Just the Facts ... and Then Some

JUST THE FACTS ... & THEN SOME

by Caren Cowan, Publisher New Mexico Stockman

BEWARE

Wolves on Your Doorstep.

On 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:

Ї 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 fladry — a rope with flapping material strung along a fence meant to keep wolves at bay.

Ї 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.

had a minimum of 196 wolves on the landscape. Now, the wolf population will be allowed to float upwards with no cap.

Ї 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.

Ї 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.

Ї 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

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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now move into and occupy counties with suitable habitat that had not had sustained wolf occupancy since the reintroduction began in 1998. Wolf occupancy over time can be expected in Santa Cruz, Coconino, Maricopa, Mohave, Pinal, Pima, Cochise, and Yavapai Counties in Arizona and in Bernalillo, Cibola, Dona Ana, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Luna, McKinley, Otero, Torrance, and Valencia Counties in New Mexico. In New Mexico, there is even a possibility that wolves will enter and occupy Chaves, Eddy, and Lea Counties.

Here is what one rancher in “wolf country” had to say after perusing the 200+ page document:

The Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement reads like a death warrant for many in cattle industry. The FWS recognizes the problems that its revised recovery plan will inflict on cattle growers but disregards them. The FWS acknowledges that increasing the number of wolves • will result in more livestock kills in wolf country, • will decrease profitability of all ranches and • may not be sustainable for some ranches, especially smaller ranches.

The FWS further admits that current compensation programs address only approximately one-quarter of the losses that cattle growers incur from wolves. With its new rule, the FWS disregards all those costs as well as the losses that rural communities bear and the threats that visitors to wolf country will experience from these wolves.

To add insult to injury, the FWS now says it doesn’t have enough money for the program. The federal and state agencies responsible for the Mexican wolf program now receive at least $4 million a year to spend on a minimum of 196 wolves. That’s $20,000 per year per wolf.

Just imagine what that money could be spent on: New Mexico’s hungry children, health care, education and so much more. Instead, it is spent on an apex predator that inflicts substantial, uncompensated costs on cattle growers, rural communities and visitors.

Does any of this Mexican wolf recovery program make sense? Should radicals and courts be dictating land-use policy for America? These are reasons why the upcoming general election is so important. Political courage is needed to inject common sense into threatened and endangered species programs. The purpose and function of government should not be to terrorize our citizens and put them out of business. ▫