Mexican gray wolf would stay protected

The Mexican gray wolf would be listed as an endangered subspecies and would continue receiving federal protection even as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would lift such protections for gray wolves in the rest of the country, according to published reports about the draft rules. If adopted, the draft rules would represent a policy reversal for the Mexican gray wolf and would provide additional pressure on Fish and Wildlife to complete a fresh recovery plan for the lobo. Fish and Wildlife announced in October it would not provide the Mexican gray wolf with a separate listing as a subspecies. The agency said a separate listing was unnecessary because the lobo was already protected as an endangered species and that a new recovery plan was already being developed. Environmentalists say the draft rules, first reported by the Los Angeles Times and confirmed by The Associated Press, represent a setback for wolves in the rest of the country because management of wolf populations would be left up to the states. Wolves that spread into eastern Washington, Oregon or Colorado, for instance, would not be protected as endangered species under the proposed rule. Craig Miller, Southwest representative for Defenders of Wildlife, welcomed the proposal to relist Mexican gray wolves as an endangered subspecies because they “need all the protection they can get,” but said stripping federal protections for other gray wolves could increase the danger to lobos that disperse from the Southwest. That’s because it will be difficult to tell the difference between Mexican gray wolves and other, unprotected gray wolves. “The Service’s actions make protection of Mexican gray wolves much more difficult should they expand into Utah or Colorado and make it unlikely that any wolves will be able to naturally re-establish a presence in the Southern Rockies, a region with excellent suitable habitat where wolves were once found,” Miller said...more