Advocates question investigations used to target wolves

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — An environmental group is raising questions about investigations into livestock kills by Mexican gray wolves in the southwestern U.S. The Western Watersheds Project has documented oddities, errors or conflicting details in more than two-thirds of the 117 investigations it reviewed from 2019. The investigations are used to compensate ranchers for cattle that are killed in Arizona and New Mexico. Greta Anderson, the group’s deputy director, said she found numerous cases that were deemed to be “confirmed” wolf kills were based on what she described as logical leaps and a stunning lack of evidence. Wolves may be paying for such inaccuracies with their lives, she said. In March alone, government hunters killed four wolves in New Mexico under federal removal orders that cited repeated attacks on livestock in the area. “We want to make sure if wolves are being blamed that it’s true,” Anderson said told the Arizona Daily Star. “We have a lot of questions. We don’t have a bunch of conclusions.” In one case, the remains of a dead cow were found last year in the bottom of a canyon near Reserve, New Mexico. All that was left was a wadded scrap of dried hide that investigators photographed and then collected. They soaked the skin for weeks before it was soft enough for them to find tooth marks on it. The size of the bite and the location of the hide was all the federal government needed to confirm this 4-year-old cow was killed by a wolf...Wildlife Services spokeswoman Tanya Espinosa said the agency tries to conduct its investigations within 24 hours of being notified of a livestock kill. The agency received funding this year to hire conflict prevention specialists. Some of that work will focus on wolf conflicts, she said. Last year marked a record for livestock kills, and officials say this year is on a similar pace. In April alone, more than two dozen livestock kills were confirmed. Brady McGee, the Mexican wolf recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said New Mexico’s Gila National Forest offers some of the best wolf habitat and grazing goes on there year-round. While a number of factors go into deciding whether to catch or kill a wolf, McGee said the basis of the removal orders are due to wolf-livestock conflicts. Removal is a last resort, he said...MORE