Expansion of wolf restoration area urged

Tourism leaders want Canyon added to habitat

Over 60 business leaders have urged the federal government to release endangered Mexican gray wolves into the Grand Canyon region, expanding the predator’s habitat beyond eastern Arizona.

The group submitted a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service criticizing the agency’s long-awaited recovery plan released in June because it confined the recovery zone south of Interstate 40.

The business leaders include owners, managers and independent contractors, among others, from the tourism and service industries in northern Arizona and southern Utah.

Gray wolves in the region would benefit the tourism industry and the ecosystem, the business leaders wrote, citing such benefits associated with gray wolf recovery near Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana.

Gray wolf reintroduction at the Blue

Range Wolf Recovery Area in Arizona and New Mexico benefits the economy by an estimated $3.2 to 3.8 million a year, according researchers at Defenders of Wildlife and State University of New York.

The business leaders urged the wildlife service “to resist the efforts of narrow political interests that undermine (the gray wolf’s) recovery.”

The agency’s recovery plan is in line with requests outlined in a 2015 letter by governors from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. The letter, to the Department of Interior and the wildlife service, urged the government to restrict recovery zones below I-40.

The governors claimed available science indicates the wolves’ historical range did not extend north of I-40.

To establish the Mexican grey wolf north of I-40, outside of their historical range, would be unlawful, said Jim deVos, assistant director for wildlife management at the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

Environmental news coverage in The Arizona Republic and on azcentral.com is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.