Wolf Weekly Wrap Up

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Mexican wolf
The Future for Red Wolves Still Uncertain. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that it will postpone its decision on continuing its red wolf recovery effort until next summer. This is the second time a decision on the future of the recovery program has been postponed since the Wildlife Management Institute studied it back in November and raised serious concerns about the program’s science and management. Defenders of Wildlife and other conservation groups have gone to court to challenge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on their irresponsible management of this critically endangered wolf, of which only 50-75 individuals remain in the wild. But some good news: Ben Prater, Defenders of Wildlife Southeast Director has been nominated as a member of the Red Wolf Recovery Team. And as such, Defenders will have a seat at the table in future red wolf management decisions.

 Growing the Wolf Pack. US Fish and Wildlife Service to override NM decision on Mexican wolves.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has invoked a higher power in the name of their legal obligation to bring Mexican wolves back from the edge of extinction. Faced with a New Mexico Game Commission that refuses to cooperate with adding new wolves to the wild, the agency has secured the right from the Department of Interior to override the state.
The feds sought permits to release additional wolves earlier this year, but the New Mexico Game and Fish Department director and the State Game Commission refused to grant permission for the animals to be released into the wild. The service has a policy of trying to collaborate with states, but a right to go above their heads when states don't get on board.
“We’ve notified New Mexico Department of Game and Fish that we are going to be exempted from our policy to seek their permits so that we can add genetically valuable wolves to the population,” says Jeff Humphrey, public affairs specialist with the Fish and Wildlife Service. “Our impetus for doing this, for needing to move and release wolves, is to improve the genetics. Wolves are reproducing on their own out in the wild—there’s 110, all born in the wild. That population is growing, but they’re all related, and we need to correct that problem, and that’s why we need to move selected wolves into that population.”
New Mexico Game and Fish Director Alexa Sandoval ruled earlier this year not to permit the release of additional Mexican wolves, as requested by the federal agency to avoid that gene pool problem that could put the ultimate success of the species in jeopardy. At an overcrowded meeting on Sept. 29, in which the State Game Commission voted to uphold Sandoval’s decision, wolf supporters (who greatly outnumbered those opposed to wolf recovery) asked for “more wolves, less politics.”
“The Endangered Species Act, which requires the protection and recovery of imperiled animals, continues to be a very popular national law,” Mary Katherine Ray of the Sierra Club’s Rio Grande chapter said in a press release that preceded the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision by a week. “Though a vocal minority at the state level is attempting to obstruct the return of wolves to the Southwest, the Fish and Wildlife Service should proceed to release more wolves to safeguard their still fragile population.”
The agency’s immediate response to the commission’s decision was to all but declare that if the state wouldn’t work with them in ensuring Mexican wolf recovery proceeds successfully, they’d simply work around the state, as the US Code of Federal Regulations allows. 
The commission and director suggested New Mexico might not be willing to move forward with releasing wolves until the Fish and Wildlife Service has rewritten its policy for managing wolves and issued a new plan, which is not expected until the end of 2017. 
But biologists say time is of the essence.
“The longer we delay in introducing new wolves to increase genetic variation in the wild Mexican gray wolf populations, the greater our future challenge will be to ensure that this distinctive wolf survives,” Joseph Cook, of the American Society of Mammalogists, said in a press release. “Small populations with limited genetic variability often suffer from the consequences of inbreeding depression. Small populations with limited genetic variability also are generally less resilient to changing environmental conditions and less resistant to the introduction of novel pathogens.”
New Mexico’s population of wolves includes 110 wolves and eight breeding pairs spread over millions of acres of national forest, wilderness and the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico. The latest census indicates that fewer than 15 wolves live in New Mexico. Mexican wolves were first reintroduced in 1998 into a small portion of the Apache National Forest. 
A January rule updated Mexican wolf management to include the 3.3-million-acre Gila Wilderness, where a long-protected territory supports thousands of deer, elk and other prey animals and could provide habitat to support wolf populations. 
The initial goal for recovery was 100 wild wolves—an objective set with no wild wolves and no idea how successful reintroductions would be. An updated rule, released in January, sets a cap at the wolf population of 325. That's well below what the research suggests would be a successful recovered population and is a hard limit on the population—which runs counter to the state's claims that there is no real management policy for Mexican wolves right now. 
The Fish and Wildlife Service requested permits from the state earlier this year to release from captivity up to 10 Mexican wolf pups to be cross-fostered into existing wild wolf dens, as well as two adults and any pups they might have. The window has passed for this year’s round of pups and the pregnant adult pair that might have been released, but the Fish and Wildlife Service’s motion proceeds with an eye toward next year.
“What we’re trying to do is just position ourselves so that in the future we’re prepared to release wolves to augment the genetics,” Humphrey says. “We don’t have a batch of wolves in a truck...It’s not that scenario.” 
Meanwhile, there’s a pending appeal of the commission’s rejection of a request for a renewed permit for Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch to hold Mexican wolves in captivity on their property, which would be adjacent to the Mexican wolf recovery area and greatly ease reintroductions to the wild. The new determination by the service does not apply to that case.
US Senators Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall wrote to US Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe on Oct. 8, encouraging the agency to “take actions that are necessary to secure the recovery of the Mexican wolf as required by your responsibilities under the [Endangered Species Act].” They also asked federal officials to continue to openly communicate with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, and to pursue cooperation. They had been joined in that call for action by representatives from the Center for Biological Diversity, Wolf Conservation Center, American Society of Mammalogists, Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians. The Fish and Wildlife Service says the hope is that New Mexico will choose to reengage with these efforts in the future, and continue to collaborate on work on other threatened and endangered species in the meantime. 
Among the objections to Mexican wolves are their effects on elk and deer herds and livestock. In September, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced $284,000 in grant money to be spent by the Arizona Livestock Loss Board and the Mexican Wolf/Livestock Council to compensate for any livestock losses and to pay for preventive measures to deter wolves from attacking livestock. The service’s “Pay for Presence” program also compensates ranchers simply for tolerating the presence of wolves in their landscape as part of a coexistence plan that also pays for conflict avoidance measures and compensates for depredation. 
“These payments for presence of Mexican wolves recognize the increased costs to livestock producers that come with recovery of Mexican wolves,” said Mexican Wolf/Livestock Coexistence Council Chairman Sisto Hernandez in a November 2014 press release. In 2013, payments for that program totaled $85,500. 
The service reports that in 2014, Mexican wolves were responsible for 30 livestock fatalities, four livestock injuries and four dog injuries. To eliminate or reduce conflicts with livestock, the Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team advises using an electric fence line with red flagging around livestock-holding pastures, rotating livestock among pastures to avoid areas where wolves are denning, feeding livestock hay during calving season to keep them from dispersing to graze and using range riders to monitor wolves, among other measures. 
Breaking: Gruesome New Toll of Wyoming's Wolf Killers.
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In Wyoming 55 wolves have been killed at taxpayer expense so far this year -- many of them gunned down by Wildlife Services, the rogue government program operating from inside the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It's the deadliest season of government-funded wolf killing in Wyoming since 2007 and we need your help to bring it to a halt.

Last year the Center for Biological Diversity stopped Wyoming's kill-at-will wolf policy, but now this little-known federal program has put the state's wolves back in the crosshairs. The Center has a plan to stop Wildlife Services -- a plan you can support with a gift to the Predator Defense Fund.

We're going directly after Wildlife Services to rein them in and shut down this needless killing. By using the government's own rulemaking process, we'll force the agency to reform and get in line with our nation's laws, policies and values, ending the shameful slaughter of wolves and other important endangered species. This is the best way to stop this taxpayer-funded killing crew.

As long as Wildlife Services undermines the healthy return of wolves to the wild, we will never achieve the restoration that these intelligent, social animals need. If we're going to protect wolves in Wyoming or anywhere else, we've got to put a leash on these government killers.

Please help us shut down Wildlife Services' wanton destruction of endangered and threatened wildlife. Give to the Predator Defense Fund today.
Help Protect Wolves
Save the Alexander Archipelago Wolf
One of America’s rarest animals, the beautiful Alexander Archipelago wolf, is in danger of being hunted out of existence.Over the past year, these wolves’ population on Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island, which is one of its most important habitats, has plummeted from 221 to as low as 60. That’s the equivalent of 1.1 of Manhattan’s 1.6 million residents suddenly dying in just one year.
These amazing creatures have been isolated from the rest of the species for millennia and have evolved into a unique subspecies. This is what makes them so special, but it also makes them particularly vulnerable because of their relatively small territory and their near exclusive reliance on one species of deer for food. Hunters on the island also enjoy eating the deer, and loggers have been steadily eroding both the deer and wolves’ habitat. With the population down to just  over 60 individuals, this alone could lead to their demise, but these wolves have one more threat to deal with, and it could be their final blow.
The state of Alaska has announced that it will be allowing the hunt of 9 Alexander Archipelago wolves this year.  They are ignoring the unprecedented decline in their population in recent years, and have given the go-ahead to kill nearly 15% of the animals’ remaining population, potentially leaving just 51 wolves next year.
I need your help to demand that the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) protect the Alexander Archipelago Wolf with an emergency Endangered Species listing,  so that hunts like this cannot take place
Scientists have not seen evidence that any pups were born in the entire year of 2014. The remaining population of Alexander Archipelago Wolves is almost 75% male, which does not bode well for a rebound in numbers. Still, efforts can be made to save this majestic species. But only if wolf hunting is stopped immediately.
The Alexander Archipelago wolf population is being hit from all sides. Without help from US Fish and Wildlife, their chances of lasting even into the next decade are dubious. Please join me in demanding that the USFWS protect one of the most vulnerable animals in Alaska, and list this wolf as an endangered species immediately. Every day that they remain unprotected, we risk losing them for good.
LETTER TO
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Daniel M. Ashe
As a concerned citizen, I am personally asking for myself and all others concerned that you protect the Alexander Archipelago Wolf under the Endangered Species Act before it is too late. There are only eighty nine known to be left in the wild, and another hunting season will certainly destroy any chance of the population's recuperation. I call on your department not only to stop the upcoming Prince of Wales wolf hunt, but to protect this precious species from the unavoidable extinction that will surely follow the hunt.
Wolves In The Lower-48 States Need Your Help. Protect wolves from brutal hunting, trapping, and poisoning!
Help ensure continued protections for wolves across the lower-48 states! You can make a difference by writing to Obama administration officials to urge them not to drop federal protections for wolves across much of the United States.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed lifting federal Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves across nearly the entire lower-48 states. This would be a disastrous setback for gray wolf recovery in the United States.
The recovery of gray wolves is an American success story, from their reintroduction in the northern Rocky Mountains to their comeback in the western Great Lakes states. But there are few, if any, gray wolves in the vast majority of their former range. If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removes gray wolf federal protections, wolves in the Pacific Northwest, California, the southern Rocky Mountains, and the Northeast will face even more difficult odds than they do already.
It is critical that the administration not proceed with a blanket national delisting of the gray wolf, when wolves are still missing across so much of the U.S. landscape.
Save Red Wolves. Stop FWS From Walking Away From Red Wolves!
There may be as few as 50 red wolves left in the wild — and now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is making reckless decisions that could destroy any remaining hope these struggling wolves have for survival.
FWS recently announced plans to put its efforts to recover red wolves on hold, and we fear they may abandon the Red Wolf Recovery Program in the wild. What's worse, FWS is legally responsible under the Endangered Species Act for saving red wolves from extinction.
If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't step up and get serious about recovering red wolves soon, these critically endangered wolves will slide toward extinction in the wild — not because of natural causes but because of bureaucratic foot-dragging and power politics.
Defenders has gone to court three times to get the agency to do its job. Just as things were entering a critical stage for red wolves, FWS delivered this blow and is now stepping back while wolves continue to be killed and is refusing to move forward until they "study" the program more.
Help Prevent the Extinction of Mexican Gray Wolves!
Mexican gray wolves are facing one of the most preventable extinctions in U.S. history.
The Mexican gray wolf, or lobo, has been hanging by a thread for decades. Roughly 109 animals roam the wild of Arizona and New Mexico in a tiny fraction of what was once their home.
But after more than two decades of foot-dragging and bureaucratic red tape, the lobo is still in serious danger. And now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is ready to abandon the development of a science-based recovery plan and let the states of New Mexico and Arizona — both brimming with anti-wolf politicians — call the shots going forward!

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission has been bullying U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for years – limiting wolf releases and even calling for the Mexican gray wolf to lose all federal protection. If FWS allows the states to take over, the future of these wolves would be placed in the hands of extreme anti-wolf politicians, in states that had a hand in the near extinction of Mexican gray wolves in the first place!
This is a dangerous case of politics over science and back-room deals.
It's just been reported that 55 wolves have been killed in Wyoming this year. These killings happened despite the fact that Wyoming wolves are supposedly protected under the Endangered Species Act. Absolutely shocking.
The 55 that were killed were done so by taxpayer funded federal wildlife managers. That’s the most wolves killed in Wyoming by wildlife managers in eight years.
Once again, Wyoming's wolves are in the crosshairs.
It was only a year ago that we won back protections for Wyoming's wolves after two long years in court.
But now, wolf-hating politicians are jamming a measure through the Federal appropriations process that would strip Wyoming's gray wolves of protection under the Endangered Species Act. This would inevitably open the way for a fresh round of killing.
As you know, the federal government turned wolf management over to Wyoming in 2012. In less than two years, more than 200 wolves were slaughtered across the state.
Under Wyoming's brand of "wolf management," most of the state was designated a "predator zone," literally a free-fire zone where anyone could kill any wolf at any time and for any reason.
Among the early victims of Wyoming's killing spree was a magnificent collared Yellowstone wolf known only as "06." The matriarch of the Lamar Canyon pack, 06 drew wolf-watchers from around the world. Her death just a few miles outside the Yellowstone National Park boundary was a tragic loss for science, for wolf tourism, and for her pack.
If anti-wolf members of Congress win, this is the sort of horror we could be going back to.
Thanks to a lawsuit brought by Defenders and our allies, a federal court ordered Wyoming's wolves back on the endangered species list in 2014. Now some in Congress are looking to undo that decision.
Anti-wildlife extremists are pouring millions into this kind of bold Congressional attack on the wildlife we love. And if they win, wolves will die.
Thanks to people like you, Defenders has been at forefront of wolf recovery in the Lower 48 since day one.
  • We were there 20 years ago when the first gray wolves in a generation took their first steps into Idaho and Wyoming wilderness.
  • Since then, we've been to court to protect wolf recovery every time its been threatened – and won.
  • We're mobilizing our pro-wildlife action community in America to fight on Capitol Hill and elsewhere for compassionate, science-based conservation.
  • And we're on the ground in the Northern Rockies, working with ranchers, landowners and others to promote coexistence and build local support for wolf recovery.
Today, wolves cling to survival in the vast forests and valleys of Wyoming. If these anti-wolf members of Congress have their way, the killing could start as soon as December.

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