by Greta Anderson, WWP
The Mexican gray wolf has had a tough time in the southwest. By 1970, it was extirpated from the U.S. during a systemic “predator control” campaign carried out at the behest of the livestock industry. Now, it seems like history might be repeating itself.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Mexican gray wolf under the Endangered Species Act in 1976 and eventually set about recovering the species through captive breeding. In 1998, the agency began reintroducing wolves in portions of their former range in Arizona and New Mexico. The program set a goal of 102 wolves in the wild by 2006, including 18 breeding pairs. However, as of January 2008, only 52 wolves remain and only three of those are breeding pairs, a decline from the previous year and part of an ongoing trend of failed restoration.
This last year’s decline in the wolf numbers reflects a serious threat to maintaining viable wolf populations on the southwestern landscape. Each wolf is important genetically to the diversity and health of the subspecies, and the loss of a single individual or pack represents a serious loss for the long-term health of the entire population. Given this significance, it is important to look at one major reason for the population decline: the demands of the public lands’ livestock industry.
In the Mexican gray wolf recovery area, if a wolf preys upon three cows in any given calendar year, it will be permanently removed from the wild. Since there are plenty of opportunities for wolves to learn what raw beef tastes like from carcasses left out year-long on backcountry allotments, wolves learn the benefit of poor animal husbandry and exploit untended livestock. It’s natural behavior.
What is unnatural is the level of fear and antagonism this adaptive behavior has earned from the livestock industry. Though well-compensated for livestock losses, public lands permittees continue to assert that wolves are bad for business. Meanwhile, neither the ranchers nor the land management agencies will agree to render carcasses unpalatable and deprive wolves of these learning opportunities. The permittees refuse to modify their management to accomodate wolves, and instead expect wolves to be removed from the wilderness. In 2007, 19 wolves were removed for livestock depredations and another three are suspiciously “missing.” The “predator control” campaign appears to be back in effect. This is not how recovery programs are supposed to work.
Western Watersheds Project and other conservation groups are working hard to change the perceptions of the conflicted recovery program to a simple, straightforward paradigm: Mexican gray wolves should be restored to their southwest habitat and provided full protections under the Endangered Species Act. Public lands management should prioritize wildlife recovery and multiple uses should be permitted only where those uses don’t conflict with ecosystem integrity. Wolves will be wolves, and our lives are enriched because of it.
For more information on WWP’s work on the Mexican gray wolf, check out:
Greta Anderson is WWP’s Arizona Director. She lives in Tucson.
Check out WWP’s archive of our semi-annual publication, the Watersheds Messenger
