Conservation groups seek endangered species status. Judge tells USFWS to make up their mind quickly-
The restoration of the Mexican wolf under the experimental, non-essential rule that guided the restoration of wolves to the Northern Rockies has been a fiasco. Groups want to give the rare wolf fully endangered status, which has more teeth. USFWS has dragged its feet on making a decision. Now a federal judge tells the Service to decide by the end of July.
Agency must decide on proposed endangered species listing for Mexican gray wolf by end of July, judge rules– Sue Major Holmes, Associated Press
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
The USFWS has been dragging its feet on all fronts in the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction since at least 2003. The result has been a stagnant or declining population in every year since then except 2006. One could be forgiven for assuming that the goal of higher-ups in the agency is extinction of the subspecies, rather than recovery.
Watch to see whether they do an initial release or two this year. That will indicate whether the recent court victories by conservationists are worth more than the paper on which they are printed.
how could anyone expect this reintroduction to be successful when the livestock interests keep sabotaging it with examples like adobe slash ranch when they baited the alpha female with the newborn calf so they could tell everyone how wolves keep killing their property!
Like so many western ranches, the adobe slash has only a token base of private property, with most of it consisting of USFS allotment. The interesting thing is that the ranch, including the public lands grazing permit, is actually “owned” by a foreign citizen, a Mexican banker with rumored ties to drug money. Seems inappropriate to me.
Looking back, it was both exciting and hurtful to visit, a few years ago, Sevilleta NWR, N.M., where the FWS has been captive-breeding lobos for a while. The book to read on lobos is by David E. Brown.
The David E Brown book- What is the title?
The Wolf in the Southwest
After reading the Brown book, I suggest going on to read “Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West,” by Michael J. Robinson. Chapter 27, entitled “Detectable Ambivalence,” deals specifically with the Mexican wolf program. But read the whole book. Much of it is pertinent to the situation in the Northern Rockies, too.
While the northern wolf reintroduction in yellowstone’s had a few snags it seems that it’s been at least modestly successful. The Mexican gray’s “reintroduction” has been a total freaking joke though, and the feds need to either do it right, or quit pouring money into a project they’re going to keep undermining anyway, and spend it on a restoration/reintroduction project they’re willing to let succeed.
One of the things we learned on our trip to THE WALL near Nogales was that this abhorrent structure cuts across some of the best sky island habitat for wolves and jaguars that exists. Luckily, it hasn’t been completed and it just sort of ends halfway up the foothills…actually kind of amusing for THE security solution, so there is a way around.
And there seems to be a more cooperative attitude amongst some of the ranchers in this particular area…time will tell.
JimT,
When you used the phrase “THE WALL” I started to wonder if Reagan came back would he say “Tear down this wall”!
That wall was also used to stop illegal immigration.