Friday, May 30, 2003

Feds Kill First Wolf Since Reintroduction

By Jeff Jones
Journal Staff Writer
    A Mexican gray wolf known as Alpha Female 592 this week became the first of the endangered species shot and killed by the federal government since wolf reintroduction efforts in the Southwest started five years ago.
    The 4-year-old wolf — which had been captured in 2001 after notching up five calf killings — was re-released deep into the Gila Wilderness of southwestern New Mexico last month but made its way to the Rafter Spear Ranch near Winston in Catron County.
    U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Victoria Fox said Thursday the wolf wounded a calf there and eluded attempts to capture it — a fate that had befallen AF592's mate on May 21.
    The female wolf was shot dead Tuesday evening on the Catron County ranch by a member of the state and federal team that is handling the wolf reintroduction program.
    Rafter Spear Ranch owner Laura Schneberger said Thursday the wolf and its mate killed a total three calves and wounded two others. She added it was a "very bad idea" to re-release a wolf that had proven itself a cow-killer.
    "I'm very glad they dealt with it," Schneberger said, "but I'd just as soon she put her foot in a trap and was back in captivity. It just is a tragic thing. Everybody just feels bad."
    Michael Robinson, spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Thursday the killing of AF592 was the result of a series of missteps by the federal government.
    "They should not have killed her," Robinson said. "It's a terrible precedent."
    Although several of the endangered Mexican gray wolves have been illegally shot, hit by vehicles and have died of natural causes since the first batch of 11 wolves was released into eastern Arizona in 1998, Fox confirmed that AF592 was the first Mexican gray to be shot by the government since the effort began.
    She said the killing was a low point in the program but was necessary.
    The Fish and Wildlife service estimates there are now at least 34 wolves in southwestern New Mexico and eastern Arizona, where they were thought to have been once hunted to extinction. The agency hopes wolves that denned this spring have added more to the current total.
    The wolf killed this week was pregnant at the time of its release on April 18, but its litter was believed to have been lost sometime before it was shot, Fox said.
    The shooting and capture leaves New Mexico with two packs totalling an estimated six wolves.
    "Her lack of fear of humans and the continued interest in cattle is why this decision was made — to exercise the lethal control action," Fox said. "(We) all feel some responsibility. We also have a responsibility to the rancher, and we have a responsibility to ensure these wolves are out there being good, wild wolves."
    Robinson said the wolf, which had initially been released three years ago in Arizona, was recaptured later that same year for committing only one transgression: crossing an invisible line designating the boundary of the wolf-recovery area.
    "Wolves roam vast distances — that's part of their nature," he said. "The rule that requires them to be removed doesn't take into account (that) they need to roam those vast distances."
    Environmentalists have said wild wolves are learning bad habits because ranchers are allowed to leave livestock carcasses on public land, and Robinson's group has threatened to sue the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management over the issue.
    "She got a taste for beef — and she began killing cattle," Robinson said of the wolf shot this week.
    Schneberger estimated the two wolves traveled 35-40 miles to get to her ranch.
    After the attacks on the cows began, a Fish and Wildlife Service worker began sleeping outside with the Rafter Spear Ranch herd, Schneberger said.
    "He spent the nights out in the middle of our herd of cows," she said. "They got one right out from underneath his nose."
    Schneberger said the female left the ranch for a few days after her mate was trapped but promptly returned.
    "There was a real problem brewing with this animal," she said.
    Fox said the fate of the trapped alpha male, known as AM648, has yet to be decided.