Defenders' Experts
El Lobo: Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery
Date Filed: 10/22/2008
Case Status: Active
Defenders of Wildlife v. Tuggle
Defenders challenges the US Fish and Wildlife Service's 2003 decision to cede responsibility of Mexican Wolf recovery to an Adaptive Management Oversight Committee, and challenges Standard Operating Procedure 13, which requires the removal of wolves known or suspected to have killed livestock on three separate occasions during a one-year span regardless of their genetic value to the species, the leading cause of wolf removals from the wild.
Species Background:
The Mexican gray wolf, also called the “lobo,” originally lived throughout the southwestern United States in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and into Mexico, but now is one of the most endangered animals in the world. Over the course of the twentieth century, the US government and western ranchers poisoned, trapped and dug out the dens of Mexican wolves until 1970, when the last confirmed Mexican wolf in the US was killed near Alpine, Texas.
Six years later, the lobo was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, and recovery efforts began. From 1977 to 1980, trappers went to Mexico to capture the last five known wild Mexican wolves—four males and one pregnant female—to begin a captive breeding program. Eventually, in 1998, the Fish and Wildlife Service released three packs made up of 11 wolves into the wild in the designated Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area within the Apache National Forest in eastern Arizona.
Case Background:
Over the past ten years since reintroduction, the Fish and Wildlife Service has reintroduced almost 100 Mexican wolves to southwest, though only around 52 can be found in the wild today. This is despite original projections for 102 wolves by 2006. The wolves have done their part – forming packs, hunting elk, and having pups. Unfortunately, overzealous management, particularly the permanent removal (killing wolves or returning them to captivity) of wolves in response to conflicts with livestock grazing is making recovery of Mexican wolves impossible. Illegal poaching and collisions with vehicles also take a toll on wolves.
Lethal removals of wolves by the government first began in 2003, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service created the "Adaptive Management Oversight Committee" (AMOC), headed by the Arizona Game and Fish Department, and handed over their management responsibilities to the AMOC. Shortly after gaining control of the program, the AMOC approved "Standard Operating Procedure 13" (SOP 13), an inflexible rule requiring the removal of wolves that are known or suspected to have killed livestock on three separate occasions during a one-year span regardless of their genetic value to the species. Removal, both lethal and non-lethal, under SOP 13 is now the leading cause of wolf removals from the wild.
As a result, on May 1, 2008, Defenders and a coalition of conservation organizations filed suit challenging the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to create AMOC, and to authorize SOP 13. The suit asks an Arizona federal court to direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to take back their responsibility to restore, rather than remove this critically endangered species.
Related Documents:
Brief
Press
Release
Chart comparing
Mexican wolf v. Northern
Rockies wolf
recovery
Co-filers:
Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, New Mexico Audubon Council, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, Sierra Club, Southwest Environmental Center, The Wildlands Project, University of New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, Western Environmental Law Center and Western Watersheds Project
Updates:
04/01/2009
The judge denied the Government’s motion to dismiss the case, declaring that the MOU creating AMOC and the SOP 13 “3 strikes and out” rule are final agency action. The Court found that they are agency actions that have changed the legal framework for the reintroduction effort and thus our challenges can proceed.
