New Mexico Rancher Loses Grazing Permits Over Slain Wolf

.New Mexico rancher Craig Thiessen will not be allowed to graze his cattle on public lands. The Catron County cattleman killed an endangered Mexican wolf in Gila National Forest six years ago where his cattle were grazing. He pleaded guilty in 2018 to killing the wolf and was sentenced to a year of probation and a $2,300 fine.

Later that year the U.S. Forest Service revoked his permit to graze cattle on the public land. Thiessen challenged that ruling in court, but a federal judge on Friday upheld the USFS decision to bar him from public grazing.

Thiessen has been grazing 286 cows and 143 calves on the 48,000 acres, according to court documents. The USFS has sued Thiessen to remove his cattle...MORE

More protections for Mexican wolf proposed

 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing several changes to how the agency manages endangered Mexican wolves.

The proposal announced Wednesday would remove population limits, boost the number of wolf pups released into the wild each year, and restrict permits issued to livestock owners or state game agencies that allow killing of wolves if the animals prey on cattle, elk or deer.

Tracy Melbihess, Fish and Wildlife’s Mexican wolf policy coordinator, said the changes would remove the upper population limit of 325 wolves in the agency’s management area south of Interstate 40 in New Mexico and Arizona.

“It’s intended to ensure that we have a robust population that has a really low risk of extinction,” Melbihess said...MORE

USFWS confirms the Mexican gray wolf will not be included in the status review

Last week I posted an email from the USFWS saying they were conducting a status review of the gray wolf under the Endangered Species Act.
Today, in response to an email from me, the USFWS said the Mexican gray wolf would not be a part of the review as they considered them "a separate subspecies."
Here is the email exchange:

From: mscowboy 
Date: Wed, Jun 20, 2018 at 6:38 AM
Subject: Wolves -- press statement
To: gavin_shire@fws.gov

Concerning the statement in your 6/13/18 email to Collette Adkins, please advise on whether or not the status review will include the Mexican gray wolf.

Thanks

Frank DuBois

575.649.8660

The Westerner

https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

--

From: Gavin Shire 
Date: Wed, Jun 20, 2018 at 6:41 AM
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Wolves -- press statement
To: mscowboy@gmail.com

It will not. We consider that a separate subspecies.

Kind regards,

Gavin Shire

Chief of Public Affairs

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

MS: EA

5275 Leesburg Pike

Falls Church, VA 22041-3803

703-358-2649 (o)

703-346-9123 (c)

gavin_shire@fws.gov

Of Men and Wolves - The challenge of reintroducing the Mexican wolf and its journey home

Reintroducing a predator species to its historical habitat manifests dispute between wildlife agencies, environmental organizations, and people who are affected by the animals' presence on the landscape. The effort to reestablish the Mexican wolf in Arizona and New Mexico has met many challenges because the wolf competes with human use of the land. Wolves roam among domestic animals, threatening the livelihood of ranchers and perhaps altering the future of public land and the wilderness. Despite differences, and in some cases, opposition to the reintroduction of the Mexican wolf, the challenges have been met with sometimes ingenious, and sometimes practical and straightforward solutions. "The reintroduction of the Mexican wolves was the most difficult of any projects to reintroduce wolves anywhere," L. David Mech said. Mech is a senior research scientist at the Northern Prairie Research Center with the U.S. Geological Survey. He has studied wolves for almost 60 years. "The animals were all captive-bred and lacked the skills to survive in the wild," Mech said. Even though the wolves were catching elk, initially they also attacked livestock and roamed near human activity. "They were released in an environment that lacks large, expansive wilderness areas free of livestock." Conflict was inevitable...Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revised the section (10)j regulations to the Endangered Species Act regarding the Mexican wolf. Among other changes, the new guidelines include increasing the recovery area so the wolf can expand farther north into Arizona and New Mexico and south into its historical range in Mexico. Increasing the Mexican wolf's territory has advantages, but expanding its range into desert and other unsuitable habitat not part of its historical habitat could harm recovery and management efforts. The more wolves that get into trouble in those less suitable areas translate into more management. "We already lack the funding to launch a larger-scale wolf recovery program," deVos, from Arizona Game and Fish Department, said. Only a tiny portion of historical habitat remains in the U.S. Southwest, he said. The southwestern U.S. comprised about 10 percent of the Mexican wolf's original range, with the remaining 90 percent in Mexico. "They aren't called Mexican wolves for any other reason than they came from Mexico," deVos said...more

More diverse gene pool key to wolves

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shot the last captive-born Mexican gray wolf in the wild for “escalating nuisance behavior” after it came too close to Catron County neighborhoods. It was a fairly routine kill, but the take of Mexican gray wolf No. 1130 marked a shift in the program to recuperate the endangered species: Today all 110 wolves roaming the wild of eastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico were born in the wild. On the surface, that sounds like a milestone. Just crossing the 100 mark for wild wolves sounds significant, especially for a program that began with just seven known wolves left in the species. The authors of the original 1982 Mexican gray wolf recovery plan – which badly needs an update – set 100 as a goal but could hardly imagine ever reaching such numbers. Shouldn’t wolf advocates be celebrating, then? Shouldn’t ranchers, many of whom oppose the reintroduction of a top predator, be able to say enough is enough? New Mexico Game Commissioner Ralph Ramos posed a question to the federal Fish and Wildlife Service at a recent commission meeting in Farmington. With more than 100 wolves successfully reproducing and surviving in the wild, he asked, “Why don’t we support their natural breeding? Why do we want to keep adding more?” Here’s why: Because the Mexican gray wolf population isn’t nearly as strong as its numbers suggest. Maggie Dwire, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s assistant wolf recovery coordinator, said most of the animals in the wild are related to one another – too closely related to ensure the survival of the species, the goal of the reintroduction program...more

Wolf supporters, cattlemen face off at Capitol over Turner ranch permit denial

Only a few yards separated supporters of the Mexican gray wolf from ranchers and cattle industry representatives rallying Tuesday outside the state Capitol, but the ideological chasm between the two factions yawned much wider. About 10 members of the livestock industry gathered in a show of support for the State Game Commission’s decision this month to deny a permit for a wolf recovery and reintroduction assistance program at media mogul/philanthropist Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch. Turner’s property borders the Gila National Forest in Southern New Mexico, a gateway for wolves to reach private ranches, according to those who raise livestock for a living. Ranchers looked on skeptically as a much larger group of wildlife conservation advocates, some wearing mock wolf-head hats, tilted their heads upward and howled. They called on Gov. Susana Martinez to overturn the decision by her own appointed commission. Martinez on Tuesday was in Dallas for the Republican Governors Association Policy Summit. Kerrie Cox Romero, executive director of the New Mexico Council of Outfitters and Guides, echoed comments by state game commissioners as to why Turner’s ranch shouldn’t provide refuge for wolves. “This was the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s lack of follow-through with the Mexican wolf recovery plan that led to this denial,” she said. “We don’t see a reason to continue captive-breeding wolves if there’s no mechanism for release. Until the Fish and Wildlife Service comes together with a Mexican wolf recovery plan, with concrete numbers in terms of population goals and in terms of delisting objectives, then we completely stand behind the State Game Commission’s decision to deny the permit,” she said. On the other side of yellow “caution” tape placed by Capitol security personnel to separate the groups, Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity disagreed. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has in many respects been doing the bidding of the people who hate the wolves by ensuring that only very seldom are they released into the wild, and by, quite frankly, delaying [renewal] of the recovery plan.” Carlos Salazar, a rancher whose property is part of the Juan Bautista Valdez Land Grant near Abiquiú, hasn’t had to contend with wolf attacks on his livestock. But, he said, the reintroduction efforts represent a potential encroachment on historical property rights. He praised the governor for standing up to advocates for the wolves, saying, “She’s not afraid of them.”...more

Feds plan NM release of wolf pups bred in captivity

This summer the federal government plans to release Mexican gray wolf pups bred in captivity directly into New Mexico for the first time – part of what it says is an effort to encourage the endangered lobo’s recovery – if the state grants permission. Wolves have been bred in captivity in New Mexico for years but then released in Arizona, where some eventually were captured for one of various reasons and then relocated to New Mexico. But a new management rule that took effect in February permits the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to introduce “new” wolves, or those bred in captivity, directly into the New Mexico wild – a critical step, advocates say, toward improving the genetics of the population. Wolf advocates say they are concerned about the fate of permit requests by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pending before the New Mexico Game and Fish Department to release new wolves. They say the department’s governor-appointed commission took a swipe at the recovery program last week when it denied Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch a permit to host wolves on its property in New Mexico. It had been doing so for 17 years. The Game and Fish Department confirmed it is reviewing requests by the FWS to release into the Gila wilderness a pair of wolves and their pups, and to import and release up to 10 wolves into New Mexico. Department Director Alexa Sandoval is charged with making a determination. Asked whether the FWS needs state approval to release wolves onto federal public land, the FWS said it has “federal statutory responsibility to recover Mexican wolves” but added, “We are most effective when partnering with the states.”  “Our desire is to work with the state toward the recovery of the Mexican wolf, which will eventually lead to state management of the species,” the FWS said...more

Editorial: Game board unfairly takes aim at gray wolf protector

Playing tit for tat with an endangered species is not only unproductive; it’s petty. Yet that appears to be what the New Mexico Game Commission did last week when it declined to renew a permit that had been in place for 17 years allowing Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch in the Gila mountains to assist the federal Mexican gray wolf recovery program. 

Ever since the program began in 1998, the Turner ranch has worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to provide pen space for holding endangered wolves being taken from the wild or being reintroduced into the wilderness. Turner raises bison commercially on the 156,000-acre ranch in Sierra County and maintains it as a habitat for endangered and threatened species and for ecotourism.

Currently, there are just over 100 Mexican gray wolves in the wild – a species that once numbered in the thousands. 

In the past, the Game and Fish director routinely signed off on the Turner permit. However, in November, the commission adopted a rule requiring commission approval for permits to keep wolves and other carnivores on private land for purposes of recovery or reintroduction. It appears to target the wolf program, and last week’s action is likely to hamper its success. 

...That may relate to a new Fish and Wildlife Service rule that greatly expanded the wolves’ range south to the Mexican border and north to Interstate 40 and broadened areas where wolves bred in captivity could be released. It also gave ranchers, who generally oppose the program, more authority to shoot wolves dead if they prey on livestock or domestic animals.  

READ ENTIRE EDITORIAL

The Journal's attempt to dismiss the legitimate concerns of our state and those most affected by calling the Game Commission's action "tit for tat" and "petty" is unfortunate.

This is the second tit for about a thousand tats as the USFWS has continually ignored the many concerns of the state and local citizens.  It's hardly petty for the Governor and Commission to stand up for the health and safety of our folks whereas you seem more interested in the health and safety of the mexican wolf.

Most galling is your attempt to use property rights to oppose the Commission's action:

Landowner rights should not become as endangered as the wolf. Turner should be allowed to use his property as he wishes in cooperation with the federal government, and the commission shouldn’t flex its self-granted power to punish a private landowner to make a statement.

Turner should be free to use his property as he wishes. But the moment he chooses to participate in a taxpayer-funded program the public also has a right to try and influence that participation. Would the Journal deny the public that opportunity? There are also private landowners who oppose the program, and until the Martinez administration came along, their voices were silenced. Turner chooses to participate and you defend him, while other land owners are "punished" by being forced to participate, and you ignore them. Thank goodness the Game Commission is not.

Arizona Files Motions to Protect Arizona’s Interest in Mexican Wolf Recovery

The State of Arizona, on behalf of the Arizona Game and Fish Department, recently filed two motions aimed at protecting the state’s interest in the Mexican wolf reintroduction program and successful recovery of the endangered wolf subspecies that inhabits east-central Arizona and New Mexico. Arizona filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit Center for Biological Diversity v. Sally Jewell. The suit concerns the recently-revised 10(j) Rule that governs the management of Mexican wolves in Arizona and New Mexico. The state filed the motion to intervene to defend its trust authority over wildlife conservation in Arizona and its involvement in the revision of the 10(j) Rule. The state also filed a motion to dismiss the suit based on the court’s lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the plaintiffs are unable to demonstrate that their interests have suffered due to the revised 10(j) Rule. The Arizona Game and Fish Department also is working with the Arizona Attorney General’s office to challenge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s failure to develop an updated Mexican wolf recovery plan that incorporates Mexico, which has historically held 90 percent of the habitat for Mexican wolves...more