Letter to Southwest regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on failing recovery of mexican wolves

July 26, 2009
Also sent by fax and surface mail

Director Tuggle:

You are quoted in today’s Los Angeles Times (Recovery of Mexican gray wolves remains elusive) saying the following about the issues surrounding the failure of the Mexican wolf restoration effort in the southwestern United States:

"You've got these diametrically opposed forces: This predator that has a right to be in this space, and the other is this prey base, cattle, that has a right to be in this space," he said. "It doesn't take you long to cook that formula and come up with a pretty explosive situation."

As someone who works on a daily basis with the issue of public lands ranching and the many legal and economic ironies associated with that heavily subsidized activity, I was concerned in reading your quote that you might misunderstand the federal permitting system for ranching on public lands.

Ranchers have no legal right to keep cattle or sheep on public lands, they have a license or permit to graze livestock under very specific conditions through their ten year term grazing permit from the Forest Service or the BLM. Those permits are revocable at any time for cause, and can have their terms and conditions changed annually should the federal agencies involved choose to do so.

Under former President Bush the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) made little or no effort to work with the Forest Service and the BLM to change public land grazing permits on lands that are or could be habitat for the Mexican grey wolf. Our organization and many others hope that the USFWS under President Obama will choose a very different path to ensure the restoration of Mexican wolves everywhere in their historic habitat.

Some conditions that would be very helpful include:

  1. Requiring ranchers to remove all dead or injured cattle or sheep from public lands within three days of receiving knowledge of their presence to prevent wolves becoming accustomed to eating livestock.

  2. Disallowing grazing of domestic livestock within five miles of a wolf pack den or rendezvous site.

  3. Requiring a rider or herder to be present 7 days a week 24 hours a day with all livestock (human presence is a major deterrent to wolf predation on livestock).

  4. Requiring calves turned out on public land to weigh at least 250 pounds.

  5. Requiring that all calving or lambing of domestic livestock be carried out on private lands.

  6. Requiring protective guard animals like dogs, lamas and burros to be present with all livestock.

  7. Requiring all livestock losses to be documented accurately to prevent mendacious claims that wolves are predating.

  8. Requiring electric fencing of all domestic sheep bands every night.

With these terms and conditions and others like them on public land grazing permits, wolves in the southwest will have a better opportunity to survive and flourish, something your agency can help facilitate.

When will you seek to have conditions added to these term grazing permits that will better protect wolves ?

Thanks for your early written reply.

Jon Marvel
Executive Director
Western Watersheds Project