Wolves to roam toward Flagstaff?

It’s a long way from becoming a reality, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is floating a plan that would allow the Mexican gray wolf to roam north toward Flagstaff and across the state for the first time in generations. But in order to delist their bigger cousins, the agency must reclassify the Mexican gray wolf as a distinct subspecies and remove its designation as an experimental population. That means biologists must now focus their efforts on creating a real population of wild wolves. The Fish and Wildlife Service released a draft of proposed changes last month. It includes a massive expansion of the Mexican gray wolf’s allowed territory. If implemented, the plan would allow wolves to roam from western Arizona to eastern New Mexico between Interstates 40 and 10. Currently, any wolf leaving the Blue Range is captured and returned. The draft also includes potential wolf reintroduction sites in northern Arizona on the Tonto National Forest, throughout the Sitgreaves National Forest and other public lands, as well as private lands where there’s a participating landowner. The Apache tribe has an agreement with the Fish and Wildlife Service that has allowed wolves to roam on their lands in eastern Arizona. Wolves have been spotted in the past as close to Flagstaff as Mormon Lake and Holbrook along Interstate 40, as the animals are capable of traveling vast distances in search of food and mates. At an Arizona Game and Fish Commission meeting in Flagstaff on Friday, the panel decided it would work with the feds to help come up with a plan, but officials emphasized that no final changes have been agreed on or even discussed at this point. Judy Prosser is the third generation of her family to operate the Bar-T-Bar ranch south of Mormon Lake on Anderson Mesa. She owns some 2,000 head of livestock and boasts the Southwest’s “largest selection of Balancer and Angus bulls.” Her grazing lands would be inside the expanded Mexican gray wolf recovery area. Prosser says that her ranching friends in the current recovery area have struggled and not been happy with the way things were managed. Losing livestock has affected their pocketbooks. “The program has not been successful. I don’t think anyone has been happy with the outcome,” she said. She said that she might be supportive of a renewed wolf effort if it was done under the control of state Game and Fish, but not with the same federal management. “We just don’t live in an isolated, unpopulated place,” Prosser said. “Coconino is one of the most highly recreated counties in the state. I don’t think campers and homeowners in the Happy Jack and Blue Ridge area need to be concerned with letting their kids and pets outside their homes.”...more