Help to fix wolf recovery plan
There is no lack of heat over re-establishing the endangered Mexican wolf in Arizona and New Mexico. So it is no surprise this summer’s draft plan for wolf recovery hit the pavement and started sizzling. Environmentalists say the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s draft plan is too generous to wolf opponents.
Some ranchers say they still don’t want the wolves around — under any circumstances.
You have a chance to have your say until Aug. 29, when the public comment period ends.
It’s important to make your feelings known, because the success of this decades-long effort to re-establish these beautiful animals hangs on this plan.
This is the blueprint for recovery — and it’s got some fundamental problems.
First, let’s get one thing straight: The reintroduction of Mexican wolves reflects the shared national goal of preserving biodiversity — a goal enshrined in the Endangered Species Act of 1973. These are national values. Yet the draft wolf recovery plan gives authority to Arizona and New Mexico to “determine the timing, location and circumstances of releases of wolves into the wild within their respective states.”
Unless this wording is clarified, it has the potential to put releases — and the species’ survival — at risk.
Residents in Arizona and New Mexico should have a say, but certain local players — largely ranchers and hunters — have significant political clout, and they have been vocal in opposition to wolves.
New Mexico has sued to stop wolf releases, and Arizona filed an amicus brief in that case.
Without wolf releases, the recovery effort is doomed.
When asked why the federal government was essentially ceding its authority to the states on this issue, Maggie Dwire, assistant Mexican wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said this is a draft plan that reflects the agency’s policy of treating states as “important partners.”
The final language can change, she said.
Final language should make it clear that the states can offer input but do not have veto power over releases.
There are currently more wolves in captive-breeding programs in the United States and Mexico than there are in the wild. What’s more, those captive wolves have greater genetic diversity than the estimated 113 wolves roaming Arizona and New Mexico.
The recovery plan lists the lack of genetic diversity as a threat to recovery. Captive wolves are the solution.
The draft recovery plan sets criteria for downlisting Mexican wolves from endangered status that includes having an average of 320 wolves in the United States over four years, as well as a smaller population in Mexico.
If the U.S. population exceeds 380, the draft talks about employing “management actions” to decrease it.
Why limit a population we’ve been working to restore? Because more wolves might strain “social tolerance in local communities or cause other management concerns such as unacceptable impacts to wild ungulates,” the draft says.
In other words, ranchers don’t want to share the public land they lease, and hunters don’t want competition for the elk and deer they hunt.
Giving deference to these concerns mirrors current policy.
Ranchers, who complain when wolves prey on cattle, can be reimbursed for cattle lost and can even apply for “payments for presence” simply because wolves are on public land they lease for grazing.
Meanwhile, if wolves are found to eat too much game, state wildlife agencies can press to have the lobos removed.
This existing bias in favor of local interests that use the public lands and resources for individual profit or recreation is at odds with the larger national goal of species preservation.
Public comments on the draft recovery plan can help shift policies in favor of the wolves. That’s up to you. But do your homework.
Dwire, of the Fish and Wildlife Service, urges people to offer “helpful comments” and “specific reasons.”
“Give us something to address,” she says, beyond “I hate wolves” or “I love wolves.”