Wildlife group threatens suit against feds to protect jaguar

June 13, 2010
By admin

by Glen Creno – Jun. 13, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
A wildlife group is gearing up for a fight to force the federal government to better protect jaguars, although the big cats have virtually disappeared from the country.
The Center for Biological Diversity wants the Wildlife Services division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop the trapping, snaring and poisoning of nuisance predators that could result in the killing or endangering of jaguars and ocelots in the Southwest. Spokesman Michael Robinson said the group is concerned about anti-predator efforts in Arizona, New Mexico and possibly Texas.
“They’re not targeting jaguars, but if they’re setting up a snare for a mountain lion, there’s a chance a jaguar could end up in that snare,” he said.
A lawsuit could come as soon as mid-July. At the end of April, the conservation group gave the government 60 days’ notice of its intent to sue. William Clay, Wildlife Services’ deputy administrator, replied on May 14, saying Wildlife Services had “reviewed your comments and will take them into consideration.”
The lawsuit threat comes in the wake of the death of a jaguar in Arizona. The animal, known as Macho B, was caught in southern Arizona in February 2009 during a state Game and Fish Department effort to capture and track mountain lions and bears.
A tracking collar was placed on Macho B, but he was recaptured less than two weeks later after those monitoring him thought his behavior was unusual. He was diagnosed with a kidney ailment and euthanized.
Game and Fish believed it was an inadvertent capture. However, Emil McCain of Patagonia recently pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Tucson to unlawfully luring Macho B into a snare with jaguar scat.
McCain previously had been a subcontractor for a guide service hired by Game and Fish to help with research, said Bob Miles, an agency spokesman. Miles emphasized the man was never a Game and Fish employee.
Robinson said the center’s anticipated lawsuit was not strictly motivated by the Macho B episode, though the “tragic fate of Macho B is certainly a factor.” The lawsuit notice alleges that Wildlife Services and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service have failed to consult on activities that would affect both the jaguar and the ocelot.
It also argues that a more than 10-year-old biological opinion on how jaguars can be affected by predator-control programs is outdated and that new scientific information shows that they need better protection.
The conservation group has a separate lawsuit pending against Game and Fish in the Macho B case. It alleges that the agency did not have the valid permit allowing it to inadvertently capture a jaguar in the bear and mountain-lion study.
The agency disagrees, Miles said. He declined to discuss the case further but said the agency cares a great deal about jaguar conservation.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/06/13/20100613jaguar-lawsuit.html#ixzz0qkKE4fd4

In plea, McCain admits telling co-worker to attempt to lure Macho B to snare site

May 15, 2010
By admin

Story
Tony Davis and Tim Steller Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Saturday, May 15, 2010 12:00 am

This February 2009 file photo shows the jaguar called Macho B shortly after its capture by researchers and Arizona Game and Fish officers. Photo courtesy of the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

The biologist at the center of the controversy over a jaguar’s capture and subsequent death last year admitted Friday in federal court that he tried to snare the animal, known as Macho B.
Emil McCain pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor crime: illegal take of an endangered species. To “take” means to knowingly harass, harm, pursue, trap or kill, in violation of the Federal Endangered Species Act, court records show.
McCain, 31, of Patagonia, was immediately sentenced to five years’ probation and fined $1,000.
In the plea agreement, McCain admitted an allegation that he had previously denied – that on Feb. 4, 2009, he told a female co-worker to place jaguar scat at snare sites in an effort to lure and capture the rare jaguar.
Previously, McCain had denied directing the woman, Janay Brun, with whom he worked on the nonprofit Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project, to place scat at the snare sites and said that if she did it, it was at her own initiative.
But Friday, he admitted to placing the scat or directing a woman to place the scat at three snare trap sites in an attempt to capture Macho B, the last known wild jaguar in the United States. He also admitted that he lacked permission to intentionally capture a jaguar.
The jaguar was found in the trap two weeks later by Arizona Game and Fish Department biologists working on what was supposed to have been a study of black bears and mountain lions.
“There was no authorization to intentionally capture a jaguar,” McCain wrote in his signed plea agreement.
The aging jaguar was radio-collared by Game and Fish and released, but after it slowed down in the wild, it was recaptured 12 days later and euthanized due to kidney problems.
Under McCain’s probation, he cannot be employed by or involved in any large-cat or large-carnivore project or study in the Unites States during that time.
When he leaves the country, he is allowed to be on unsupervised probation. McCain has worked as a biologist in Mexico, Spain and Costa Rica.
“He is done with the federal investigation and he has taken responsibility for whatever part he has in it,” said his Tucson attorney, Alfred Donau III.
Encountered Friday afternoon at the federal courthouse in Tucson, McCain declined to talk about the case and walked away from a reporter. He had made his plea to Federal Magistrate Bernardo Velasco.
Until Friday, it was unclear if McCain would face charges. But in a procedure sometimes used by prosecutors, McCain was charged, pleaded guilty and was sentenced all in one day.
The federal government has had a criminal investigation since April 2009 into questions such as whether the Endangered Species Act was violated in the capture of Macho B. The criminal investigation is continuing, said Winn Hornbuckle, a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman in Phoenix.
In late March 2009, Brun, a research technician with the Jaguar Detection project, alleged in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star that McCain had ordered her to put female scat at the trap site. McCain denied the charge at the time.
But Thornton “Thorry” Smith, then a biologist for Arizona Game and Fish, later told state investigators that McCain said scat had been placed at the sites of remote cameras near the eventual trap site. Originally, Game and Fish said the capture was accidental, occurring as part of its bear-lion study.
In his plea agreement Friday, McCain said he knew there had been recent evidence that a jaguar had appeared in the area of the snares. Photographs had been taken near the capture site in January 2009.
In his testimony to Game and Fish investigators, Smith admitted to lying to federal investigators about his role in the case – for which he was later fired – and concocting with McCain a coverup of the scat placement. But under the terms in which he testified, Smith can’t be prosecuted for what he told the state.
Brun may now face prosecution. On Friday, she said she had been told by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigator that she would receive a summons today to appear in federal court next Thursday in connection with the jaguar case.
Nicholas Chavez, the Wildlife Service’s Southwest law enforcement chief, said Brun is probably being summoned to face whatever charges the U.S. Attorney’s Office plans to bring against her. U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Hornbuckle declined to comment.
Brun said she was frustrated that McCain’s sentence wasn’t stiffer.
Because of Smith’s statement about the coverup and because of McCain’s involvement in other incidents in which jaguars died, “I don’t think he should be allowed to be near any big cat or any animal in any country,” said Brun.
In 2003, McCain worked on a jaguar capture in Sonora in which the animal died within a day after his release. McCain and another biologist acknowledged that they lacked proper training or equipment.
Last year, McCain worked in a project in the Mexican state of Yucatan in which two jaguars died shortly after their release from captivity. One died of causes never determined. The other was killed by people in the area, according to an account published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
On StarNet: More on the environment is at azstarnet.com/ news/science/environment
Contact reporter Tony Davis at 806-7746 or tdavis@azstarnet.com or Tim Steller at 807-8427 or tsteller@azstarnet.com
Posted in Crime, Environment, Tony-davis-and-tim-steller on Saturday, May 15, 2010 12:00 am Updated: 5:51 pm.

Environmental Groups Net $91,000 on Jaguar Habitat Litigation

March 22, 2010
By admin

Here’s The Moos…. For Immediate Release / March 22, 2010
From the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association
P.O. Box 7517 / Albuquerque, New Mexico 87194

For further information, contact: Caren Cowan
505.247.0584 phone / nmcga@nmagriculture.org email

Environmental Groups Net $91,000 on Jaguar Habitat Litigation
The federal government paid a total of $91,000 to environmental groups as part of settlement agreements in two lawsuits filed regarding designation of critical habitat for the jaguar.
“The amount of money — our tax dollars — that has gone and continues to go to these groups is unbelievable,” said Bert Ancell, New Mexico Cattle Growers Association (NMCGA) President, Bell Ranch. “How the government can continue to make these agreements, knowing that money will be used to fund yet another lawsuit against the federal government, is beyond me.”
The Center for Biological Diversity received $53,000 and the Defenders of Wildlife received $38,000 in settlement of a case they filed in 2008 to force the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat for the jaguar. The groups are pushing for the designation of 53 million acres of habitat in southern New Mexico and Arizona, for a species that is rarely seen north of the Mexican border.
Ancell is concerned about the impacts a critical habitat designation could have on natural resource users, including ranchers. “These designations are far-reaching, and could seriously impact ranching operations and rural economies in southern New Mexico and Arizona.”
“The cost of these lawsuits is staggering,” Ancell continued, “with no actual benefit to the species in question. These environmental groups file hundreds of lawsuits every year, forcing agencies to dedicate time, money and resources that could go to species benefit, instead it goes into the courtroom. Our tax dollars are used to defend the case, our tax dollars are used to settle the case and the environmental groups go out and file more lawsuits. None of this impacts the jaguar one way or the other – the species continues to do just fine in natural range — which does not include the southwestern United States. Jaguars need running water and a humid climate.”
Groups are able to ask for attorneys’ fees as part of the settlement of a lawsuit with the federal government under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) and other fee shifting statutes. EAJA was passed in the 1980s to ensure that private citizens’ and non-profits’ rights were protected. Today, however, well-funded environmental groups are using the legislation for profit, Ancell concluded.
The NMCGA has represented the beef industry in New Mexico and the West since 1914 and has members in all 33 of the state’s counties as well as some 14 other states. The Association participates in venues necessary to protect beef producers and private property rights including litigation, state and federal legislation and regulatory affairs.

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Every Day is Earth Day For Cattlemen

Center For Biological Diversity’s latest proposal for Jaguar Critical Habitat.

March 14, 2010
By admin

Protect Jaguar Habitat in Southwest Forests and Deserts

Jaguar Critical Habitat proposal CBD

Be afraid be very afraid. But don’t let it stop you from acting.

Jaguars evolved in North America before moving south to colonize Central and South America thousands of years ago. Historically, they were reported from California to the Carolinas. But clearing of forests, draining of wetlands, and introduction of livestock — coupled with shooting, trapping, and poisoning — pushed jaguars out of the United States.

Critical habitat — the areas necessary for the species’ recovery — should be designated in the Sky Island mountain ranges of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, where jaguars have been seen and photographed in recent years. The areas between these isolated mountains should also be designated as critical habitat to ensure that jaguar travel is not impeded.

The Gila headwaters ecosystem in west-central New Mexico, along with the adjoining Mogollon Rim in Arizona, should also be designated as critical habitat. The last known female jaguar in the United States was killed in this area in 1963.

Please submit comments in support of the Center’s proposal to designate critical habitat for the endangered jaguar today — the deadline is Monday, March 15.
Suggested Language for letter
Please designate critical habitat for jaguars throughout the entirety of the Sky Islands and the Gila/Mogollon Rim regions of Arizona and New Mexico.

I also support critical habitat for jaguars in portions of other regions such as southeastern New Mexico, West Texas, and Southern California.

The Sky Islands ecosystem consists of isolated mountain ranges that have long been inhabited by jaguars. As recently as last March, jaguar “Macho B” was known to live and roam in the Pajarito, Atascosa, Tumacacori, and Baboquivari Mountains. Other jaguars have been confirmed in the Chiricahua, Peloncillo, and Animas Mountains. These and other sky islands, along with the desert lands between them, have been identified by the Jaguar Conservation Team as potential jaguar habitat, providing habitat for jaguar prey such as deer and javelina.

Please also designate the Gila National Forest in New Mexico and the Mogollon Rim in Arizona, along with adjoining lands, as critical habitat. These uplands with vast coniferous forests supporting deer, elk, and javelina were home to the last known female jaguar and possible jaguar reproduction up till the 1960s. The Gila and Mogollon Rim were also identified as potential jaguar habitat by the Jaguar Conservation Team.

Other undeveloped areas in southeastern New Mexico, West Texas, and Southern California should also be designated as critical habitat for jaguars.

Thank you for your consideration.

Docket # FWS-R2-ES-2009-0091

Judy Keeler and Sue Krentz take on Michael Robinson of the Center Biological Diversity over Jaguar Logic.

February 26, 2010
By admin

http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/guest_columns/262159460385opinionguestcolumns02-26-10.htm

Friday, February 26, 2010

Jaguars Must Have Recovery Plan

By Michael J. Robinson
Center for Biological Diversity
After many years of delay, a court ruling has established that the American jaguar will receive the legal and practical benefits of a recovery plan and critical habitat designation. The Endangered Species Act requires these measures to recover the jaguar and to conserve its ecosystems.
This decision follows the unanimous support of the American Society of Mammalogists, the world’s most prestigious scientific body studying mammals, at their 87th annual meeting which took place at the University of New Mexico in 2007. The society endorsed development of a recovery plan and designation of critical habitat, stating that “habitats for jaguars in the United States, including Arizona and New Mexico, are vital to the long-term resilience and survival of the species.”
Despite the jaguar’s popular image as a jungle icon, these spotted cats first evolved in the United States before colonizing Central and South America thousands of years ago. In historical times, they were reported in Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Ancient and more recent Indian rock-art and traditional stories from the Southeast, Midwest, Southwest and the Pacific coast also evoke and describe jaguars.
Jaguars disappeared from the United States through clearing of forests, draining of wetlands and introduction of livestock, coupled with shooting, trapping and poisoning. The last known female jaguar north of the border with Mexico was shot by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sniper in 1963 in the Apache National Forest in Arizona — where Mexican gray wolves have since been reintroduced.
Almost always unobserved, tigres keep walking back across our border, sometimes apprehended in stirring trip-camera photos depicting robust, beautifully-patterned animals. This month, a newly identified jaguar, sex unknown, was photographed in Sonora just 30 miles south of Arizona.
The best known of those jaguars, Macho B, was euthanized in March after being caught in a snare set by the Arizona Game and Fish Department. The Interior Department reported last month that the snaring was “intentional” for jaguars and represented “criminal wrongdoing.”
Macho B’s untimely death was the final act for the Orwellianly-named “Jaguar Conservation Team,” some of whose principals may have been central to the still unfolding investigation into how this 13-year resident of southern Arizona ended up in an ultimately fatal snare.
Founded in 1997 by Arizona Game and Fish, the Jaguar Conservation Team was intended to demonstrate that a “stakeholder” model works better for wildlife than the traditional model of citizens and government adhering to the law — in this case the Endangered Species Act.
The heart of the team, officially comprising state, federal, and local government agencies, is the public lands livestock industry — the same industry for which the same set of government agencies had for many decades worked together to exterminate jaguars, wolves and other wildlife.
The conservation team opposed critical habitat designation, and for many years bent the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to its will by promising to voluntarily “coordinate protection of jaguar habitat.” But over the years the livestock industry successfully blocked habitat protection.
Though the team touted its “interagency cooperation,” the Department of Homeland Security rarely attended its meetings even as it constructed a jaguar-proof wall across much of the border. Jaguar reports often went uninvestigated.
The team also pledged to reduce “overutilization of jaguars for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes.” Yet other U.S. jaguars aside from Macho B are thought to be dead after being chased to Mexico by houndsmen.
Contrary to assertions, the state penalties for illegally killing a jaguar in New Mexico and Arizona are precisely the same as they have been for years; new laws that purportedly upgraded state penalties actually only apply if jaguars are removed from the federal endangered species list.
The Endangered Species Act provides the only real, on-the-ground protection for jaguars, and its record attests to even greater conservation effectiveness once critical habitat is designated. Species with their critical habitat protected have been shown to be twice as likely as those without to be making progress toward recovery. A recovery plan is a scientific road map to rescuing an endangered species and securing its long-term survival.
The Endangered Species Act can recover the jaguar and in so doing can help conserve the broader web of life. As the venerable American Society of Mammalogists put it, “ecosystems in the United States in which jaguars formerly occurred are not intact without the sustained presence of jaguars.”
Michael Robinson represents the Center for Biological Diversity in Silver City and is author of “Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West.”
________________________________________

http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/guest_columns/21215227opinion02-21-10.htm

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Lawsuits Don’t Help Animals

By Sue Krentz And Judy Keeler
Border Area Ranchers
On Feb. 18, 2009, biologists, conducting a cougar and bear study in southern Arizona, were excited when Macho B, a jaguar repeatedly photographed over a 13-year period, was found in one of their traps.
One of the highest research priorities of the Arizona/New Mexico Jaguar Conservation Team was to capture and radio-collar a jaguar wandering into the United States from Mexico in order to get detailed information on the animal’s habitat use and movement patterns.
Macho B, estimated to be about 15 years old, was fitted with a tracking collar and released back into the wild.
Biologists had to make the sad decision to euthanize the jaguar when, 10 days after his release, he began to show signs of weakening.
After his unfortunate demise, protests were staged, articles were written, and another lawsuit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity.
Macho B’s death was a disappointment to everyone, but to say, in some media reports, the Team failed to include all stakeholders, failed to make progress on many of its goals, and failed to improve conservation of jaguars is disingenuous.
In an effort to involve all affected stakeholders, the Jaguar Conservation Team organized in March 1997. It was a revolutionary concept, meant to involve all interest groups, including the New Mexico and Arizona game and fish and state land departments; the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service. It also included several counties and an assortment of conservation organizations and ranchers.
When the jaguar was listed as endangered in the United States, little was known about jaguar biology, population trends, distribution, abundance, demographics or genetics.
The conservation team’s task was to develop a strategy to protect jaguars that might wander into the borderlands.
In October 1997, a voluntary Jaguar Scientific Advisory Group, consisting of wildlife biologists well known for their jaguar research, was enlisted to help provide the most current information and best available science.
After studying big cats for more than two decades, Alan Rabinowitz, a leading jaguar authority and an advisory group member, concluded there “was no area in the Southwestern United States that was critical for the survival of the jaguar … since the more open, dry habitats of the southwest are marginal for the jaguar in terms of water, cover and prey density.”
Most biologists agreed that, “if there had been a resident breeding population of jaguars in the U.S. in the recent past, it was probably a very small population, short-lived, and not viable.”
The conservation team learned the nearest core population of jaguars was at the confluence of three rivers in Mexico, about 135 miles south of Douglas, Ariz. The biologists believed this population was in imminent danger and struggling to survive.
In an effort to protect jaguars wandering into New Mexico and Arizona, legislation was passed in both states to comply with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruling that the primary threat to jaguars in the United States was illegal killing. This legislation was supported by the state wildlife agencies and the ranching community.
In 2008, in an effort to protect jaguar habitat in Mexico, Fish and Wildlife provided a matching grant of $147,334.25 to the Northern Jaguar Project to purchase a 35,000-acre ranch in Mexico.
Regardless of these local efforts, a few radical conservation organizations seemed to have another agenda. It appeared their goal was to force critical habitat in the United States.
With the recent determination by Fish and Wildlife that critical habitat for jaguars is now prudent, the agency has no choice but appoint a federal recovery team, map “critical habitat” and develop a formal recovery plan which will include a regulatory framework that will force compliance upon the people who live and work in these areas.
No more hidden agendas! The plan behind the lawsuits, protests and media coverage is the Wildlands Network, a system of wildlife reserves with corridors running between.
The center’s lawsuits are not meant to protect jaguars, wolves, polar bears, bats or any other “endangered” species. These animals are just the surrogates to implement the “network.” The Endangered Species Act is their tool and the citizen’s lawsuit provision is the means by which radical “conservation” organizations will continue to hammer the economies of the small, rural communities that must live under their “rewilding” scheme.
The threats, extreme ultimatums and lawsuits do nothing to protect endangered species, or their habitat. The perpetual litigation benefits only a few radical organizations. It continues, however, to frustrate the small, rural communities that must live under their threats.
Sue Krentz and her husband Rob ranch in the Chiricahua Mountains in Southeast Arizona. Judy Keeler and her husband Murray ranch in the Peloncillo Mountains in Southwest New Mexico. Both were members of the Jaguar Conservation Team for 13 years.

New Jaguar Sighting Boosts AZ Wilderness Protection Efforts

February 26, 2010
By admin

February 25th, 2010
Public News Service (AZ)
Doug Ramsey
Thursday, February 25, 2010

TUCSON, Ariz. – Conservationists say a recent remote-camera photo of an endangered jaguar 30 miles south of the Mexico/Arizona border confirms the need for preserving more of Arizona’s remaining wild lands. Jaguars are known to roam from Argentina northward to Arizona and New Mexico.
Biologist Sergio Avila, northern Mexico conservation program coordinator with Tucson-based Sky Island Alliance, says the new sighting means this jaguar could easily be crossing into Arizona.
“A jaguar can move 30 miles in one day. That’s not a challenge. The challenge is to find open corridors and then get to habitat that’s protected and that these animals can occupy and thrive in.”
Sky Island Alliance supports a bill sponsored by Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva to secure wilderness protection for the Tumacacori Highlands south of Tucson. The primary opposition has come from area mining interests.
Avila says the most important factor in protecting jaguars is to protect their habitat on public lands.
“Wilderness designation is the most effective tool to protect habitat – not only for jaguars but for all the species that live within the habitat of a jaguar. And that would include their wild prey, such as deer or javelina.”
Avila says it is a misconception that conservationists are seeking to create large populations of jaguars in concentrated areas.
“The nature of the endangered jaguar is of an elusive, solitary animal with large territories.”
In a recent reversal of policy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has committed to developing a recovery plan and “designated critical habitat” for the jaguar.

http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/12834-1

Candice Berner Killed by Wolf Pack 2009

February 20, 2010
By admin

Up and Coming Folk Musician Killed by Coyote/wolf hybrids Novia Scotia

October 30, 2009
By admin

So wolves don’t bother people? The following news reports and video’s say otherwise.

November 30, 2007
By admin

Children stalked

Where Wolves Walk Danger Stalks.

November 14, 2007
By admin

Laura Schneberger

2188 words

Fearless wolves have long been the blot on wolf recovery and protection efforts. Habituation to both livestock and people has become the main reason for removal from the Mexican wolf program. This recovery program is located along the border region of Southeastern Arizona’s Apache Sitgreeves National Forest and in Southwestern New Mexico in the Gila National Forest. Because the US Fish and Wildlife Service have come to depend on problem wolves as prime candidates for re-release back into the small recovery area, permanent removal of problem wolves is rarely considered an option in spite of behavior. The thinking among biologists involved in the program is that the wolves that show signs of behavior problems can be rehabilitated if they are just used in the right spot.

Fall has been an especially difficult time for folks who live on in-holdings within the Gila National forest, there have been numerous run-ins with both single wolves and packs of the animals in the small towns and hunting areas located in and around the recovery area. Hunters have reported more encounters with Mexican wolves as the animals spread throughout the region and ranchers are loosing more and more livestock to wolf predation. But worse, from late august to late October human encounters with habituated wolves have been on the rise. It has become apparent from the reports of wolf encounters that the official agency tally of the animals in the wild has been severely under counted.

J.C. Nelson experienced a wolf encounter with members of the Luna pack on October 22 while hiking with his dad and some neighbors near Reserve New Mexico. It was near the end of elk season and while other members of the party scouted for elk, and hung around camp, J.C. did what many fourteen year old boys do in the back country, he took off by himself to get away from the adults for a while. J.C. is an experienced outdoorsman and at fourteen has spent the better part of his life in the Gila. His dad allows him to carry a rifle when he is in the woods, something that has become increasingly necessary in wolf country.

While concentrating on climbing over downed trees left by a recent forest fire J.C. looked up to find three Mexican wolves stalking him. The young man instinctively, positioned himself with his back against a large nearby ponderosa pine tree. The first wolf moved in front of him and stood about 30 feet away. It was black and wore a radio collar, the other two wolves split up, one went right, the other left. They circled around behind him and the big tree he stood against. Because the area he was in was covered in downed trees where a forest fire had burned and the timber had been left to waste, there was no where for him to go so he loaded his rifle and waited.

J.C. says the wolf in front just stared at him and stayed where it was for a full six to ten minutes. He said the two that circled behind him paced back and forth and that he could only see them from time to time with his back to the tree. After a while, the wolf in front of him began pacing too then it slowly walked towards the dark tree line, the others followed it. The entire close encounter lasted between five to ten minutes.

It appeared to be over after the wolves walked into the trees, so J.C. eased away from the tree he had used for cover. Keeping an eye on the retreating wolves, he moved slowly to a nearby open area where he could see the surrounding country better. There were cattle nearby, so he stayed with them thinking that the cows would alert him if the wolves began following him again. Knowing his dad was close J.C. began yelling for him, then stopped because he began to be afraid the wolves might locate him again. Instead, he walked at a fast pace to the road, and once there, he ran back to the pickup truck.

Joe Nelson was nearby, and though he had not heard J.C. yell, Joe described his son as shaking and visibly upset when he found him at the truck.

J.C. Nelson was raised in the woods and lived on ranches all his life. He has worked alongside his father on the family’s cattle ranch. He says he felt threatened when he was surrounded by the wolves.

“I didn’t know if I could shoot them since they are endangered, and I didn’t want my dad to go to jail.” Joe Nelson did not report the incident to the Fish and Wildlife Service and instead called Jess Carey the Catron County wolf interaction investigator. He felt that since there were no visible marks on his son, the federal agency would do little.

Joe said, “Why bother with them, they won’t do anything anyway.”

This was not the most recent Mexican wolf encounter in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area but it is by far one of the most serious. Had J.C. Nelson not been armed, had he been a boy with no background in wildlife, had he tried to run from the wolves, this incident could have been a tragedy.

Depending on who you speak to about habituated Mexican wolves, you will hear different attitudes about why their behavior is hardly ever the same as what passes for public education programs have described. One biologist even described a similar encounter with wolves as simple curiosity. But biologists on the outskirts of this program find the encounters with the wolves used in the program troubling when they learn of them. One even bucked common wolf education theories and described such incidents as prey testing and described J.C. as having saved his own life by not panicking.

Fish and Wildlife Service employees involved in the Mexican wolf program often just ignore the problems and hope they go away.

Carolyn Nelson, J.C’s mother, was shaken herself after the story was relayed to her by her husband. “I can’t stop thinking about what could have happened to him, he had to climb over so many downed trees to get back to the truck. There was really no way he could have gotten away if they had decided not to leave him alone,” She says.

She also thinks about a Canadian family who lost their son to a wolf pack a year ago. “That young man died and my son walked away from this encounter.”

More and more people are dealing with wolves as recovery efforts become more successful and Carolyn pays attention to the recovery, she knows what is happening in other areas where wolves reside. “There are people who have been attacked by their own pet wolves and even killed. Our Fish and Wildlife are releasing wolves that are used to people and have already killed livestock.” Wild wolves have attacked people in Canada, a month or so ago, a wild wolf attacked 6 people in one day. Carolyn feels the government biologists are playing fast and loose with the well being of her community. She states. “People’s safety just isn’t important anymore.”

J.C. has not been the first rural child that has encountered a wolf pack while living their day to day lives. Fourteen year old Ivy Schneberger had a similar experience with a pair of wolves on her family’s ranch in Sierra County in 2003. She remembers riding bareback on her mare when two wolves held her up on the road about a mile from her home. She was armed and able to use her single shot 22 rifle to let them know she meant business about them leaving her alone. When they finally did, ease away into a nearby canyon, she hurried home not even getting off her mare to close the gate a real no no in ranch country. J.C’s experience with the wolf pack brought it all back to her. She remembers shaking uncontrollably for an hour after the incident and having bad dreams about it. Eighteen now, she is still worries about riding fence alone in some of the more remote areas of the ranch.

Ty Gatlin knows all about wolves, the nine year old lost his pet hound and the families valued hunting hound to a wolf attack last July. When the dog was found, it was barely alive its wounds so horrendous, that Ty’s dad, Don Gatlin put it down.

“I don’t feel like cooperating with them works,” says Don when talking about dealing with the Fish and Wildlife Service. I told them for eight months there is a wolf coming in to our house and they take the information and do nothing. If I had just shot it and not said anything, I would have spared my three little kids and my wife from having to deal with this.” Don too feels like the agency in charge of the program treats his family like second class citizens. While he is still angry, Don has been cooperating and the agency has made some limited attempts to trap and collar the lone wolf that haunts their home and has attacked two more dogs.

Ty’s mother Carlie has allowed him to carry a pocket knife so he feels better about being in wolf country. She keeps all of the children close to the house knowing she can’t just lock them up all the time. She knows Ty has to have some idea he can protect himself. She is sad that her children are confined, and troubled that the agency seems to care little about them. Don and Carlie and their kids aren’t new to the wolf scene, they have had wolf packs on the ranch for at least six years, nearly all of Ty’s young life. A few years ago, Carlie wrecked her pickup on an icy road at night and walked home carrying her three year old. Then six years old, Ty walked with a bleeding gash on his head. A phone call from a friend in town alerted Don that something was wrong and he found them walking home after the wreck. The next morning Carlie was taken to the hospital with a concussion. On the way the family discovered a disturbing scene. There were wolf tracks in the snow following the family’s footprints down the road.

One thing is certain, Mexican wolves are making a comeback and the official reports of thirty to forty animals are misleading in the eyes of those who live in the region and encounter the wolves in the wild. They have even become a common sight along the highway between the small towns of Glenwood, Reserve, Cruzeville and Aragon. The sightings prompt concern for the children who wait at the bus stops and became so pervasive to daily life that County officials have contracted their own social psychological and economic analysis of the situation.

A brief synopsis of an interim but still confidential psychological assessment was released at a County meeting held on October 26. The preliminary result of the affect of near constant wolf encounters and depredations includes the following. Insomnia in both adults and children- Nightmares in adults and children- Daily life changes and stressors -Feelings about the potential loss of livelihoods and financial insolvency -Varying degrees of psychological trauma -Varying degrees of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) –Varying degrees of Clinical depression – Chronic fear for the welfare & safety of their family members – Chronic feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.

These are only a few of the many Mexican wolf encounters. Terry Johnson, Mexican Wolf reintroduction team leader for the Arizona Game and Fish feels that parents are teaching their children to fear wolves. John Oakleaf, team leader for the Fish and Wildlife Service had this to say about J.C.’s encounter.

“The management approach for Nuisance Behavior and wolf-human interactions is laid out within SOP 13.0. None of the preceding events would suggest removal or a consistent pattern of nuisance behavior per SOP 13.0.” He is referring not to the Rule governing the 8 year old program but to policies written in recent years to assist the agency in making management decisions. SOP 13 defines a set of protocol used by the agency to decide on whether to act on problem wolf behavior.

Apparently accosting children is not on that list of protocol to be concerned about.

The program releases human raised wolves in the blue range wolf recovery area, it is only a small step from the wild to habituated behavior. The wolves have both livestock as easy prey and to people as a perceived food source.

The agency expects these hand raised wolves to become wild, eventually. Habituated wolves are often destroyed in any other part of North America. In the southwest, especially in ranch country, personal well being and even a personal safety of human beings has been sacrificed to the importance of Mexican wolf recovery.

Mexican wolf Petition please sign here.

Northern wolf petition please sign.

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