Fifteen years after returning to the wild, Mexican gray wolves still battle bureaucracy
by Tim Vanderpool

It was amid great fanfare and smoldering trepidation that Mexican gray wolves were released into the wilds of Arizona and New Mexico, mere decades after their near annihilation by the very government now setting them free.

Yet that reintroduction came only after a lawsuit forced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to finally act, more than 20 years after declaring the animal endangered. And even today the wolf recovery program barely limps along, with any real progress prodded by litigation.

This ambivalent spirit has contributed to mysterious poaching incidents, and perhaps to this spring’s unexplained wolf shooting by a staffer with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services.

Adding to the dismal situation, say critics, are Arizona Game and Fish officials who often seem mere lackeys to the cattle-ranching industry, which would like to see wolves removed from the range entirely.

In the past, this ambivalence has also led to boundaries beyond which wolves are not allowed to roam—lest they be removed—and has instituted a dysfunctional management regime that seemed doomed from the start.

As a result, there are currently only 75 Mexican gray wolves in the wild, all sharing a shrinking genetic pool that could seal their fate. Nor does it help that the Fish and Wildlife’s progress on a bona fide wolf recovery plan remains mired in stasis. Even the recovery planning team has failed to meet for more than a year, according to team member and Defenders of Wildlife Southwest program director Eva Sargent.

To her, it’s high time for Fish and Wildlife to get on the stick. “Immediately, the service needs to release more wolves from captivity,” she says. “And I don’t mean two or three, to begin this process of genetic rescue.

More: read the full article in the Tucson Weekly here.