in this small population of wolves."

To get a receiver, ranchers now must fill out a "statement of use and receipt," which warns that dens and rendezvous sites, where wolves create a home base after pups outgrow the den, "are sensitive areas and caution should be used so the animals are not disrupted when it is not necessary to do so."

Buckley said the service is evaluating the policy of lending receivers as it works to revise the original recovery plan, which was written in 1982. A 2001 assessment prepared by the Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies stated that the revision was "long overdue." Robinson believes the service is wasting time instead of doing what is required by the Endangered Species Act to save the Mexican wolf.

"Even without conclusive, legally actionable evidence that telemetry receivers are being used for illicit ends, we urge you to adopt a wolf-protective stance," Robinson wrote. "This unique subspecies is in significant danger of extinction."

Chris Roberts may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.

Endangered Mexican gray wolf may get new help

The endangered Mexican gray wolf gained ground Tuesday in its struggle to survive when federal wildlife officials decided the animal may warrant greater protection than other, less-imperiled gray wolves.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it will review the status of the Mexican wolf - native to Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico - and determine whether it should be classified as a separate subspecies of the wider-ranging gray wolf native to other parts of North America.

The difference is significant under the Endangered Species Act. The government would be required to create a recovery plan specifically for the Mexican wolf and set measurable goals for the species' recovery that would extend protection beyond what wolves elsewhere receive.

No such plan is in place, even as the wolves' numbers dwindle.

"This is clearly a step forward for the Mexican wolf," said Nicole Rosmarino, wildlife program director for the advocacy group WildEarth Guardians. "The wolves face real, significant threats and they need heightened protection."

The wildlife service announced its review of the wolf's status as part of a settlement with WildEarth Guardians, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Rewilding Institute, three conservation groups that petitioned the agency to reclassify the Mexican wolf.

A final ruling could take up to a year. The fact that the federal agency has already decided there is enough evidence to warrant a full review tips the odds at least slightly in favor of a rarely bestowed subspecies listing, conservation groups believe.

The Mexican gray wolf was exterminated from its native habitat in the 1930s and 1940s and was originally listed as an endangered species in 1976. Two years later, the Mexican wolf was absorbed into a broader listing of almost all gray wolves after the government decided that such an approach afforded the animals better overall protection.

But while the wolf has recovered in some parts of the country - several populations were removed from the endangered species list in 2009 - the Mexican wolf has not.

A reintroduction program begun in 1998 has failed to establish a self-sustaining population. The latest count, conducted at the end of 2009, found just 42 wolves, mostly in the mountains of eastern Arizona.

The government already recognizes the Mexican wolf as endangered and has not moved to change that status even as it delists other wolf populations. But the wolf was reintroduced in Arizona under rules that don't require a recovery plan.

That difference, environmental groups say, has hurt the wolf's survival odds.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service since the mid-1990s has been promising to come out with a new recovery plan for the Mexican wolf," said Michael Robinson, who works on wolf issues for the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. "What we have now is a process that will make the plan a mandatory step. Ultimately, it may lead to reforms of the entire reintroduction program."

Federal officials will review the wolf's current status and threats it faces, such as loss of habitat, disease, problems with existing regulations and other factors that imperil the species' survival.

In its decision Tuesday, the wildlife agency disagreed with some claims made by environmental groups about threats to the wolf, but it acknowledged that many wolves have died as a result of human actions, including illegal shooting and collisions with vehicles.

Bill's wolf-trap ban needs federal follow-up

Give Gov. Bill Richardson a hand for lending one to the still-struggling Mexican gray wolf: This week he ordered a temporary ban on animal trapping in our state's part of the Blue Mountain wolf-recovery area. It's to last six months, while state biologists figure out what risks traps and snares pose to wolves.

For doing so, his critics are likely to issue word-play lines about him looking after himself — but this was just the latest of many seven-league strides Richardson has made on the environmental front during 71/2 years in the Governor's Office, and in Congress before that.

The Mexican gray, an endangered subspecies, was reintroduced to the New Mexico-Arizona borderlands in the late 1990s. By now, figured the federal wildlife officials who trucked a few animals into the Gila River basin, their population should have grown to about 100.

They reckoned without the region's taxpayer-subsidized ranchers or other two-legged enemies of canis lupus: As this year began, there were only 42 of the wolves. Since June, three have been found dead — two of them shot. In recent years, 14 have been trapped or snared — 12 in New Mexico. Five were injured, two of those so badly they required amputation.

If ranchers had anything to do with the trap injuries, there was irony in the infliction: Injured wolves might have a harder time bringing down a deer or an elk — so those grazing-lease livestock become more appealing.

It's possible that the people preying on wolves aren't ranchers — since they're not supposed to shoot wolves to save their stock; deadly force is limited to saving human lives.

But the cowboys are potential beneficiaries of those shooting and trapping the wolves: Packs of them pick on cattle from time to time.

However, the federal government, as well as the environmentalist group Defenders of Wildlife, have programs to pay stockgrowers for such depredation.

Such compensation systems depend on ranchers' willingness to take part — and some are less willing than others to buy into a wolf-reintroduction project they think is crazy, even dangerously so.

A pioneering effort by Santa Fe's WildEarth Guardians seeks to compensate ranchers for giving up their grazing permits. The local group is in pursuit of its first agreement. It would be a promising start toward freeing the forests for wildlife.

A more immediate effort by Guardians has been its petition to federal agencies to ban trapping — which, they figure, is part of the campaign to keep wolves at the edge of annihilation, where they've been for a century or so.

The governor's response to the rash of trapping is the right one; the feds should follow his lead.

The Santa Fe New Mexican

NM governor suspends trapping in wolf area

Gov. Bill Richardson on Wednesday ordered a temporary ban on trapping on the New Mexico side of an area where Mexican gray wolves have been reintroduced into the wild along the New Mexico-Arizona border. Richardson ordered the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to prohibit trapping for six months while it studies what risk traps and snares pose to wolves...more

















EXECUTIVE ORDER 2010-029

TEMPORARY BAN OF TRAPPING IN THE
BLUE RANGE WOLF RECOVERY AREA

WHEREAS, the Mexican Gray Wolf is the smallest, rarest, and most genetically distinct subspecies of the Gray Wolf;

WHEREAS, the Mexican Gray Wolves that once widely roamed New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and the Republic of Mexico are now nearly extinct, suffering from the results of human development, reduction in habitat, and hunting;

WHEREAS, the Mexican Gray Wolf was listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1976, and all known wild Mexican Gray Wolves were caught and put into a captive breeding program;

WHEREAS, the Gray Wolf species, of which the Mexican Gray Wolf is a subspecies, was listed as endangered under the New Mexico Wildlife Conservation Act in 1976;

WHEREAS, in 1998, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced the Mexican Gray Wolf to a portion of its historic range in New Mexico and Arizona within the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area (“Recovery Area”), which is comprised of the Gila and Apache National Forests;

WHEREAS, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s goal was to restore at least 100 free-roaming Mexican Gray Wolves in the Recovery Area by 2005, but as of 2010, only 39 individual Mexican Gray Wolves are surviving in the wild;

WHEREAS, pursuant to the New Mexico Wildlife Conservation Act, the State Game Commission has enacted rules which make it unlawful for any person to take (defined as harass, hunt, capture, kill, or attempt to do so) any threatened or endangered species or subspecies in the State of New Mexico;

WHEREAS, under the New Mexico Wildlife Conservation Act endangered species may only be removed, captured, or destroyed with prior authorization by permit given by the Director of the Department of Game and Fish (“Department”) where necessary to alleviate or prevent damage to property or to protect human health;

WHEREAS, trapping and snaring activities occur in New Mexico within the Recovery Area even though such activities are negatively impacting the Mexican Gray Wolf, as traps and snares do not discriminate between Mexican Gray Wolves and the game animals intended to be taken;

WHEREAS, Mexican Gray Wolves may suffer injury or death while caught in a trap or snare due to dehydration, exposure to weather, or predation by other animals;

WHEREAS, in the last eight years, in the Recovery Area located in New Mexico, there have been six confirmed and three probable Mexican Gray Wolves that have been trapped, five of which have sustained injuries from traps or snares, including two Mexican Gray Wolves that had injuries severe enough to result in leg amputations;

WHEREAS, missing toes, claws, or other injuries can inhibit the Mexican Gray Wolves’ ability to catch prey and may actually increase the risk of livestock predation, as domestic livestock are easier to capture than native prey such as elk or mule deer;

WHEREAS, Mexican Gray Wolves require adequate prey and freedom from indiscriminate traps and snares to thrive in the Recovery Area; and

WHEREAS, tourism for watching the Mexican Gray Wolf has had almost no chance to develop in New Mexico, because the Mexican Gray Wolf population has not grown as planned.

NOW THEREFORE, I Bill Richardson, Governor of the State of New Mexico, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the State of New Mexico, do hereby order the Department of Game and Fish to carry out the purpose of the New Mexico Wildlife Conservation Act, which requires endangered species, including the Mexican Gray Wolf, be protected and direct the Department of Game and Fish to temporarily ban trapping in the portion of the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area located in New Mexico. The ban shall:

1. Prohibit trapping by persons licensed to trap pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 17-5-5 and youth under the age of twelve years. This prohibition should not affect the right of a resident to trap animals in order to protect livestock, domesticated animals, or fowl. The ban shall be in effect for six months starting on November 1, 2010, while the two studies described below are completed.

2. Prohibit all methods of capturing a furbearer on land or in water, including leg-hold traps, neck and leg snares, Conibear kill traps, body-crushing traps, natural and man-made cubby sets, and other methods of trapping specified in 19.32.2.10 NMAC. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and the government of the United States and its agencies are exempted from this closure if the Mexican Gray Wolves require capture for medical treatment, monitoring, or relocation.

I further direct the Department to undertake a study of the various types of traps and snares allowed in New Mexico and to determine the level of risk to the Mexican Gray Wolf associated with the various traps and snares. The Department shall then pursue appropriate regulations to allow trapping within the Recovery Area only by use of traps and snares that pose minimal risk of harm or injury to the Mexican Gray Wolf.

I further direct the Department of Tourism to undertake a study on the potential economic benefits of ecotourism related to recovery of the Mexican Gray Wolf in the Recovery Area.

THIS ORDER supersedes any other previous orders, proclamations, or directives in conflict. This Executive Order shall take effect immediately and shall remain in effect until such time as it is rescinded by the Governor.

Groups at odds hinder wildlife conservation efforts

by Shaun McKinnon

The Arizona Republic

State and federal agencies have spent more than $20 million over 30 years to restore the Mexican gray wolf to its native habitat in eastern Arizona, an effort now teetering toward failure as the dwindling wild population struggles to survive.

What has happened has exposed troubling weaknesses in the wildlife conservation system. Politics, competing interests and drawn-out lawsuits hinder on-the-ground work to protect the species, while three groups that should work together - state regulators, the federal government and environmental organizations - are too often at odds.

Emotions have magnified the conflicts over the wolf's return, but most of the arguments surface repeatedly in other cases. Wildlife agencies say courts, ruling on suits filed by environmental groups, increasingly trump science in management decisions. Environmental groups accuse the agencies of dragging their feet and favoring hunters and ranchers over native species.

The risk is that Arizona's native wildlife, already imperiled by shrinking habitat and threats from non-native species that can take over an ecosystem, will face an even more uncertain future.

"We're not going to turn Arizona back into the 1800s," said Pat Graham, state-chapter director for the Nature Conservancy. "People will have an impact. But if we're going to maintain our natural diversity, we've got to find a way to live with native wildlife."

In this story, The Arizona Republic continues its look at vanishing native species, the threats they face, in the wild and in the bureaucracy, and the costs of losing them - costs to a tourism- dependent economy and to a way of life rooted deeply in the state's natural wonders.

Ranchers vs. wolves

During the first half of the 20th century, the government's position on Mexican gray wolves, known as Lobo wolves, was simple: Shoot on sight.

The policy of the U.S. Biological Survey in Arizona, the predecessor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was spelled out in a 1930 document: "All Lobo wolves and jaguars will be taken as fast as they enter this state from New Mexico and Mexico, as 100 percent of them live on livestock and game."

Ranchers, hunters and other land users dictated wildlife policy in those days, so wolves that killed livestock or other game animals were exterminated. By the early 1960s, the once-mighty predator had vanished from Arizona.

Around the same time, the nation was gaining new ecological awareness, helped along by emerging science. By 1973, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act, which allowed the federal government - working, when practical, with state wildlife agencies - to protect imperiled wildlife.

In 1976, the Mexican gray wolf, a species by then all but gone, was listed as endangered. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service created a recovery program that established a specific habitat and called for reintroduction of the wolf using animals bred in captivity.

The goal was to build a self-sustaining population of at least 100 wolves. (Since the first release in 1998, a total of 92 wolves have been released; the population at the end of 2009 was 42.)

But ranchers resisted, arguing that wolves kill their livestock. They lobbied Congress and their state lawmakers and sued the federal government. The result, environmental groups say, is a program that was designed to fail.

First, the government decided to release wolves under rules that give agencies more leeway to remove or kill a wolf if it is caught preying on livestock. Such latitude is unusual in an endangered-species case.

Then, the federal agency limited the wolf packs to territory in Arizona after New Mexico gave in to protests by ranchers and refused to allow wolves in the wild. The wolves are the only endangered species limited by political boundaries, said Michael Robinson, who works on wolf issues for the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity.

"When you look at the wolf program, the greatest losses to the population have been the same federal predator-control program that originally eliminated them," Robinson said. "It raises the question of how much has actually changed."

Since 1998, the wildlife service has shot 11 wolves for preying on cattle and sheep and permanently removed 23 to 34 others, depending on whose numbers are used. Poachers have killed at least 35, including two in the past month. Environmental groups believe the poachers are linked to wolf opponents, though the shootings are mostly unsolved.

A science-based assessment of the wolf program released by the wildlife service earlier this year warned that the population was at risk of failure. Brian Millsap, deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, disagreed but acknowledged that the wolf program was challenging, in part because the wolves occupy land used by grazing livestock.

"We went into this with the belief that if the wolves consistently depredated livestock, they need to be removed," he said. "I don't think we make the decision that livestock operations are more important than conservation or vice versa."

Conservation by litigation

Convinced that the government ignored its responsibilities to protect the wolf, the environmental groups turned to the courts, filing so many lawsuits over the years that the wolf- recovery effort can be tracked almost as easily from a courthouse as from the wild lands the animals prowl.

The environmental groups began with arguments familiar in other endangered-species cases: the government, usually the federal government because it administers the Endangered Species Act, has failed to move the animals closer to recovery.

The complaints about the wolf program were often more focused on the motivation of the government, both state and federal. The environmental groups say the agencies involved in helping the wolf were swayed by ranchers and other land users, as well as by lawmakers who support those interests.

Ranchers themselves have filed suits almost as often as the environmental groups, arguing that releasing wolves imperiled their ability to graze cattle on public lands.

Most of the species new to the threatened or endangered lists over the past decade attained that status after someone sued.

Wildlife managers believe they could do their job more effectively if they didn't spend the time they do answering lawsuits, which sometimes arrive weekly or even more often.

Steve Spangle, director of the Arizona ecological services office for the federal wildlife agency, said he once compiled a regional list of species that might warrant protection and believes he could have worked his way through the list within a few years if his attention hadn't been diverted by lawsuits. Instead, he said, "we never touched the list."

Some of those lawsuits force the government to focus on the higher-profile, or charismatic, species, such as the jaguar, whose plight made international news last year after the death in captivity of Macho B, the last known jaguar in Arizona.

"There is some frustration there," Spangle said. "We can't do a lot for the jaguar in this country, yet we have to put significant resources toward that animal."

Meanwhile, he said, there are fish, frogs, bats, snakes and other species that could use the money that will be spent on creating a recovery plan and designating habitat for the jaguar, which has likely retreated to Mexico.

Environmental groups defend their work. In some cases, land users or businesses have agreed to help protect a species in advance of a lawsuit. Water provider Salt River Project, for example, designated habitat for the Southwestern willow flycatcher before a lawsuit could affect operations of its dams and canals.

The Mexican wolf program would have progressed even less had the government been left on its own, environmental groups say. They say they have helped propel many species onto the endangered or threatened species lists by petitioning the government to act.

"When I look into why they're not getting anything done, it's not lawsuits," said Noah Greenwald, endangered-species program chief for the Center for Biological Diversity. "They have an incredibly cumbersome bureaucratic process. The listing decisions they make are primarily because of lawsuits, not in spite of them."

Dual roles debated

How competing interests sway wildlife conservation is seen most clearly, environmental groups say, in the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Even its name reflects conflicting goals, they say.

"They're hostile to the non-game side," said state Rep. Daniel Patterson, D-Tucson, who is Arizona director of the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Although not the chief enforcers of the species laws, the state often shares work with the federal agency and has taken the lead on some issues in the Mexican wolf program.

Patterson tried and failed in the 2010 Legislature to change the agency's name to Arizona Wildlife Conservation Service to recognize its wider responsibilities.

"I think the agency itself forgets its role," he said. "Everything that isn't hunting and fishing is just 'non-game,' stuff they can't sell licenses for."

Hunting and fishing licenses generate almost all of the department's revenue. The department receives no money from the general fund, an arrangement similar to that in most other states.

Critics say the agency's dual role puts it at odds often with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is focused solely on wildlife conservation. The state seems most conflicted in cases involving predators, such as the wolf or the mountain lion, whose presence on a ranch or among other game animals leads to policies that lead to removal of the predator.

The state acknowledges that it has disagreed with federal regulators over other predator-related decisions, but officials say their positions are not anti-wolf or pro-rancher.

"Ultimately, wolf conservation is accomplished by wolf acceptance, or at least tolerance," said Terry Johnson, endangered-species coordinator for the state agency and architect of its wolf policies. "We have to weave the wolf into the fabric of the community rather than force the community into the fabric of the wolf."

Patterson, a hunter himself, blames some of the problems on the Game and Fish Commission, which sets policy for the department. Members are appointed by the governor, and Patterson said Gov. Jan Brewer seems to be trying to stack the panel with anti-conservation forces.

Brewer has appointed two of the five members, Jack Husted of Springerville and John Harris of Tucson. Both have extensive law-enforcement backgrounds - Harris is the current police chief in Sahuarita - both worked as reserve game rangers for the state agency and both are avid hunters.

The only commission member with a background in wildlife conservation is the current chairwoman, Jennifer Martin, a biologist whose appointment in 2006 by Gov. Janet Napolitano stirred strong protest among hunting interests. Napolitano also appointed the other two members, whose five-year terms are staggered to produce one vacancy a year.

Larry Voyles, director of the state Game and Fish Department, said the commission actually helps shield the agency from politics by removing policy-setting activities from the direct purview of the Legislature.

He calls the hunting-bias issue "a red herring" and said his agency's non-game side works hard on behalf of imperiled species. It has achieved success in some tough cases, including the black-footed ferret, once the most endangered species in the country.

Hunters and anglers provide the money needed for wildlife conservation, Voyles said, and they are active in other ways, too. Trout Unlimited has worked on behalf of the threatened Apache trout, and the Arizona Elk Society works to clear areas of vegetation. Those projects benefit the elk but also create healthier habitat for other species.

"We hear from people that what wildlife needs is habitat," Voyles said. "It doesn't matter whether they're hunted or not hunted, they have those same needs. The Sonoran pronghorn near Yuma isn't hunted because it's rare. The pronghorn farther north can be hunted. The conservation activities aren't that different."

Hopeful signs

Although many protection efforts remain mired in expensive court cases, occasionally a species offers hope that competing sides can unite.

Near the Grand Canyon and Vermilion Cliffs, an effort to reintroduce the California condor has worked so far because of painstaking attention the birds have received - and cooperation among hunters, environmentalists and others.

Still, even as condors recover, protecting them from some of the same threats that led to their near-extinction will mean a perpetual struggle.

The issue is lead. Condors, along with bald eagles and other raptors, are suffering from high lead levels that, left untreated, could kill them. One likely source is the carcasses of animals shot by hunters. The condors eat the remains and ingest fragments of lead bullets, which partially disintegrate upon impact.

"It's something we can choose to acknowledge or not to," said Chris Parish, California condor project director for the non-profit Peregrine Fund.

Few endangered species have required the attention the condors have. The need for medical care was great enough that a small hospital was established near Marble Canyon.

The lead issue is probably not new and may have contributed to the birds' rapid demise.

"We should try to think in those terms," Parish said. "If we're going to impact their habitats, let's do what we can for them."

Parish, a lifelong hunter himself, has started talking to hunters' groups and urging them to switch to non-lead ammunition. He said many hunters are angry at first, but they listen. Some come around, and the reason may resonate for a lot of Arizonans who wonder about the value of the state's native species.

"Hunters like to see condors soaring overhead," Parish said. "It's just part of the whole Arizona experience."