A Day to Celebrate
Gray wolves, (c) Eilish Palmer

Twenty years ago today, 14 wolves
were released back into
Yellowstone National Park.

Twenty years ago today, wolves returned to Yellowstone.

It was on this date in 1995 that 14 wolves were released into Yellowstone National Park - the culmination of decades of work led by Defenders of Wildlife. Days later, another 15 wolves took their first steps into the Idaho wilderness.

It’s a moment to remember – and celebrate. After nearly being wiped from the map of the Lower 48, wolves once again roamed wild and free in the Northern Rockies.

Today, gray wolves exist in roughly ten states – and one has wandered as far as California. Your support through the years has been critical to our success and we hope you take heart in this conservation triumph.

You and I both know it hasn't been easy since those first historic steps were taken 20 years ago. The same ignorance and hatred that decimated wolves a century ago is still alive and well in some areas. The struggle to secure a future for wolves in the Lower 48 is far from finished.

But today we celebrate. And from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for all you have done for wolves and for America’s vulnerable wildlife everywhere.

Yellowstone wolf return, Left: © Diane Papineau, Right: ©Defenders of Wildlife

Left: In 1995, supporters of wolf reintroduction line the road, waiting to welcome the truck carrying wolves to Yellowstone. Right: Wolf return ceremony at Yellowstone arch, January 12, 2015.

Congress Wants to Remove Great Lakes and Wyoming Wolves from the Endangered Species Act: This week, Representative Reid Ribble and several other congressmen announced that they will sponsor legislation to eliminate federal protections for wolves in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Wyoming. This legislation comes only weeks after courts set aside rules that delisted wolves in those regions, keeping wolves protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. At Defenders we strongly believe Congress has no place meddling in wildlife management decisions that should be left to biologists and wildlife managers, but Congress has a bad track record of doing just that. In 2011, a congressional rider delisted gray wolves in Idaho, Montana, northern Utah and the eastern two thirds of Oregon and Washington, giving wolf management control to each state. The text of this new bill has been drafted, but it has yet to be introduced. We fear that there may be attempts to modify the language to delist wolves entirely in the lower 48 states. We’ll keep you updated here as we learn more.

Rogue Pack in Oregon Has a New Neighbor: Last week we told you that famous wolf OR-7 and his family were unique in Oregon because they were the only wolves living in the western part of the state. This week, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s trail cameras captured a picture of a wolf in the Southwest portion of Oregon, near the same area where the Rouge pack – a.k.a OR-7 and his family – are living. The new wolf, which is uncollared, was spotted on camera while the Rogue pack was known to be elsewhere. This is great news and suggests to wildlife officials that wolves are continuing to spread to suitable habitat throughout the state and ever closer to California – a strong indication of recovery.

Wolf Recovery Team Joins in Yellowstone to Celebrate 20 Years of Success: This weekend, conservationists, biologists and National Park Service employees all gathered in Yellowstone National Park to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the reintroduction of wolves to the region. These folks, all members of the original team that worked to bring wolves back to Yellowstone 20 years ago, spent Monday wolf watching in the park. And the wolves must have known the team was here to celebrate because experienced wolf watchers described Monday as one of the best wolf watching days they’ve had in over 15 years. The first sighting was a wolf from the Junction Butte pack, and later in the day, reintroduction team members were fortunate to see eleven wolves from the Prospect pack. The wolves were close enough to see without scopes, and their playful howls echoed around the group. The celebration concluded with a ceremony at the Roosevelt Arch – the location where the first wolves entered the park 20 years ago to the day.

(story continues below)

Mexican gray wolves listed as subspecies; Defenders challenges new rule: This week the Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announced that Mexican gray wolves will continue to be protected as a subspecies under the Endangered Species Act. The Service also released the final version of new management rules for Mexican gray wolves. We have been following this process closely, and many of you have joined us in writing comments to the Service to tell them what the lobos need. While the new rule does some good by giving lobos more room to roam, unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good. The new rule keeps lobos out of habitat that is crucial to recovery, allows more killing and caps the population at an unjustifiable low. Defenders has teamed up with conservation partners to challenge the Service’s rule in court so that we can get lobos on the real road to recovery!

The post Wolf Weekly Wrap-Up appeared first on Defenders of Wildlife Blog.

Tell the Obama Administration to prosecute killers of endangered species

We recently learned the tragic news that a wolf that had likely walked all the way from Wyoming to Utah--more than 500 miles--had been shot and killed by a hunter. Like many of you, we are angered and heartbroken by this careless act. The Utah hunter has told authorities he believed he was firing on a coyote when he gunned down the radio-collared, 3 year-old female wolf. Incredibly, this seeming-confusion on the part of hunters is increasingly killing wolves and other endangered species, and there seem to be no consequences.

Tell the Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce the Endangered Species Act and prosecute killers of endangered species.

A little-known DOJ guideline referred to as the "McKittrick Policy" directs U.S. Attorneys not to prosecute hunters, or anyone else who kills an endangered species, if they are unable to show they knew what they were killing. The policy was put in place years ago after a Montana man claimed that he had intended to shoot a dog when he had actually gunned down an endangered gray wolf. The government charged him under the Endangered Species Act, but later reversed course.

This policy is particularly shocking when you compare it to the “mistaken identity” shooting of non-endangered animals. For instance, if a hunter mistakenly shoots a mule deer buck, but is only allowed to kill a whitetail buck, he or she must pay a fine. Misidentification is no excuse.
That same standard must apply here. A hunter must be able to correctly identify what he is firing on before pulling the trigger.

Tell President Obama and Attorney General Holder to end the get-out-of-jail-free card for killing a protected species.

Killing an endangered species is a criminal act. This non-enforcement policy is having real world, negative impacts and must be changed. Recently, hunters, who each later asserted they thought they were firing on a coyote, have gunned down wolves in Iowa and Kentucky. In total, more than fifty highly-endangered Mexican wolves have been shot in the years following this policy, and countless gray wolves elsewhere in the U.S. have been killed.

It is not just wolves that are being let down by this policy. Endangered grizzly bears, California condors, and whooping cranes have also been killed by people who escaped responsibility for their actions by pleading ignorance. A lawsuit has been filed by an ESC member group seeking to force DOJ to change its policy, but Attorney General Holder and President Obama need to hear from you. Ask that they treat the killings of endangered species as a crime as Congress intended.

Mexican Wolves Win Endangered Species Status, but It's Still Legal to Kill Them

Environmental groups are fighting a rule that allows pet owners to shoot the imperiled animal to protect their dogs.

(Photo: Joel Sartore/Getty Images)

The Mexican gray wolf just got a lot more room to roam.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service this week granted the rare wolf—only about 83 survive in the wild—endangered species protection and increased by a factor of 10 the area in Arizona and New Mexico where the predator can be reintroduced.

But in a sign of how contentious the wolf is in the West, the FWS is allowing ranchers, and even pet owners, to kill any Mexican wolf if it is “in the act of biting, wounding, or killing”livestock or dogs on non-federal land. The agency will also permit the “opportunistic harassment” of Mexican wolves encountered by pet owners and others. That means they can shoot guns and throw objects at the wolf to scare it away.

“The provision to allow people to kill wolves to protect dogs, is worrisome because of the recent history of baiting Mexican wolves to their deaths, suggesting that pound dogs could be acquired to bait wolves," Michael Robinson, a conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity in New Mexico, said in an email, adding that it "is just one of many new loopholes opening up to increase killing of these wolves.”

CBD had sued the government to list the Mexican gray wolf subspecies as endangered and come up with a plan for its recovery.

By the early 1970s, the Mexican wolf had been all but exterminated in the southwestern U.S. A decade later, the few remaining wild Mexican wolves in Mexico were rounded up and put in a captive breeding program. Seven captive animals and their descendants have spawned a current population of 248 animals that live at 55 facilities in the U.S. and Mexico. In 1998, the agency began releasing the carnivore to create what it called an “experimental population” among the pine-oak and piñon-juniper woodlands of Arizona and New Mexico, home to elk, mule deer, and other wolf chow. The goal: 100 wolves in the wild.

“That number was derived solely to prevent the Mexican wolf from going extinct, not to recover the species,” FWS stated in a ruling issued on Monday.

But by now classifying the Mexican wolf as endangered, the government finally must develop a decades-delayed plan to ensure the animal’s survival and eventual removal from the endangered species list. In the ruling, the FWS set an initial goal of expanding the experimental population to between 300 and 325 wolves.

Environmental groups argue that the target is too low and that a population of at least 750 Mexican wolves should be established. They also want the animals to be allowed to expand into the Grand Canyon area and north of Interstate 40 into southern Colorado.

“Although the provision greatly increasing the area that wolves can roam is a vast improvement as well, the population cap, I-40 line and provisions for killing wolves far outweigh the positive,” said Robinson, adding that CBD intends to file a legal challenge to those provisions of the rule.

But FWS spokesperson Jeff Humphrey said the target applies to the Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area and is not a cap on where the wolf might expand in the future.

“This population objective may change depending on the recommendations of a revised, peer reviewed recovery plan, which will specify the number of populations and number of wolves needed for recovery,” he said in an email.

The odds, however, remain stacked against the Mexican wolf—between 1998 and 2013, only 21 percent of wolves released into the wild survived long enough to produce offspring, according to the agency.

New Federal Rule Makes It Easier to Kill Mexican Gray Wolves

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule issued Monday caps the number of Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico at 325, bans them north of Interstate 40, and eases the path for private parties and government agents to kill them. Although the rule expands the animals' room to roam and allows releases of captive-bred wolves into New Mexico for the first time -- which could help alleviate inbreeding -- the other provisions will damage the lobo's long-term recovery.

The agency announced a second rule Monday that protects Mexican wolves as a subspecies separate from other wolves, entitling them to their own recovery plan. Both new rules stemmed from petitions and lawsuits filed by the Center for Biological Diversity.

"The Mexican gray wolf recovery program has been hamstrung from the start, and this new management rule doesn't go nearly far enough to fix the problem," said the Center's Michael Robinson. "Capping the population and keeping them out of the Grand Canyon and northern New Mexico will keep the lobo on the brink of extinction."

We'll be fighting back against those bad provisions. Stay tuned for how you can help.

Read more in our press release.

After losing in court, wolf opponents are now turning to Congress to do their dirty work. They plan to attach a provision to a must-pass bill -- that'll likely get approved without much debate -- that would strip Endangered Species Act protection for wolves.

We need your help to stop this disastrous plan in its tracks.

The consequences of this kind of congressional meddling would be deadly: Since wolves in six states lost federal protection four years ago, some 3,500 wolves have been killed by trappers, hunters and government agents.

If a new rider goes through, it will prematurely end decades of work to restore wolves to the American landscape and might even doom Mexican gray wolves to extinction. Wolves still only live in 5 percent of their historic range in the lower 48 -- they need help, not political interference.

Please take action now to tell your representatives it's not the job of Congress to take away Endangered Species Act protections. They must reject any rider that would remove wolves from the endangered list.

Click here to take action and get more information.

Reintroducing Wolves to Yellowstone and Idaho: The 20th Anniversary

from Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

There is fresh snow on the ground today, and the winter sun shines out at random from behind the wispy clouds that shroud the mountain peaks. The temperature will not climb above freezing today, but dozens of people are gathering here in the twilight before sunrise to caravan into Yellowstone for a chance to glimpse the wolves that now roam here, and to celebrate the remarkable events that made this day possible. Twenty years ago today, gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. It was a time of international celebration for wildlife advocates, and especially those of us who had worked so hard to restore wolves to the American West. To understand why this was such a miraculous event, you first have to understand the history that led to the reintroduction of wolves to the Rockies.

In 1995, supporters of wolf reintroduction line the road, cheering on the truck carrying wolves back to Yellowstone National Park.

Though wolves were once one of North America’s most broadly distributed large mammals, government and ranching led efforts to eliminate wolves throughout the lower 48 states. By the 1930s, wolves were nearly eradicated from the Lower 48. The known wolf population in the continental U.S. plummeted from estimates of several hundred thousand to only few hundred wolves in northern Minnesota. The species was restricted to less than one percent of its former range. As generations passed, the wolf itself faded into fairy tales, typically characterized in western culture as a dangerous beast that preyed on pigs and red hooded girls.

In the 1960s and 1970s, mainstream American culture became more environmentally aware, prompting public concern for imperiled species. Significant changes in wildlife management included strong support for wolf protection. In 1974, wolves outside of Alaska gained protection under the newly adopted Endangered Species Act. In 1978 wolves were listed as endangered throughout the contiguous 48 states, except in Minnesota where they were listed as threatened. Wolves were starting to return on their own in the Rockies by dispersing from southern Canada into northern Montana and Idaho. But the ESA listing meant that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) had to actively recover wolves.
Wolves in the Northern Rockies

In 1986, biologists searching for wolves in northwest Montana found a litter of wolf pups only 10 miles below the Canadian border in Glacier National Park. They were the first confirmed wolves born in the western U.S. in decades. A few wolves were also documented in Idaho and Wyoming during the 1980s and 90s, but most were poisoned or shot. Others appeared to be lone wanderers, or simply disappeared, their fate unknown.
In 1993, USFWS proposed five alternative plans for wolf recovery. The options ranged from “no wolves” to the reintroduction of wolves with full endangered species status and protection. The agency received more than 160,000 comments from all 50 U.S. states, plus another 40 countries; the largest public comment responses received on any wildlife restoration action it had ever proposed. Defenders of Wildlife members and supporters contributed 88,000 of these comments.

Thankfully, the chosen plan is the one that brought wolves back to the west. In 1995 and 1996, USFWS – working with scientists, nonprofits, state agencies and more – reintroduced 66 wolves to central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. I was a member of the reintroduction team and have spent the last 28 years as a full time wolf conservationist in the West. I watched as the first wolves in decades took their first steps into the wilderness in Idaho (full story of that reintroduction here). It is still a miracle to me that despite all the political challenges and obstacles, most of which occurred behind the scenes, Americans came together to restore wolves to Yellowstone and Idaho – the only missing large mammal, and one of the most vital predators.

At last count, there were approximately 1,600 wolves in the Northern Rockies region. In comparison, we have nearly 10,000 mountain lions, 100,000 black bears and hundreds of thousands of coyotes in the same area . Wolves are still under a lot of threats, and we must continue to protect their survival. While support for wolves is growing exponentially among wildlife enthusiasts worldwide, these animals still face tremendous danger nearly year round in some states where they are being aggressively killed.

As wolves were returned in the northern Rockies, the age-old conflicts that led to their original demise have also re-emerged. The most significant conflicts are based on fear of livestock losses, despite the fact that in the last two decades, less than 1 percent of livestock losses were due to wolves. The negative folklore of the past centuries still feeds deeply rooted intolerance and resentment. The greatest challenge now is to build acceptance and appreciation for wolves by bringing people together to learn how live with this magnificent native species once again.

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