2011 complaint/investigation Results:
Wolf-Animal Incidents;
confirmed wolf depredations – cattle=23, horse colt=1,
probable wolf depredations – cattle= 2
injuries wolf confirmed – cattle=5
Wolf Related Incidences=total 31
unknown cattle deaths =13; includes not found in time to investigate,
lost evidence due to advanced decomposition, scavenging by
canines etc.
confirmed bear depredations – cattle=3
shipping sickness- cattle=1
While the new commission appointments are still not known, what is known is the Governor has removed 4 commissioners out of the 7. 3 out of 4 have known backgrounds with the environmental community several even supported a fairly radical adgenda. This allowed a major imbalance in wildlife management to occur in the state due to the commissions failure to represent their constituency. New Mexico game and predators should never be managed by political and emotional whim. Thank you Governor Martinez.
Still on the commission at least for the moment are Jim McClintock, Tom Arvis and Richard Salopeck.
Mexican Wolf Recovery Program Pamplet 2
Wolves are killing small communities, livlihoods, game and domestic animals. Make no mistake further government protection is damaging to the environment.
http://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/state/article_a8833bea-22c3-11df-96ce-001cc4c002e0.html
Stoney posted at 2:15 pm on Sat, Mar 13, 2010.
Posts: 5 theidahokid: Contrary to Dr. Nathan Varley’s weak theory that it is surplus killing for the wolves to come back to eat on later doesn’t hold water. There are too many recorded instances where not only sheep but calf elk were slaughtered in excessive numbers such that the only reasonable explanation is they sometime kill way more than they could ever eat in a reasonable time to make the surplus killing theory hold water. We are talking 30 + sheep and 7 or 8 calf elk. For the major part they kill just to eat, but they are opportunistic killers and do not just eat the old, weak and sick. There are many recorded instances where they eat the fetus out of their prey and nothing else and leave the big part to rot.
For a good education on wolves and all of the myths that pro wolf science is proclaiming, google Dr. Valerius Geist, whom probably hands down has more research on wolves world wide and an exhaustive study on the history of wolves, than any other biologist. He also has many years of first hand experience with wolves and has written extensively why wolves do prey on humans and the science behind it. The young lady school teacher that was killed by wolves in Alaska recently and the young college student Kenton Joel Carnegie who was killed by wolves in Canada in 2005, and whom Valerius Geist personally investigated the incident, are explained by Dr. Giest and what and how wolves can come to kill humans. He blows away the myths that many modern day scientists proclaim as gospel. He should be required reading for all who admire and idolize the mystic wolf. He even admits he was for many years just like them.
At any rate I live with the wolves and have first hand knowledge of their habits as I spend about 1/3 of every year in the wilderness. One thing we are finding with the Mexican Gray Wolf project in Arizona and New Mexico is that these pen raised wolves are human habituated and they teach their wild pups the same and they are dangerous, because they have no fear of humans. Until we establish hunting seasons and make them truly wild we have the potential for a lot of problems.
Like I have already posted hunting will only help save the wolf not the other way around. It would take and extensive trapping and poisoning program to ever extirpate the wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and I don’t ever forsee that happening. The pro wolf people should be very happy with the success of the wolf program there as they have more than met their wildest dreams of the number of wolves that they have now
by Jonathan DuHamel on Oct. 15, 2010, under General Science
Tucson Citizen
A Freedom of Information Act inquiry has revealed that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) decision to declare portions of Arizona and New Mexico as “Critical Habitat” for the jaguar has no basis in fact. USFWS based its decision on unsubstantiated anecdotal stories that did not meet the Endangered Species Act definition of minimum scientific standards. The inquiry also found possible collusion between an employee of the Arizona Fish and Game Department and the Center for Biological Diversity. The report of the inquiry was written by Biologist/Attorney Dennis Parker. Here is the press release:
“GROUPS CHARGE CORRUPTION, JUNK SCIENCE BEHIND EXPANDED JAGUAR PROTECTIONS IN ARIZONA & NEW MEXICO.”
In a recent letter to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) the Southern Arizona Cattlemen’s Protective Association (SACPA), the Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties, the Pima Natural Resources Conservation District (NRCD), the Whitewater Draw NRCD, and People for the West strongly urged the agency to reverse its decision that critical habitat is “prudent” for jaguars in Arizona and New Mexico. The letter shows that under the ESA, and based solely on the best science available, habitat “essential” to the jaguar’s existence does not exist in the United States. Furthermore, studies have proven that well managed livestock grazing poses no threat to jaguars or their habitat.
“The Department of Interior just announced a new policy favoring sound science over political misconduct,” said SACPA president Cindy Coping. “To honor their own policy the USFWS must reverse their unsound but politically fashionable decision that won’t help the jaguar and does threaten to destroy hundreds of rural jobs in two states.”
A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) inquiry revealed that the agency’s decision relied heavily on a 2005 conference presentation that lacked supporting data and fails to meet the ESA definition of minimum scientific standards.
Another public records search revealed that an employee of the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) authorized a $999.99 payment to the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) to create a jaguar habitat model for New Mexico. The CBD’s model was a substitute for, and produced conclusions far different from, the sound scientific conclusions already published by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. The CBD had a then recent history of publishing maliciously false information about endangered species and livestock grazing. That charge, proven in court, was already a matter of widespread public knowledge when the AGFD employee engaged the CBD to produce a substitute habitat model for New Mexico.
“The payment itself, one cent below the level we understand requires Commission approval, raises serious questions about the AGFD employee’s intentions,” Coping said. “These issues involve authority and abuse of such, improper bias, conflict of interest, and the unprecedented extraterritorial extension of AGFD authority over the State of New Mexico,” wrote Dennis Parker, the wildlife biologist/attorney who authored the comments.” These facts alone warrant suspension of any critical habitat designation for the jaguar in the United States until this serious situation is fully investigated and explained,” he added. At least two of the supposed “verified” jaguars mentioned in the Arizona habitat models were likely not naturally occurring, but rather, animals of foreign origin captured and imported into the United States for the purpose of “guaranteed” hunting. At least 9 such imported jaguars were introduced into New Mexico in 1972 and 1973 alone, including at least one female that escaped. Recent journal published studies from Brazil prove that both the range and numbers of jaguars expanded where domestic livestock were introduced, due to the more dependable prey base. In fact, Brazilian cattle ranches support the highest densities and numbers of jaguars found anywhere. Moreover, both the historic and the recent record of transient jaguar occurrences in the Southwest indicate that modern, highly controlled livestock grazing poses no threat to the few jaguars that sometimes wander across the Mexican border onto neighboring Arizona and New Mexico ranchlands.
Kill rates and predation patterns of jaguars (Panthera onca) in the
southern Pantanal, Brazil (2010)
http://www2.allenpress.com/pdf/mamm-91-03-722-736.pdf
Predator -Prey Relationships and the Spatial Ecology of Jaguars in the Southern Pantanal, Brazil (2008)
http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1111&context=etd
All of the citizen organizations represented in the carefully documented letter sent to the USFWS care deeply about the management of landscapes in Arizona and New Mexico where ranching has been and continues to be the dominant land use keeping habitat largely intact and undeveloped for more than 300 years.
###
Read the full 15-page report here.
Some excerpts from the report:
“While one transient male jaguar, Macho B, did roam the borderlands of Arizona and Sonora for more than a decade until last year, his extensive travels prior to his death indicates he was having a difficult time surviving in this dry, rugged region. Moreover, his persistent presence in the borderlands was also artificially induced by the placement of female jaguar scent (in the form of scat of captive females in season) at camera locations on the United States side of the boundary with Mexico.”
“Finally, if Arizona and New Mexico actually qualified as critical habitat, or habitat “essential” to the existence of the jaguar as a species, then both common sense and objective science would necessarily demand that, at a minimum, female jaguars be shown to reside in those States. The facts conclusively show that they do not and that no female jaguar has been shown to occur in Arizona, even on a highly questionable and suspect basis, since 1963. The facts also reveal that no [wild] female jaguar has been verified to have occurred in New Mexico — ever.”
This is just one more example of why we should Repeal the Endangered Species Act.
This entry was posted on Friday, October 15th, 2010 at 7:35 am
‘Pivotal’ research could change the wolf debate in the northern Rockies.
By Cory Hatch, Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Date: October 13, 2010
Wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains are genetically healthy and have migrated and bred successfully among subpopulations in central Idaho, greater Yellowstone and northern Montana, according to a new study.
Authors of the study analyzed DNA samples from 555 wolves, beginning with the reintroduction of a few dozen wolves in 1995 and running through 2004, when the population had grown to about 850 animals. The study was published in the October issue of Molecular Ecology.
“We found that genetic diversity was high and maintained throughout the study period for the three recovery areas,” the authors said. “Overall, genetic diversity throughout the [northern Rockies] was comparable or greater than estimates for other gray wolf populations.”
In addition to high levels of genetic diversity, data show “a lack of significant inbreeding in each population,” researchers said. “In addition to a rapid population expansion and a genetically diverse founding population, low inbreeding estimates were probably driven and maintained through behaviorally mediated inbreeding avoidance.”
The study also seems to allay concerns that breeding wolves haven’t been able to migrate among the central Idaho, northern Montana and greater Yellowstone populations.
“The presence of reproductively successful migrants between recovery areas may have influenced genetic diversity,” researchers said. “Idaho and Montana have greater connectivity than either of these areas has to the [greater Yellowstone area].”
The estimate of reproductively successful migrants is low because only about 30 percent of the population was sampled at any given time during the study.
“Our results should be viewed as a conservative minimum of the true number of migrants per generation in the [northern Rockies],” the authors said.
Genetic isolation
The paper expands on a previous study by some of the same researchers that showed Yellowstone National Park wolves were genetically isolated.
Conservation groups subsequently cited that study as one reason wolves should remain under Endangered Species Act protection, and U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy cited genetics in a decision to grant an injunction against wolf hunts after the federal government’s first delisting attempt in 2008.
But the study authors say the 2008 Yellowstone study gave a limited picture of the total population, particularly because most of the park already had established wolf packs.
“High wolf densities and territory saturation in Yellowstone during the height of this study probably limited the ability of individuals to effectively disperse into this core area,” researchers said.
The newer study shows “effective dispersal was most successful outside of Yellowstone during our study, presumably owing to greater opportunities to establish territories and breed.”
The new research is “pivotal,” said study coauthor Mike Jimenez, Wyoming wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“This is a far more in-depth study,” he said, reinforcing the idea that some of early conclusions were a “huge underestimation.” The northern Rocky Mountain wolf population is “very diverse,” he said.
Since the study’s conclusion, the population has doubled to more than 1,700 wolves, which likely increases the level of genetic interchange, Jimenez said.
This genetic diversity shows the 1995 reintroduction was a success biologically.
“It reiterates this idea of three subpopulations and a meta-population,” he said. “It’s worked very well. All three populations are connected to the Canadian population, they’re connected to each other, and they’re connected at much lower [population] levels than we have now.”
What the study doesn’t answer are the political questions surrounding wolves.
“All these arguments come back to people’s values,” Jimenez said. “It doesn’t answer that other question of how many [wolves] people want to have around or don’t want to have around.”
Praise for new study
The study drew praise from other researchers. In a companion article in the same journal, scientists from the University of Calgary and University of Montana said the paper shows “substantial levels of gene flow between three identified sub-populations of wolves within the northern Rockies, clarifying previous analyses and convincingly showing genetic recovery.”
Conservation groups also praised the research, but said state management plans in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho remain a threat to the species.
“I think it’s good research,” Sylvia Fallon, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Washington, D.C., office, said in a telephone interview. “It’s good news for the population of wolves in the Rocky Mountains.”
Still, the research doesn’t alleviate the need for a robust population size, Fallon said.
“[The study] occurred between 1995 and 2004, which was soon after reintroduction during a period of time when the population was undergoing tremendous expansion,” she said. “That’s a time when you would expect to see a lot of dispersal.
“What that doesn’t tell us is how dispersal … will be affected by a population that is no longer growing or in fact is decreasing,” Fallon said.
She pointed to remarks by the study authors, who stated a dramatic reduction in population size could threaten connectivity among the populations, and maintaining connectivity will require protection of migration corridors and other prime wolf habitat.
“The success of dispersers will decrease as wolf mortality rates by hunting and control for livestock depredations increase, or if habitat outside of core protected areas becomes less suitable because of land management practices,” researchers said. “Consequently, a management challenge for long-term viability of wolves in the [northern Rocky Mountains] will continue to be the maintenance of adequate population size and effective dispersal to maintain long-term genetic health.”
It’s up to wildlife mangers to ensure this dispersal still occurs, Fallon said.
Viable populations
The new information is a welcome surprise, Louise Lasley, public lands director for the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, said. The Conservation Alliance and Natural Resources Defense Council have participated in lawsuits to protect wolves.
“It kind of knocks down one of our arguments,” said Lasley, who is unsure how the new data will affect the litigation. “As far as the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, we will still strive to see viable wolf populations that will maintain genetic diversity.”
Lasley echoed Fallon’s concerns about what will happen to connectivity among subpopulations and genetic diversity if wolves are managed to minimal numbers.
State officials said the study confirms their suspicions.
“We never doubted that genetic interchange was occurring at adequate levels among wolves in the greater Yellowstone area,” Steve Ferrell, director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said in a statement. “We had questioned the earlier claims of genetic isolation and bottlenecks in gene flow, especially in light of the robust and rapidly expanding population. We’re pleased that the researchers continued with their work at a larger scale to reverse the conclusions made from their earlier efforts.”
Bob Wharff, Wyoming executive director of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, a group that has advocated for tougher management of the wolf population, said the news is welcome, but said he doubts it will stop lawsuits to protect the species.
“It’s showing what we said all along,” he said. “We believe that wolves have met recovery goals.
“It’s nice for us to finally get a break,” Wharff continued. “But I feel like we’ve had the science on our side all along, and it doesn’t seem to matter.”
Saturday, October 09, 2010
By Rene Romo
Journal Southern Bureau
LAS CRUCES — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will postpone until sometime next year the planned release of a pack of eight Mexican gray wolves in eastern Arizona.
One conservation organization lamented the delay as a setback to increasing the number and genetic diversity of wild-roaming lobos.
Before some of the endangered predators were released in the forests of eastern Arizona in 1998, federal officials expected the wild wolf population to grow to 100 by the end of 2006. But the wolf count at the end of 2009 was 42, down from 52 in 2008, and federal officials have expressed concern that a lack of genetic diversity in the wild wolves might have affected the size of litters.
Terry Johnson, endangered species coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, said the primary reason for the delay was the discovery in mid-September of several uncollared, and previously uncounted, wolves in the targeted release area of Engineer Springs.
Releasing captive wolves in territory already inhabited by a wolf pack would likely spell trouble for the new wolves trying to get accustomed to their new surroundings, Johnson said.
“The best news is there appears to be more wolves than we thought on the landscape,” Johnson said. He added, “You don’t put naive wolves out on the landscape on top of wolves that are already there.”
Michael Robinson, a Pinos Altos-based conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, said not releasing a new pack in an area already inhabited by wolves is a valid decision, but he said the release has been delayed for months in the face of concerns raised by ranchers to Arizona officials.
“There are other areas where these wolves could be released, and they are badly needed,” Robinson said. He noted that over the last four years federal officials have only released one Mexican wolf into the wild that had not previously been captured and removed.
Read more: ABQJOURNAL NEWS/STATE: Wolf Release in Ariz. Postponed Until 2011 http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/090590state10-09-10.htm#ixzz13VDBO95S
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