A Mexican gray wolf paces in enclosure at Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, N.M. (Moises Velasquez-Manoff)
Howls of protest greet Mexican wolf reintroduction
New Mexico program faces higher hurdles than similar one in Yellowstone.
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff | Staff Writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ December 22, 2008 edition
Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, N.M.
On a cold, wind-whipped November morning, about 90 minutes south of Albuquerque, N.M., a line of people faces off against a pack of wolves. They clutch poles, nets, and lassos, props not necessarily meant for use, but to make them look bigger. A US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) official tells them not to worry, there’s little danger. But if a wolf tries to break the line, don’t go sticking out a limb.
Most of these wolves, an endangered Southwestern subspecies, were born and bred in captivity. They’re the fruit of a 25-year-old plan by the FWS to reestablish the Mexican wolf in the wild.
The captive wolves live between two hills on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, their enclosures largely isolated from human sights, sounds, and smells as a rewilding exercise. They can’t be habituated to a human presence; without sufficient fear of people, they won’t last long in the wild. Indeed, only the most fearful will be released at all.
The animals’ alarm has been evident since the first truck came into sight up the dirt road. They lope tirelessly around the well-worn trails that line the perimeters of their enclosures. They occasionally leap up against the 12-foot-high chain link fences. Innate fear is partly responsible, explains Maggie Dwire, an assistant coordinator with the FWS’s Mexican Wolf Recovery Program. But wolves also anticipate – and presumably dread – the chase, muzzling, poking, and prodding that often accompany human visits. “That’s fine with me,” she says.
On command, the line moves forward. No wolf sedatives will be administered today. But too much frenzy, and the wolves might simply drop dead in what wildlife experts call “capture myopathy.” Today’s exercise is for the wolves’ own good, but the scene – a row of tool-wielding homo sapiens moving steadily toward increasingly frantic wolves – evokes the long and complicated history between the two species. Some Native American groups viewed wolves as equals of a sort, a social animal that also hunted cooperatively.
But as Europeans colonized North America with livestock in tow, wolves were systematically poisoned and hunted off the land. For much of the past century, the FWS, now charged with bringing the wolf back, headed that extermination.
The Southwestern wolf-reintroduction program has been less successful than reintroduction programs in the northern Rockies. Different socioeconomic realities and a different landscape have complicated the Mexican wolf’s comeback. Some ranchers near the recovery area, a 6,745-square-mile swath straddling the New Mexico-Arizona border, say wolves have no place there. Conservationists counter that the recovery area, 95 percent national forest, is public land and should be wild, predators included. They cite the Endangered Species Act (ESA) – the Mexican wolf is the most endangered of five subspecies in the US – and they point to evidence that top predators enhance ecosystem health.
Each camp accuses FWS of favoring the other. Conservationists say FWS has caved to ranching interests and failed in its mandate to recover the wolf. Ranchers charge it with destroying their way of life.
People may be tougher to manage than wolves
“We might have underestimated the social implications of wolf reintroduction,” says FWS Southwest Regional Director Benjamin Tuggle, of the recovery plan. While some dispute this characterization – plenty of research was done on social realities, they say – it does raise a question of rising concern among “hard” scientists. Is conservation about managing nature, or people?
After wolves returned to Yellowstone in 1995, aspens, long mysteriously declining, returned. Willow stands along riverbanks grew more robust. The greater diversity of trees hosted more bird species. Scientists concluded that, during wolves’ long absence from the area, elk and deer had overgrazed willow and aspen. Now, wary of ambush, they avoid dense stands of trees.
“The elk have changed their behavior based on the risk of predation,” says ecologist William Ripple at Oregon State University, Corvallis. The insight: Predators affect ecosystems not only by direct predation, but by inspiring fear.
Smaller than its northern cousin, the Mexican wolf once ranged throughout the “sky islands” – higher elevations areas – of the US Southwest and Mexico. By 1970, poisoning and trapping had eradicated it from the US. By the late 1970s, scientists could find just five individuals in northern Mexico. All Mexican wolves today – some 300 in zoos and breeding centers across the country and 52 in the wild – descend from just seven individuals.
“Evolution never ceases, and now it’s taking place in a captive environment,” says Dave Parsons, formerly with the FWS and now with the Rewilding Institute, a conservation organization in Albuquerque. “The longer they’re in captivity, the less adaptable they’re going to be … as reintroduction stock.”
The first captive-bred Mexican wolves entered the wild 10 years ago. The goal: 102 wolves in nine years. But the population is just half that. Pro-wolfers often fault the FWS. The agency has killed or removed (to permanent captivity) 47 wolves. Poachers have taken 29.
“With one hand they’re putting them out, and with the other hand they’re taking them back,” says Michael Robinson, an advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity in Silver City, N.M. “The Fish and Wildlife Service is operating a control program masquerading as a recovery program.”
Stock losses rise 4 to 10 percent
A 2007 resolution by the American Society of Mammalogists called for suspension of all predator control until the goal of 100 wolves was reached.
But ranchers say there’s no room for wolves here.
Hugh McKeen, commissioner of Catron County, a locus of antiwolf sentiment, says some ranchers have seen yearly stock losses rise from 4 to 10 percent. Defenders of Wildlife offers compensation, but, says Mr. McKeen, the criteria are so stringent that, for every successful claim, many others go uncompensated. (Defenders has paid $106,493 for 176 domestic animals killed by wolves in the Southwest.)
The wolf “should never have been [introduced] in this area,” says McKeen. “You’ve got wolves in Canada, in Alaska, but down here, there are just too many people and too little game.”
Yet several polls show widespread public support for wolf reintroduction in both Arizona and New Mexico. Joe Saenz, a Chiricahua Apache and owner of WildHorse Outfitters in Silver City, applauds the wolf’s return. They attract customers eager to hear and see them, he says. They’ll also help restore an out-of-balance landscape. He understands ranchers’ concerns, but ranchers operate fine with wolves and grizzlies present elsewhere.
“You just have to be more vigilant,” he says. “Some teach people to kill all the snakes so you can walk around the grass. We were taught to walk carefully.”
Others raise the issue of what should happen on public lands, and who should pay for it. A 2005 Government Accountability Office report found that grazing allotments on public land cost taxpayers $115 million yearly. Ranchers pay $1.35 per cow-calf pair monthly. Grazing on private land, meanwhile, costs between $10 and $20 per pair monthly, says John Horning, executive director of WildEarth Guardians in Santa Fe, N.M. “It ends up being quite a subsidy,” he says.
No shortage of issues or complexity
Historically, the US government enticed people to the West with the promise of free predator control and cheap grazing. Modern conservationists call that “welfare.” Ranchers still see themselves as pioneers on land no one else wanted. To them, the wolf-recovery program is meddling – or worse, betrayal.
“Why do you have to destroy a people to recover an animal or protect an animal?” says Jess Carey, Catron County’s wolf investigator. The ESA “wasn’t set up to destroy families, but that’s exactly what it’s doing.”
Says Parsons, “There’s no shortage of issues, and there’s no shortage of complexity.”
Defenders of Wildlife says it is restructuring its compensation program to share the costs of antiwolf measures up front – fences and extra rangers – to preempt predation rather than pay for livestock already lost.
Parsons and Horning hope to buy and retire grazing allotments, an idea that interests some ranchers, at least privately, says Parsons. The obstacle: guaranteeing that allotments won’t be reauctioned later. That depends on federal legislation that doesn’t exist yet, he says.
Tuggle thinks ranchers are integral to the program’s success. They’re natural stewards, and working ranches are bulwarks against wilderness-unfriendly development, he says. He intends to create a fund and pay for proactive antiwolf ranching practices with the interest. And, alluding to recent political shifts, Tuggle foresees an eventual revamping of the recovery program.
“The program is not going away,” he says. But “it’s absolutely critical that we do not make the mistake we made when we first started. And that is to say ‘Here is the wolf program. Here are the wolves. Deal with it.’ ”
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Comments
2. Janet | 12.22.08
In the absense of wolves, other animals come in to fill the niche. In my area, coyotes are getting larger, and beginning to form packs. A friend of mine who was riding her horse through the riverbed at dusk had to chase them off of her dog. I would much rather have wolves–animals that are notoriously shy of humans–than these audacious wolf-sized coyotes.
3. Oscar Thibidoux | 12.22.08
Wolf-reintroduction program is a great idea. People shouldn’t interfere with implementation of this program.
4. Dennis Parker | 12.22.08
Contrary to the theme of this article, there is virtually no similarity between the Yellowstone reintroduction of wolves and “reintroduction” of the Mexican wolf. First, the former relied actual wild wolves for reintroductive purpose while the latter has used severely inbred and, according to the foremost authority on Mexican wolves, Mr. Roy T. McBride, animals hybridized with dogs for “reintroductive” purpose. Second, there are no records of Mexican wolves breeding where they’ve been “reintroduced” to, while in Yellowstone, such is not the case. Third, ranchers answer to a host of federal agencies — BLM, Forest Service, Fish & Wildlife Service — prior to renewal of their grazing permits. Unlike commentor number 1, these agency people are professionals who supposedly act on behalf of all of us taxpayers of the United States. Here, however, they definitely are not. Instead, they have allowed the release of inbred hybrids (at tremendous and continuing public expense) masquerading as Mexican wolves that have literally terrorized the unfortunate rural communities where they’ve been placed. Perhaps commentor number 1’s opinion would be more credible if he took the time to consider these and other salient facts about Mexican wolf “recovery” before misplacing blame on others for a truly terrible and disgraceful situation he obviously knows little or nothing about.
5. Zac in CA | 12.22.08
It’s got to be tough, being a rancher who’s accustomed to so much federal aid. I hope the legacy of the FWS’s wolf-killing days can be counteracted with a minimum of trouble for all sides concerned (including the wolves), and it’d be nice to start taking measures to keep public land in use for, well, the interests of the public.
If Rocky Mountain ecosystems flourish when wolves are around, then the answer is clear: wolves need to come back in certain areas, ensuring that their needs are met with the same consideration as those of ranchers. Humans can always move, even if it is financially difficult; animals almost always stick to one area for their lives, and even migratory animals eventually make their way back to where they started, so the onus is on us to give wolves the space they need, and we’ll get to hang onto our wild spaces for that much longer.
A very slow increase in the cost of grazing cattle on public land is in order, to both raise money and to nudge ranchers off the public land, but it can’t be too quick, lest we risk driving up all costs directly and indirectly related to ranching, beef prices, etc. Beef will eventually be a luxury item, except in its most bioengineered forms, but that’s the cost of keeping the planet intact. If you want more evidence that meat-bearing animals can be bad for the environment, check out the factors that contributed to the creation of the Sahara desert.
6. Olivia | 12.23.08
Zac makes a number of good points.
Isn’t it typical of human nature that the ranchers who are keen on taking advantage of the pathetically low grazing fees on public lands (a subsidy that we the American taxpayers fund) are reluctant to accept the downside of being on public land (that other species of animals actually live there, or used to and maybe will again).
Not yet mentioned here is the fact that the BLM has “mis-managed” the wild horses off their land and into holding pens to accomodate these ranchers, and in so doing has grossly overestimated the number of horses likely to be adopted at auctions. Locking up and feeding these poor creatures has become a huge — and completely unnecessary — expense for the federal government (read: us taxpayers).
Check out The Cloud Foundation’s website, among others, to learn about this travesty. If more of the public knew that 3% of the beef they eat is causing their beloved wild horses to be captured into oblivion, maybe they’d have another incentive to cut down on meat intake.
As for ranchers and hunters, I don’t see them as true conservationists, because their motive for conserving is to kill more animals for pleasure or profit (or both). I don’t feel sorry for ranchers, any more than they feel sorry for the cattle they raise only to be brutally slaughtered.
When beef DOES become a luxury item (and that day can’t come soon enough for me), the cattle ranchers can go into a new line of work, as all workers in obsolete industries have had to do throughout history.
To sum up, the more wolves and other wildlife (including mustangs and burros) thriving — that is, free of human interference — on our public lands, the better.
7. Barb in AZ | 12.23.08
Ranchers are notorious for condemning wolf re-introduction on “Public Lands”. “Public lands are for all of us, NOT just ranchers who graze their cattle for next to nothing - the fees are very minimal and they don’t want to lose their subsidies. Everytime that man has interferred with nature wldlife suffers - nothing good comes out of it. Had we not practically eliminated the wolves we would not have to re-introduce them! Ranchers claim to be “conservationists” but they really only care about cheap grazing! Do what the najority of the public wants - reintroduce wolves on our public lands!
8. Tim Kim | 12.23.08
The comment by D. Parker above states that the wolf authority Roy T. McBride states the Mexican Wolf has hybridized is incorrect. Genetic studies by Robert Waynes group at UCLA proved that this is simpley not true.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119217811/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
The Mexican Wolves are from a pure distinct lineage.
9. R. Lawrence | 12.23.08
I come from a family that was in both, the timber and cattle business, and I can completely understand the argument and disagreement that ranchers have regarding the wolf reintroduction program. However, understanding their views does not mean that I agree with their objections to wolfs and other preditor issues. These people do work very hard to keep their way of life, rancing culture, and cattle grazing dependent business but they need to understand that their grazing permits does not give them ownership over these public lands. The entire country owns these lands not private interests. Science has proven that not having these magnificent animals (wolves) is not healthy for the ecosystem. Ranchers need to just heard their animals like sheperds do rather than just turn them loose in their allotments. They need to take responsibility for their protection, and killing these wolves is not the answer. In Africa, the native people have successfully herded cattle along lions for centuries without exterminating them. I have visited these areas in Southern NM and the areas are extremely overgrazed. These ranchers just need to retrain themselves to accomidate these wild animals and practice better ranching methiods.
10. Southpaw | 12.23.08
I know it is difficult for people that have not had to live with this situation, to understand the incredible hardship the MGW reentroduction program has imposed on the people that live in that area. I will try to make an analogy. Lets say a government agency came to your house or business. In the ranchers case it is both. The agency representative tells you that a sub-species of rat, that is in danger of extinction, is being reintroduced into your neighborhood. you are told if the one of these rats comes to your house you may not harm it for any reason other than an eminent and immediate danger to the life of you or your family. If you do, you can and probably will be incarcetated. Days and months go by, the rats reproduce, more rats are reintroduced and you find rat droping in the pantry. The rats chew their way into cereal boxes, cookies, and any food suff that isn’t metal. Then, you notice they have migrated to other parts of the house. Even the baby’s room. Linen, blankets and furniture are being damaged.You are now very concerned not only for your property but the saftey and welfare of you and your family. All this time you have been reporting your problems to the government agent. He says you haven’t done enough to deter the rats from taking up residence in your house.It is your responsibility to to keep the rats out. It is not the goverments problem.I think you get my drift. Most ranchers don’t do it for the money. They do it for the life style.
Logging in the Gila was stopped for no good scientic reason. Ranching is on the verge of being eleminated for no good reason.
Although a small percetage of the total area, there is a significant amount of private land in the Gila. When the ranchers finally sell out, the properties will be subdivided. Many urban people with money will buy and build trophy homes.The population will increase substantually and I garrantee the conflicts between the wolves and humans will be far greater than they are now.
The Mexican Wolf Reintroduction program is doomed to fail if it does not realize the only way it can succeed is to work with the ranchers and rural dwellers not against them.
Oh, by the way, if you really want to know what is happening on this issue go to wolfcrossing.org or watch the DVD UNDUE BURDEN by Bruce Hemming. He also has a website.
11. Tim Kim | 12.24.08
I looked at wolfcrossing.org and found it interesting. It does seem skewed and biased against re-introduction. It reports wolves having alot of agressive interaction with humans which I find to be suspect. I was wondering why in this day of everyone having digital cameras and phones there aren’t any pictures or films of this agressive interactions?
With everything I’ve read, I still feel that ranchers seem to be blaming alot on wolves. I understand it’s their way of life that is threatened, but it seems that this is the focus points of all free range ranchers frustration and I’m not sure it’s correctly placed.
However, I am open for any information that leads me to think differently.
12. Marcos El Malo | 12.24.08
@Southpaw (#10)
Your analogy fails primarily because the FWS is reintroducing the wolf on public, not private, lands. It fails a second time by equating wolves with vermin in a cheap emotional ploy. These tawdry tactics make me more sympathetic to the reintroduction program, and less sympathetic to your side of the argument. The same goes for the misinformation from Dennis Parker (#4). If you’re going to convince me and the American public, you’re going to need facts and logic, not misinformation and cheap emotional appeals.
13. Pete | 12.25.08
Keep the wolves on public land and allow the private land owner to keep them off private land. If you do that we can live with wolves.
The Department of Game and Fish should stop all deer and elk hunting so there is sufficient game for the wolves to chase and eat. The current deer populations are about .5 deer per 640 acres, not nearly enough for a population of wolves the FWS has in mind. Elk populations are increasing at the expense of deer habitat and the G&F needs to do something about those numbers, hunting is not an option in the face of increasing wolf numbers.
Public lands are for all the public not for just a few “rewilding nuts”.
The grazing fees are set by bureaucrats not ranchers.
The greens stopped logging and now the forests burn at a huge rate. It is not global warming that causes these fires. It is crowded timbers stands and large amounts of material on the forest floor. Greens know nothing, absolutely nothing about wildland management. Go back to your cities and clean them up, get rid of the rats, the garbage, the overcrowding, the over use of water, the dirty air polluted by thousands of your cars, the crooked politicans. When you get that under control then come to the country and learn about the management of natural resources.
14. Tim Kim | 12.25.08
Dennis Parker has been arguing questionable genetics of these wolves since the mid 1990’s - with absolutely no data or research whatsoever. In fact, the extensive genetic research by at least 15 scientists demonstrate that the Mexican Wolf is distinct and not hybridized. Furthermore, the captively bread wolves have not demonstrated any inbreeding depression.
Misplaced emotional appeals, erroneous information, here-say stories do not convince me that the wolves should not be re-introduced. As #12 above, they do the opposite - convince me that the re-introduction of the wolves cause should be supported.
16. n8 | 12.30.08
Olivia: There are no “wild” horses in North America, only FERAL ones.
They are not native, and do not belong here - except in paddocks and barns!
I say this as a conservationist (sans bleeding heart).
17. oldguy | 01.27.09
Re. grazing fees. Does anybody realize that low grazing fees keep food prices low? Raise the grazing fees and food prices will rise to reflect the added costs, impacting the cost of food products for all of us…
18. Michael | 01.28.09
Olivia- are you native? How many generations have the horses been there?Where does anybody ‘belong’.
19. nordicbert | 02.01.09
Where to begin… Wolves are an indigenous species. They inhabited North America THOUSANDS of years (24,000 to be exact) before **** Sapiens showed up. Horses and cattle (and goats and sheep) are NOT indigenous to North America. Both were brought here about 600 or 700 years ago by the Spanish. Mother Nature created our environment. Everybody got along just fine before the white man showed up. Native Americans lived in harmony with all of Gods creatures and let The Great One manage the wildlife. Wolves have prior rights, they were here first. Man is not God and does NOT have the right to change things (slaughter species, introduce nonative species) to suit his or her own needs. Want to raise an animal for food, raise Bison. They’re less environmantally destructive, the taste better and the meat is better for you (more lean). Once man learns to allow nature to make these decisions and not interfere, all of Gods creatures (including the Wolf) will live in Harmony!
20. luckyluke | 03.25.09
Well Nordic Bert,
Let’s all live in teeppee’s then; they are much more eco-friendly. Seriously, you sound like some sort of left wing wack-o that even left wingers make fun of.
Too all of those interested in reasonable discussion,
I understand the common concern that many people are expressing about the inability of ranchers to present many arguments that don’t contain some sort of emotional appeal (though there definately are some). I think that it might benifit everyone to realize, however, that emotional arguments are not necessarily invalid ones. Emotional arguments are based on what has been, for centuries, the highest concern of government: the human element. The plight of the slaves was corrected as a result of years of emotional arguments; the women’s suffrage movement was fueled by it and today’s activists are set into action in places like Darfur and Southeast Asia because of it. Don’t discount the human plight, in this case the plight of those dealing with wolves being introduced in their “back yards”. It is consideration of human plight that should come above consideration of animal plight!
In addition, I think it would be foolish to expect the people who’s livelyhood and culture (and in some cases families) are threatened, not to be emotional about it; most people wouldn’t.
Finally, it may be the will of the majority that wolves be introduced (for this arguiment I have not heard any actual statistics) but the fact is that the entire premise around our form of governemnt (democratic-republic as opposed to a democracy) is to give the minority a voice. Mob rule is often bitingly unfair to the minority who many times have more of a vested interest. It would be silly to say that a majority of people who have never set foot on a certain piece of land should necessarily take preeminence in matters where a minority are those that live on, off of, and by that land in question. It seems logical indeed to determine which group actually has more at stake and has more inherent attachment to the preservetion of the ecosystem.
21. Andy Gundersen | 05.24.09
The ranchers of Arizona and New mexico have been on the gravy train for too long. Do a twenty mile hike in the Gila or the Blue Range, and you’ll see what I mean. The cattle decimate the native grasses and leave the noxious weeds to take over. If I walk into the wilderness, I don’t want to see a bunch of methane machines ******** and ******* everywhere. They overgraze the streambanks, which causes the streams to “flatten out” and go under ground. Hey…..you wanna raise cattle? Go to Nebraska or Kansas where there really is grass. Public lands are just that……..they belong to the people.
22. Tohahonkton | 06.03.09
I live on the Rezerve (native land) in shannonville, and for the ranchers, remember you are on our land and you dont see us trying to kill all you guys and look you guys have ruined our culture and the way we live, it is the ranchers fault that the wolves are depleeting, they figure they can kill them so there animals dont die for money, well 2 things, 1. before you ranchers stole our land the wolves did feed off livestock but so do all other animals but the ecosystem and animals remained fine. but now that you guys have settled the ecosytem is going to ****, and lots of animals are becoming endangered. and 2. animals were on this earth before us, what right do you have to use them to make money or to kill them because ” there killing your animals “. well the wolves killing ur animals is the same as you killing the wolves but the difference is you have a great impact on the wolves and they are endangered because you are selfish. So remember whos land you are on
23. Tohahonkton | 06.03.09
well luckyluke your forgetting that this is our land. not your white peoples land. we lived among the animals and enviornment fine and then you white men came and screwed everything up, and the government is a joke and has no say on what goes on. if anything the only people that have a say is us natives. no matter what u or ur government thinks. most of the animals that are endangered now adays is because you white people think its ” fair game” to just hunt anything. but you should not hunt what u dont eat and if u do u better use every part of that animal including the bones. and our ecosystem was alot better before u white people came up with a government that has built many buildings and other non necisary things on OUR LAND!
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1. Larry | 12.22.08
Ranchers need to realize that when they graze on public land…..OUR LAND. There are others to answer to besides your local BLM office, and the taxpayers of the United States may have other ideas about Wolf reintroduction.