Mexican wolf restoration hits (another) snag

by Cally Carswell

Earlier this year, things seemed to be looking up for the long-struggling effort to restore Mexican wolves to the Southwest. The population grew to more than 100, a threshold the 17-year-old effort hadn’t reached before. And wolf advocates cheered changes to the ground rules of the federal recovery program that seemed poised to benefit wild wolves at a critical juncture.

As the population has grown, it's also become increasingly inbred thanks to past removals of genetically valuable packs and the outsized reproductive success of one that remained. Animals from the captive population could help to shake up the gene pool if they're introduced soon, while the wild population is still small. But though the recent rule changes looked like they would free the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service up to make releases they couldn't before, the state of New Mexico is not on board – and it's where releases are needed most.

In January, though, the Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a new rule that cracked open the bureaucratic handcuffs hobbling recovery. Wolves would be free to roam through an expanded area, and the revisions allowed for the reintroduction of animals directly into New Mexico. 

New Mexico, however, still hasn’t warmed up to the idea. So far, state officials are standing in the way of reintroductions that biologists say are essential for improving the long-term viability of the wild population.

Later this month, the state’s Game and Fish Commission will make a final decision on permit requests from the Fish and Wildlife Service for new releases. The agency hoped to release a mating pair of adult wolves and also to “cross-foster” pups, where captive-born wolves are swapped with wild pups before two weeks of age. But earlier this summer, the state denied the permits; the feds appealed at a commission meeting in August. 

For the first time, the state also declined to renew a permit for a captive wolf facility on a private ranch in southwestern New Mexico owned by Ted Turner. That facility is considered crucial for the recovery program because space is limited for the captive population, and because it allows captive wolves to live in an environment that more resembles the wild landscape, better conditioning them for potential release. 

“It has the appearance to me of just being political monkey wrenching in the process,” says David Parsons, who headed the Mexican wolf program for Fish and Wildlife in its early years and is now with the Albuquerque-based Rewilding Institute, which advocates for large carnivores.

The Rewilding Institute accusing the Game Commission of monkey wrenching?  What an ironic laffer that is!

As far as politics influencing the program, it always has.  Politicians passed the ESA, appoint the Director of the USFWS and annually fund the program.  Politicians perform the same function on the state side of things, and it was a political decision to start the recovery program in the first place.  So politics has always been a key factor.  Their real concern is the politics isn't going their way right now.