Lawsuit to Protect Border-crossing Wolves in NM & AZ, plus additional maps and commentary

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit today challenging a permit issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that will allow federal and state agencies to capture wolves that enter Arizona and New Mexico from either the north or the south and keep them in captivity indefinitely. Mexico has an ongoing program to reintroduce endangered Mexican gray wolves in the Sierra Madre, and wolves from the northern Rockies could move into the Southwest at any time. The Center’s lawsuit seeks protection of wolves found in New Mexico and Arizona, north of Interstate 40 and south of Interstate 10, from federal and state trapping. The lawsuit does not apply to wolves emanating from the Mexican wolf reintroduction program, begun in 1998, in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area, which lies between the two interstate highways. Those wolves, which already suffer from reduced protections, are the subject of a separate Center lawsuit seeking science-based reforms in their management. The contested permit allows the live capture of any number of endangered wolves for any reason, including the primary rationale of protecting livestock. The permit does not require livestock owners to undertake any measures to reduce their risk of losing livestock to wolves before trappers could remove wolves...more

 
It's pretty easy to see what's going on here.  This is the proposed jaguar critical habitat:

Then there is the Sky Islands project, interested in the same area plus corridors to land in Mexico.

 

Here is a different view of their map.

 

Then there was the Bingaman Wilderness bill, which zeroed in on Dona Ana County for now.  Reportedly Senators Heinrich & Udall will be reintroducing similar legislation this summer.

Bob & Carol Richardson

And most recently, the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance proposal for a National monument.

Why is Las Cruces and Dona Ana County so prevalent in all these proposals?  Take a look at this map, which shows gov't land in black and private property in white. 

There are other projects and more maps, but this should give you a feel for what they have planned for us.  Using existing law and administrative tools, plus new legislative proposals, they will keep throwing mud until something sticks.