Good News for Mexican Gray Wolves

We've had a tough time down here in Southwest New Mexico and Eastern Arizona reintroducing the Mexican Gray Wolf. I've written several posts on the topic of El Lobo's return from the brink of extinction. We should have over 100 wolves in the wild at this point in the recovery process but at last count we had only 52. We do another count in January and hopefully we'll have more.

Earlier this month we got a big boost in the recovery effort. The US Fish and Wildlife Service rescinded a controversial rule that had resulted in removal of wolves from the wild after three confirmed livestock kills. The so called SOP 13 had resulted in the removal of wolves without any consideration about their genetic importance or whether they were raising pups. 

 

The other important aspect of this decision is that the USFWS will assume control over that assortment of state and tribal agencies involved with the recovery effort. Too often in the past ...

local agencies, in my opinion, had favored local livestock interests over those of the wolves. The next step is for the USFWS to revise the entire recovery plan to one that actually favors wolf recovery over livestock production.

 

The livestock producers in our area are adamantly opposed to wolf recovery. I'm not sure why, exactly, but I think part of it stems from the long history of predator removal in the west. For many, many years federal agencies attempted to remove predators to make the woods safe for cows.

 

Now that most of us want to reintroduce large predators wildlife interests feel like they are under attack.

 

Statistics indicate that livestock producers have very little to fear from wolves. In a 2005 study less only 0.11% of livestock losses were from wolf predation. Coyotes were responsible for 22 times as many losses and domestic dogs killed 5 times as many cows as wolves.

 

Far and away the largest source of livestock loss is disease. Respiratory disease, GI problems and calving problems are the three largest causes of loss. Wolves are way, way, down the list as you can see in this graph.

 

In addition to that, Defenders of Wildlife have a Wolf Compensation Trust that compensates livestock producers at market price for confirmed wolf kills. The USFWS is developing a compensation program for livestock producers, too.

 

Defenders has developed a program with input from livestock producers on non lethal management tools that can help ranchers and wolves co-exist. This program asks livestock owners to be responsible for their livestock. 

 

In my part of the country, most of the conflict occurs where livestock are grazed on federal land leased by livestock producers. That may come as a surprise to many of you. It's not like on TV where ranchers like Ben Cartwright run cows on their own Ponderosa. Nope, they raise their cows on our National Forests and BLM lands. The same forests where we are trying to reintroduce original inhabitants like El Lobo. 

 

In many cases public lands grazing in the west is nothing more than a subsidy to the agriculture industry and many of us wonder if it's money well spent. Less that 1% of income and employment in the eleven western states comes from public lands grazing and less than 3 % of the national beef supply comes from public lands grazing in these same states. 

 

Seems to me like livestock interests and wolves can coexist in the west. To do so requires cooperation from wildlife interests and livestock producers. Both groups can and should work together. All it takes is the willingness to do so.