Southwest Wolves: In the Field

Defenders is working on many fronts to ensure the recovery of wolves nationwide, and to ensure the recovery of Mexican wolves in the Southwest US and in Mexico. We work with ranchers, educators, the public, biologists, and agencies to build support for wolf recovery.

Supporting ranchers in living with wolves:

Overall, wolves kill very few livestock (see myth-busting below). However, individual ranchers may be hard hit by wolves. In order to shift the burden from these ranch families to all the people who support wolves, Defenders created two programs – the Bailey Wildlife Foundation Wolf Compensation Trust which pays ranchers fall market value for livestock lost to wolves, and the Bailey Wildlife Foundation Proactive Carnivore Conservation Trust which funds innovative methods, like fencing, radio-activated guards, and herders, to prevent conflicts between wolves and livestock.

Building local and political acceptance through myth-busting:

Many of those opposed to Mexican wolf reintroduction express worries about wolf impacts on livestock or game populations, or fears for human safety. Defenders works to replace myths about wolves with facts. This helps to shore-up support in local communities, ease fears, and build political willpower for wolf recovery.

Here are the facts:

• There is not one documented case of a healthy, wild wolf killing a human in the United States. In fact, you are more likely to be killed by a meteorite than a wild wolf.
• Wolves enjoy broad public support in the Southwest. A recent poll from Northern Arizona University found that 4 out of 5 Arizonans support letting wolves roam over a wider area of the Southwest -- 86% said wolves bring a natural balance to the Southwest landscape.
• Wild wolves are a part of a balanced ecosystem. They provide natural culling of old, young, sick and weak prey animals like elk and dear. Wolves also move elk and deer, preventing overgrazing and destruction of habitat -- and creating healthy habitat for fish and songbirds.
• Wolves could be a huge economic benefit to local communities. A study in of the Yellowstone region has found that wild wolves bring in millions of dollars to the local economy. We’re just beginning to see the potential in the Southwest: People are already paying guides and outfitters to go out into the Gila National Forest to try and catch a glimpse of wild wolves.
• There are only about 50 wolves total in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico. And they account for less than one percent of cattle loss in these states (less than 0.21% in Arizona and less than 0.65% in New Mexico). Disease, weather and other wildlife account for more livestock loss than wolves, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
• Defenders pays compensation to ranchers for confirmed wolf-related livestock losses.
• Wolves haven’t had a detectable effect on big game populations in the Southwest. The five year review of the Mexican wolf reintroduction project found that “to date, no detectable changes have occurred to big game populations as a result of wolf reintroduction. No changes in the number of permits issued for big game hunts have been made as a result of wolf presence, either.”

Building capacity to manage wolves:

Defenders has a long history of improving the capacity of communities and individuals to manage wolves. Our early “Wolf Guardian” program provided extra help to the field team and ranchers when Mexican wolves were released, and several of our guardians have gone on to become wolf managers or wolf researchers in the US and Mexico. We continue to work with the White Mountain Apache Tribe to provide training, equipment and internships related to monitoring and managing wolves on the reservation, and we have provided training for Mexican biologists who will have responsibility for future reintroduction efforts in Mexico

Finding more space for wolves in the Southwest and in Mexico:

Defenders has sponsored feasibility studies in Mexico and in Arizona to identify suitable habitat for wolf recovery. Some of the best habitat left for wolves in the American Southwest is in the Grand Canyon Ecoregion – this is an area of mostly public lands, low road density, good prey abundance, and few people and livestock. Defenders is one of the founding members of the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project. We are actively building wolf awareness and support in the region, and advocating inclusion of the Grand Canyon region as a wolf recovery site when the Mexican wolf recovery plan is revised. Learn more about the Grand Canyon and wolves in Places for Wolves. In Mexico, with Defenders support, four priority areas for wolf reintroduction have been identified. These are also discussed in Places for Wolves.

Supporting wolf-friendly ecotourism and products:

Defenders conservation economists are studying the economic impacts of wolf presence in the Southwest, and preliminary data point to substantial net economic gains from wolves. While this work is being completed, Defenders has also supported several projects aimed at providing economic opportunities based on Mexican wolves. The first was our Wolf Country Beef project, a certification program for livestock producers who adopted wolf-friendly methods. We have also developed ecotour programs focused around Mexican wolves, and continue to explore creative ways to bring economic benefits to communities in wolf-occupied areas.

Fighting for scientific management:

One of the biggest challenges to the reintroduced Mexican wolves is the lack of a recovery plan. This very complex project is proceeding without specific goals, timelines and criteria for delisting. There are no objectives on which to base decisions on captive breeding, releases, translocations or other management actions. A recovery plan, crafted by scientists with unimpeachable credentials, is urgently needed. A recovery plan provides a yardstick and framework against which various management decisions can and should be measured. A recovery plan would discuss the various alternate and additional recovery sites being proposed, establish biologically relevant boundaries for the recovery area, elucidate how Arizona’s and New Mexico’s wolves might interact with wolves to the north and south, and identify how many breeding pairs and packs are needed, over what area, in order to consider the species recovered.

Improving wolf management via political advocacy:

Much of Defenders work in support of the Mexican wolf comes down to political advocacy. We attend every agency meeting, we comment on every proposal, we strategize on a national and regional level and we play both offence and defense. With an animal as controversial as the wolf, new threats (ordinances, closed-door meetings, lawsuits, new rules for lethal control) appear all the time. Although it can seem like a never ending battle, we remember that Mexican wolves were exterminated from the Southwest and Mexico and were completely extinct in the wild. The fact that they are back is amazing and wonderful, and keeps us working on their behalf.

When extinction looms again – going to court for Mexican wolves:

In 2008, Mexican wolves are in desperate straits.  The end-of-year count for 2007 revealed only 52 wolves in the wild and four breeding pairs – a 43% decrease in breeding pairs in one year, and a 12% decrease in the population overall.  The main problem is over-zealous management removals for livestock depredations – such removals should be a last resort and should always take into account the state of the population and the genetic or demographic importance of particular wolves.  Lethal removals of wolves by the government first began in 2003, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ceded their reintroduction responsibilities to an Adaptive Management Oversight Committee (AMOC). Removals increased after 2005 when AMOC approved Standard Operating Procedure 13 (SOP 13), which requires 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 removed this critically endangered species.

Our coplantiffs in the suit are: the 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.