The Wolf Preservation Blog

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated  Press, Updated 3:45 p.m., Wednesday, November 21, 2012 (thank you for providing the information in this article):

“ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Two  six-month-old Mexican gray wolf pups are navigating southwestern New Mexico’s  Gila forest on their own now that their troubled pack has splintered, worrying  environmentalists who think the animals’ chances of survival are slim.

This week’s efforts to track the  Fox Mountain pack show the pups are miles apart and far from the pack’s alpha  male. Environmentalists blame federal wildlife managers, who ordered the pack’s  alpha female — the pups’ mother — captured and removed from the wild in response  to a string of cattle kills.

The fate of the pack is fueling  the latest wave of frustration over the U.S.  Fish and Wildlife Service‘s handling of the 14-year effort to reintroduce  wolves to the American Southwest. The frustration has taken the form of online  petitions, public records requests and now a lawsuit.

WildEarth Guardians, a Santa  Fe-based environmental group, announced Wednesday that it was asking a federal  court to force the Fish and Wildlife Service to release documents related to  management of the Fox Mountain pack. Another public records request filed by the Center  for Biological Diversity has gone unanswered. A third has netted hundreds of  pages of blacked-out documents, raising questions about decision-making within  the wolf program.

Fish and Wildlife Service  regional spokeswoman Charna  Lefton said Wednesday she could not comment on the  pending litigation.

Wendy  Keefover, director of WildEarth Guardians’ carnivore protection program,  questioned the veracity of the evidence used by wildlife managers to link the  alpha female to the cattle kills.

“We have yet to see proof that  the loba actually killed livestock, and none appears to be forthcoming,” she  said, adding that the female wolf should be reunited with the pack.

The pack has been blamed for six  cattle deaths, including four that happened outside the wolf recovery boundaries  within a four-month period.

Ranchers have long voiced their  opposition to wolf reintroduction, pointing to economic losses as well as safety  issues for rural residents. Gov. Susana  Martinez even asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to capture and relocate  the entire Fox Mountain pack.

Michael  Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity said no livestock killings  had been reported in the pack’s territory for months leading up to the alpha  female’s capture. He said the wolf’s removal was unnecessary and now the pups  could end up starving.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife  Service has treated the removal of this animal as just removing a piece from a  chess board,” Robinson said. “What we see again is that these are social animals  and that the remainder of the pack is no longer a pack at this point.”

Wildlife managers have been  struggling to boost the wolf population and the number of packs in New Mexico  and Arizona since the reintroduction program began in 1998. Efforts have been  hampered by everything from politics to lawsuits and illegal shootings.

An annual survey done at the  beginning of the year showed at least 58 wolves in the wild — far below what  biologists had initially expected.

The next survey will begin in  January, and Lefton said the hope is that some of the pups born this year will  make it through the winter.

Wolf program managers said they  are monitoring the Fox Mountain pups but no supplemental feeding  is planned.

Managers are considering several  options for releasing wolves in Arizona to replace three wolves that were killed  over the past year, but no final decisions have been made.”

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This was Alpha Fe, the mother of the late Basin Butte Pack. This is where she …fell.

“Two of us and Lynne Stone of the Boulder White Cloud Council went out early one frigid winter morning in search of what we feared had happened.  What we found was a trail of blood that led us to a tragic scene.  In the meadow next to Alpha Fe’s lifeless body, was the place the Wildlife Service’s helicopter had touched down just long enough for the gunner to walk over to her body and remove her radio collar.  Her collar, attached in the name of science, was also the homing tool used to betray her location, giving her no chance to elude the aerial pursuit.  This is the little-known dark side of radio collars, and their unfortunate dual purpose.

It has been three years since The Thanksgiving Day Massacre of Idaho’s most known and most viewed pack of wolves.  People traveled great distances to come see them.  In November of 2009, the Basin Butte Pack was destroyed for allegedly preying on a few calves early in the summer, many months before Wildlife Services killed them off with semi-automatic shotguns from a helicopter and an airplane in a two day aerial assault.  We all paid for it, but not just with our tax dollars. She and her pack mates lived in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA), Idaho’s spectacular scenic and outdoor recreation centerpiece and home of the majestic Sawtooth Mountains where the Sawtooth Pack once lived. They inhabited the same land, the Basin Butte Pack and the Sawtooth Pack.

What we set out to achieve with our documentaries of the Sawtooth Pack was that they would act as ambassadors for the wolves that would follow in there footsteps.  Killing this pack was unnecessary. Should Idaho’s leading tourism and recreation attraction be a place utilized to graze some of Idaho’s 2,200,000 million cows?  If so, should the wildlife that inhabits the SNRA be annihilated if no effort is made to implement non-lethal methods to protect livestock from predation?  Wildlife Services still operates in this manner and wolves are killed for preying on livestock that are left without any protective measures unattended on the open range, very often on your public lands. Clearly there is much more work to be done, as this story continues to repeat itself.  Cooperation and good will are essential if man and wolf are to coexist.   Solutions have been proven to work by those who are willing to try.

This is a reminder of the need to demand the reform of the USDA’s Wildlife Services, the government agency that spends taxpayer money to kill “problem” wildlife.  Their practices are currently in question and being challenged.  Please read the article in the link written by Tom Knudson of the Sacramento Bee.  Two Congressmen, Peter Defazio, a democrat from Oregon and John Campbell, a republican from California, have been pushing the House Oversight Committee to investigate Wildlife Services and their current practices.  Please support them in their efforts to reform Wildlife Services.”

**Special thanks to “Living With Wolves” for providing this information!  For more on this story,  please visit http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs021/1102459385062/archive/1102886320092.html

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