"It is the essential trait of a wise man that he does not kill any living being.
Certainly, one has to understand just two principles: namely non-violence and equality of all living beings"
From: wolfmaster@wolfpaper.pl
Subject: [WolfPaper] Slough Creek Pack (and article about danger for Mexican gray wolf)
Date: June 28, 2006 10:31:33 PM GMT+01:00
Reply-To: monty.sloan@wolfpaper.pl
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/wolves-06-08-2006.html
Bush
Administration in Process of Wiping Out
Endangered Mexican Gray Wolf
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 Arizona and New Mexico in 1998 after
being exterminated early in the 20th century, the Mexican wolf was
projected to reach 102 animals in 18 breeding pairs by the end of
this year. 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.
In the last two weeks, 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 in the
wild and has almost certainly starved or been eaten by other
predators. Three more packs are at imminent risk because they have
preyed on livestock. In many cases, wolves learn to prey on
livestock by scavenging on the carcasses of cattle and horses that
die of other causes.
In June 2001, independent scientists who were hired to write the
Fish and Wildlife Service’s Mexican Wolf
Three-Year Review warned that the
control program was removing too many wolves and would prevent the
population from reaching its goals unless critical reforms were
instituted immediately. The Fish and Wildlife Service pledged to
take action but has failed to do so.
The proposed reforms would bring the Mexican wolf program up to the
same standards as those used in the successful reintroduction
program for northern gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park and
central Idaho. That reintroduction began in 1995, three years prior
to the Mexican wolf reintroduction, and has resulted in
approximately 1,000 wolves now roaming a tri-state region.
The scientists’ two most important recommendations were to: (1)
allow wolves to roam outside the arbitrary boundaries of the Blue
Range Wolf Recovery Area, just like all other endangered species
are allowed (Mexican wolves are currently trapped if they go onto
the “wrong” national forest); and (2) require ranchers to remove or
render inedible the carcasses of cattle and horses that die of
non-wolf causes and habituate wolves to regarding livestock as
prey.
“The Bush administration is running an extermination program
masquerading as a recovery program,” charged Michael Robinson of
the Center for Biological Diversity. Robinson’s book,
Predatory
Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of
the West (University
Press of Colorado, 2005), details how a second extermination of the
Mexican wolf is now underway.
The U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey poisoned and trapped all
wolves in the western United States between 1915 and 1945,
including Mexican wolves. In 1950, its successor agency, the Fish
and Wildlife Service, began sending American salaried personnel and
U.S.-produced poison to Mexico to duplicate the extermination
program there.
After passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, only five
wolves could be captured alive in Mexico for an emergency captive
breeding program; four of those were males and just one was female.
No wolves have been confirmed alive in the wild in Mexico since
1980.
The Center for Biological Diversity will lead reporters to areas of
the Gila National Forest in New Mexico and the Apache National
Forest in Arizona where three wolf packs are likely the next
targets for the Fish and Wildlife Service to try to wipe out. For
details, contact Michael Robinson, at the phone number above.
Photographed
on March 8, 2006, in the last light of the day, these three members
of the Slough Creek Pack stand out nicely in the snow. I like
how the aspen in the background adds a little something to this
otherwise grainy soft image of wolves about a mile
away.
Monty
