had a minimum of 196 wolves on the landscape. Now, the wolf population will be allowed to float upwards with no cap.
JUST THE FACTS ... & THEN SOME by Caren Cowan, Publisher New Mexico Stockman
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Under the new plan, the FWS emphasizes genetic diversity of wolves. The FWS genetic diversity requirement will be satisfied when 22 wolves born in captivity and then placed in wolf dens survive to age two.
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The third requirement under the new plan restricts removal of wolves on federal lands until the genetic diversity requirement is satisfied. Landowners may still kill or injure wolves on non-federal lands found “in the act of biting, killing or wounding” a domestic animal or livestock. The new plan eliminates the option to remove any wolves based on elk depredations.
BEWARE
Wolves on Your Doorstep.
O
n May 12, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) released its final proposed 10(j) rule for recovery of the Mexican wolf. Here is what has been published so far about the new rule: ЇЇ
There had been a population cap of 325 Mexican wolves. Under the new conservation plan, there will be no population cap on Mexican wolves. The FWS eliminated it. The FWS estimates that at the end of 2021 it
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The FWS encourages livestock producers and landowners to adopt nonlethal means of driving away wolves (i.e., drive them towards your neighbor). Those means include the use of guard animals, range riders and
fladry — a rope with flapping material strung along a fence meant to keep wolves at bay. ЇЇ
FWS anticipates its genetic diversity goals will be met by 2030 and give the population a 90 percent likelihood of surviving over the next century. Because recovery to down list or de-list the Mexican wolf is tied to recovery of wolves in Mexico, it will be decades before the Mexican wolf will be a candidate for down listing or de-listing.
Radical environmental groups are responsible for the changes. In response to a lawsuit, a federal district judge had ordered that a revised plan be in place by July 1, 2022. It is unclear whether the FWS’s latest effort will result in another legal challenge by either ranchers or the radicals.
There is More to the Story… According to the FWS, Mexican wolves will continue to occupy suitable habitat in the focal counties (Apache, Gila, Greenlee, Graham, and Navajo Counties in Arizona, and Catron, Grant, Sierra, and Socorro Counties in New Mexico). But wolves will
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