Contact: Laura Schneberger
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November 25, 2007

Wild Born Wolves Swept Under Rug by Program Managers

The Mexican wolf program may be in for a population boost during the winter counts this year despite removals attributed to livestock depredation.

Saturday November 24 a single two year old male wolf was trapped on the Adobe ranch in an area currently occupied by the Aspen pack. The Aspen pack is slated for removal due to a total of 10 cow and calf depredations since June and a horse kill that occurred some distance south of the Adobe in January. According to the FWS standard operating procedure 13, the wolves should have been removed after three kills.

According to Gene Whetten manager of the adobe ranch, the Aspen pack are on a spree kill on the Adobe ranch and have racked up 5 confirmed weaned calves since October and a further 2 that were deemed probable kills.

“The pack is so big that they pretty much clean up what they kill so fast that it is hard to find them so we are actually loosing a lot more than we are having confirmed,” says Whetten. “We are finding skeletons and the kill scene but they eat the skin and everything so it is hard to get enough for confirmation.”

So far only the alpha male has been removed for the kills, leaving the Alpha female, a yearling female and four pups to continue their depredations apparently unchecked.

“Because Aspen is leaving one carcass and killing a new calf each time, they are having a hard time trapping them. Yesterday one of the wild born wolves that has been on the ranch for over a year was caught in one of the traps set for the Aspen pack. I told them to leave me the good wolf, so it can mate up this year and get the Aspen pack off the place. So they took it to Arizona and are going to release it there.”

That release is scheduled to occur on the Four Drag ranch owned by Gary and Darcy Ely in Arizona sometime in the next few days. Fish and Wildlife Service are attempting to force a pair bond between the wild born wolf and the Rim pack alpha female.

“Our ranchers get blamed for everything wrong with this program, says Laura Schneberger President of the Gila Livestock Growers Association, the truth is if the agencies would do an adequate job this program would be in better shape. When my members report un-collared wolves on their places, these agencies don’t investigate and refuse to believe them. Instead of being rewarded for allowing this wild born wolf and who knows how many other wolves onto the Adobe ranch, these folks are being forced to live with a pack that is slaughtering their herds and teaching wild born wolves to prey on cattle. It is an unmitigated, disastrous and unfair situation”

The Adobe ranch has been Mexican wolf habitat since the early days of the program and in the past several years have had to implement wolf control on the ranch. In the past year, the ranch has had several confirmed wolf kills attributed to unknown wolves. According to Whetten, those kills were all concentrated on the western end of the ranch near the Durango pack territory, far from the territory occupied by the wild born, newly removed wolf. “We had this wolf doing nothing wrong for over a year and they moved it. You get so frustrated when you have to do all the extra work, loose the cattle anyway, you have no control over what is happening and they won’t follow their own rules.”

In an unrelated incident an un-collared wolf was documented at the Glenwood community center by the Catron county wolf interaction investigator, the same day the un-collared wolf was trapped on the Adobe ranch. Ranchers and area homeowners have documented up to 27 un-collared wolves in New Mexico in the past year with no investigations by wildlife managers occurring to confirm their presence.