Arizona endangered wolves still on the brink - video

A brown-streaked wolf — named Ernesta by her admiring captors — bounded from a crate and onto Arizona soil. She carries in her womb the newest hopes for a rare native species that is struggling to regain a footing in the Southwest. Her government-sponsored April 25 relocation with her mate, from New Mexico's Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge to a mountain south of Alpine, was the first in the state for a captive-bred pair of Mexican gray wolves in more than four years. The last time a new canine couple sniffed freedom in these mountains, in fall 2008, they didn't last the winter. Someone shot the female almost immediately, and the male disappeared by February...As of 2011, the federal, state and tribal agencies involved estimated they had spent about $26 million studying, breeding and restoring Mexican wolves over about 20 years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service paid the biggest share, nearly $17 million. The Arizona Game and Fish Department paid $2.5 million and used another $3 million in federal funds...John Hand has raised cattle across the state line in Catron County, N.M., since 1953. He said the Fish and Wildlife Service made a mistake bringing wolves back. It's ranch country, he said, and the unavoidable conflicts mean the restoration is "doomed to fail." Wildlife agents confirmed wolves killed 18 cattle and one mule last year. The previous year's toll was 20 cattle, a horse and a sheep. An

interagency compensation fund helps offset losses. Although wolves enjoy federal protection as an endangered species, their status here as an experimental population gives ranchers a right to defend cattle. They can legally shoot wolves that are attacking their stock on private land, and can report them to government officials for potential agency-directed trapping or killing after repeated offenses on public lands. "I don't want them on (our ranch)," Hand said. "If they come here, it's not something we'll tolerate. We'd probably shoot them. Our neighbor shot one not too long ago."...Many conservationists hope that a new recovery plan will include two new wolf zones: one north of the Grand Canyon and one in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. These would help disperse wolves to reduce in-breeding — which reduces litter sizes — and protect against extinction during disease outbreaks...

 Check out the full article and the video below at USA Today.

Two days later the FWS released another pair in New Mexico's Gila Wilderness.  The outcome of that release is one of my topics in a column for the June issue of the NM Stockman, and I'll soon have more about that on The Westerner.