Sunday, August 31, 2003 

By Tania Soussan
Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer
    Two years have passed since scientists recommended fundamental changes to the Mexican wolf reintroduction program in the Southwest.
    So far, few of their major suggestions have been met.
    Even now, as a five-year review of the reintroduction program is at hand, controversy persists over the unresolved recommendations made in the three-year review.
    The scientists said in 2001 that the program should immediately change its rules to allow the endangered wolves to roam outside the government's recovery area boundaries.
    They said ranchers should be required to take some responsibility for cattle carcasses that could attract hungry wolves. They also said the wolf recovery plan should be revised by June 2002 with clear goals for getting wolves off the federal government's endangered species list.
    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not yet proposed any change to the boundary rule. It has not made ranchers responsible for carcasses. And the agency is just beginning work on the updated recovery plan.
    The Mexican wolf program aims to establish a population of 100 wild wolves in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The lobos were hunted to the brink of extinction in the early 1900s.
    Measuring the reintroduction program's success so far is difficult.
   
How many wolves?
    The goal was to have a total of 11 packs and 55 wolves in the wild by the end of this year. There are roughly 30 radio-collared wolves in the wild now. But biologists believe there are many more wolves out there because an unknown number of juveniles and pups do not have collars.
    "There's no doubt we're moving toward recovery," said acting program manager Colleen Buchanan. "I'm very optimistic about the wolf program."
    Others have their doubts.
    Twenty-four conservation, animal protection, religious and community groups have asked the government to heed the warnings of the panel of scientists that reviewed the program several years ago.
    The scientists said two years ago that the Fish and Wildlife Service's "control program"— the way it manages the wolves— is endangering individual animals and the entire species.
    Meanwhile, ranchers and county government leaders are suing the Fish and Wildlife Service. They say the agency did not adequately consider the potential for livestock depredation and wolves hybridizing with other canines.
    They have asked a federal judge to ban new wolf releases and order all wolves removed from the wild until the service meets its obligations.
    The debate reflects the complexity of endangered species reintroduction programs. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists cannot base their decisions solely on what would be best for the wolves. By federal law, they also have to consider impacts on ranchers and other people in the area.
   
Fixing an imbalance
    Environmentalists believe the current rules favor ranchers and don't do enough to protect the wolves.
    Ranchers see it differently.
    "The way the rules are set up, they are stacked against the livestock industry," said Howard Hutchinson, executive director of the Glenwood-based Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties for Stable Economic Growth.
    "The only way the wolf recovery program will have any chance of success at all is to have local buy-in from the people who live in the area and have to deal with it," he said.
    Michael Robinson, a Pinos Altos resident and representative of the Center for Biological Diversity, agreed that local community needs must be considered. But he said the current balance is tipped in favor of ranchers.
    "There's got to be some attempt at coexistence, but that effort hasn't been made," he said.
    Buchanan said the scientists' recommendations are being weighed along with funding, other priorities and public input.
    Dale Hall, Southwest regional manager of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said it has taken time for him to understand the nuances of the wolf program since coming to Albuquerque early last year.
    He also said some of the issues raised by the scientists should be addressed as the new recovery plan is written. But he said their recommendations are not off the table.
    John Vucetich, a research assistant professor at Michigan Technological University and one of the scientists who did the three-year review of the wolf program, said other changes are overdue.
    "It's disappointing that they haven't done much or anything, and it's not even clear why," he said.
    Another of the reviewers, Mike Phillips, the first lead scientist for wolf restoration in Yellowstone National Park, said he also stands by the recommendations.
    "A comprehensive review today would show many of those recommendations are still called for," he said.
    The Arizona and New Mexico state game departments endorsed the scientists' recommendations as "scientifically valid." But they said that was only part of the story.
    "Some of the recommendations do not adequately reflect social and cultural issues," their report stated. "There is no such thing as 'pure science' in an endangered species reintroduction."
    Phillips agreed reintroduction programs must consider social factors. But he said he and the other scientists were asked to weigh a narrow set of questions.
    "There's a trade-off between making rules that make sense for the biology and making rules that are politically acceptable," Vucetich added.
    Chuck Hayes, assistant chief of the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, said more people are accepting the fact they will have to live with wolves.
    "I think it's on track," he said of the program. "I don't think there's a wolf program that's going to go on without wrinkles."
   
An unseen line
    Current rules require the recapture of wolves that cross over an invisible line marking the boundary of their recovery area.
    The scientists said that doesn't make sense because wolves roam over large distances and limiting the recovery area needlessly excludes good habitat. They said the policy is not consistent with other wolf reintroduction programs or with wildlife management in general.
    They also said ranchers should be made responsible for livestock carcasses that wolves can scavenge on, acquiring a taste for domestic animals.
    Leaving carcasses on public land is irresponsible, Vucetich said.
    "We know that asking ranchers to adopt a potentially more complex husbandry program could be a royal pain in the ass," Phillips said. But he said a change is needed.
    In the federal government's Northern Rockies wolf reintroduction program, for example, ranchers bear some responsibility for removing livestock carcasses from federal lands so they do not attract wolves.
    Another change the scientists recommended was quickly updating the recovery plan for the Mexican gray wolf— the document that should set goals for getting wolves off the endangered species list.
    The service is just now putting together the team to rewrite the plan, which is more than two decades old and based on old science.
    "The critical question is at what level does the population reach a self-sustainable mode," Hall said.
    The current recovery plan does not set any criteria for getting the wolves off the endangered list, so-called "delisting." Federal biologists often refer to the reintroduction program goal of 100 wolves re-established in the wild as a recovery goal, but it is not an official benchmark.
    The number likely will be higher once the new plan is written.
    "Anyone will say 100 of anything is not a recovered population," Buchanan said.
    Getting wolves off the endangered list will be good for everyone, Hall said.
    "We really don't have a choice," he said. "We have to find a way. If the wolf stays not recovered, then it's going to continue to be, in the agricultural community's mind, an onerous situation and, in the environmental community's mind, an onerous situation."
    Recovery or delisting would mean the wolves no longer face extinction and would allow ranchers more flexibility in dealing with the predators.
   
Series of setbacks
    Environmentalists say the reintroduction program rules are so restrictive that the wild wolf population is declining and the species is not moving toward recovery.
    "We have a control program masquerading as a recovery program," Robinson said.
    He said there is a long list of examples of how the Mexican wolves have suffered because of recaptures and other measures in Arizona and New Mexico: