The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is destroying yet another family of Mexican gray wolves - even though the agency has identified the species as the most endangered mammal in North America. The male of the recently released Nantac Pack was just shot and killed, and the female is being hunted down right now. Both members of this pack were survivors of past predator control actions.
In 1996, an environmental analysis of the Mexican wolf reintroduction program projected that the population would reach at least 100 animals by the end of this year. However, it is believed there are presently fewer than 40 grown wolves in the wild plus an unknown number of pups born this year.
The federal predator control program wiped out wolves originally, and since reintroduction efforts began in 1998, the program has significantly contributed to the reduction of the census population of Mexican wolves in the wild, from 55 in 2003, to 44 in 2004, to 35 in 2005 - a 20 percent decrease each year.
Within the last month, federal agents killed 11 wolves, including six pups from one pack. A seventh pup was orphaned and likely died of starvation as a result of losing its parents.
Please help us put a stop to this cruel and senseless program! Contact Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne to request an emergency moratorium on predator control directed against Mexican wolves until the population stabilizes and reaches its demographic goal. Send a copy of your letter to governors Bill Richardson (N.M.) and Janet Napolitano (Ariz.), who can both wield influence through their respective wildlife departments.
Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne
Interior Building, Room 6156
1849 C St.
Washington, D.C. 20240
Fax: (202) 208-5048
Janet Napolitano
Office of the Governor
1700 West Washington-101A
Phoenix, AZ 85007
Ph: 602-542-4331
Fax: 602-542-1381
Bill Richardson
Office of the Governor, Room 400
State Capitol, 490 Old Santa Fe Trail
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Ph: 505-476-2200
Fax: 505-476-2226
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By Michael J. Robinson
June 22, 2006
The Mexican gray wolf, or lobo - the diminutive border wolf identified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1986 as the most endangered mammal in North America - is being trapped and shot into oblivion by the Bush administration.
Reintroduced into the wilds of New Mexico and Arizona in 1998 after being exterminated from the Southwest by the early 1930s, the Mexican wolf was projected to reach 102 animals in 18 breeding pairs by the end of this year.
TODAY'S BYLINE
Robinson represents the Center for Biological Diversity in Pinos Altos, New Mexico. He is the author of "Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West" (University Press of Colorado, 2005). On the web: www.biologicaldiversity.org
Instead, after initial success, the population declined by 20 percent in both 2004 and 2005 and continues to decline today. At the end of last year only 5 breeding pairs and 35 total wolves could be counted in the wild.
But in the last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's wolf-control program killed 10 Mexican wolves, including six pups in one pack. An additional, orphaned pup is too young to survive alone and has almost certainly died.
Four more packs are at imminent risk because they have preyed on livestock - in some cases learning to do so by scavenging on the carcasses of cattle and horses that died of other causes.