Wild Born Wolves Swept Under Rug by Program Managers
The Mexican wolf program may be in for a population boost during the winter counts this year despite removals attributed to livestock depredation. Saturday November 24 a single two year old male wolf was trapped on the Adobe ranch in an area currently occupied by the Aspen pack. The Aspen pack is slated for removal due to a total of 10 cow and calf depredations since June and a horse kill that occurred some distance south of the Adobe in January. According to the FWS standard operating procedure 13, the wolves should have been removed after three kills. According to Gene Whetten manager of the adobe ranch, the Aspen pack are on a spree kill on the Adobe ranch and have racked up 5 confirmed weaned calves since October and a further 2 that were deemed probable kills.
“The pack is so big that they pretty much clean up what they kill so fast that it is hard to find them so we are actually loosing a lot more than we are having confirmed,” says Whetten. “We are finding skeletons and the kill scene but they eat the skin and everything so it is hard to get enough for confirmation.”
So far only the alpha male has been removed for the kills, leaving the Alpha female, a yearling female and four pups to continue their depredations apparently unchecked.
Because Aspen is leaving one carcass and killing a new calf each time, they are having a hard time trapping them. Yesterday one of the wild born wolves that has been on the ranch for over a year was caught in one of the traps set for the Aspen pack. I told them to leave me the good wolf, so it can mate up this year and get the Aspen pack off the place. So they took it to Arizona and are going to release it there.
That release is scheduled to occur on the Four Drag ranch owned by Gary and Darcy Ely in Arizona sometime in the next few days. Fish and Wildlife Service are attempting to force a pair bond between the wild born wolf and the Rim pack alpha female.
“Our ranchers get blamed for everything wrong with this program, says Laura Schneberger President of the Gila Livestock Growers Association, the truth is if the agencies would do an adequate job this program would be in better shape. When my members report un-collared wolves on their places, these agencies don’t investigate and refuse to believe them. Instead of being rewarded for allowing this wild born wolf and who knows how many other wolves onto the Adobe ranch, these folks are being forced to live with a pack that is slaughtering their herds and teaching wild born wolves to prey on cattle. It is an unmitigated, disastrous and unfair situation”
The Adobe ranch has been Mexican wolf habitat since the early days of the program and in the past several years have had to implement wolf control on the ranch. In the past year, the ranch has had several confirmed wolf kills attributed to unknown wolves. According to Whetten, those kills were all concentrated on the western end of the ranch near the Durango pack territory, far from the territory occupied by the wild born, newly removed wolf.
“We had this wolf doing nothing wrong for over a year and they moved it. You get so frustrated when you have to do all the extra work, loose the cattle anyway, you have no control over what is happening and they won’t follow their own rules.”
In an unrelated incident an un-collared wolf was documented at the Glenwood community center by the Catron county wolf interaction investigator, the same day the un-collared wolf was trapped on the Adobe ranch. Ranchers and area homeowners have documented up to 27 un-collared wolves in New Mexico in the past year with no investigations by wildlife managers occurring to confirm their presence.
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December 2nd, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Spoke with a USFWS person at the Alpine Scoping meeting. The agency line based on flyover I was told is seven total uncollared wolves on the ground. They also investigate “every” reported wolf sighting. Why is their world so different than the life and facts in ours when they are one and the same time and place? Are they in denial?
Maybe they think that by gross manipulation of the facts and violation of the published rules (that they should be legally held to) can profit them some way. Are agency individuals decisions leading directly to many takings of cattle (without using firearms) via flagrant violation of the federal rules established to keep this program from perpretrating a premeditated livestock killing spree at all related to eco-terrorism?
What’s going on at the Adobe Ranch and elsewhere is so outrageously out of line with any proper level of concern and respect due to others and their right to their safety and welfare it’s really creepy.
Someone from an involved agency at the meeting actually told me the program should remove all problem animals (just like with problem bears etc.)….. Just let the wildborn, non-problem ones continue to create generations. “What is this, a race?”
Nature’s way would be to use habituation problems as the determining factor in unsatisfactory wolf presence - just as has always been the way with predators. David Mech, dean of wolf biologists, suggests that permits be issued to agriculturalists when problem wolves wander onto agricultural land and that control will be necessary on agricultural lands.
Why does the program continue to break rules, cause very dangerous living situations for others, ignore reality and science and flaunt disaster as if it is success and integrity?
Political pressure from the extremists, “forcing” rulebreaking and all kinds of endangerments is unacceptable in a sane world. This kind of corruption is sick. Not science. Not integrity. Bad for wolves. Bad for the people threatened and doubly bad for the souls and psyches of those allowing themselves to be swept up in the kind of this unthinkingly cruel, degenerate persona for any kind of “gratification”. The apparent mad mob mentality which seems to have “control” of the situation is dispicable. Instead of waving pitchforks and yelling “lynch ‘em! lynch ‘em!”, they wave their badges of “authority” and proclaim themselves above all law, causing unnecessary death to the ungulates our communities depend on and endangering and abusing all in our area.
This program should reform or get scrapped. It’s way, way out of line.