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Wolves
were extirpated from the southwest, and are now endangered
not because of habitat loss–but because of a federal, state,
and private campaign to exterminate them. The reason: cattle
ranchers wanted them gone.
Starting
in 1914, Congress appropriated $115,000 to hire hundreds of
federal hunters whose primary job was killing every wolf,
mountain lion, coyote, grizzly and other major predator in
the nation. The Mexican gray wolf, a subspecies of canis lupus
unique to the American Southwest and Mexico, was completely
exterminated from the United States by the mid 1920’s. For
decades after this, however, the government kept a full-time
trapper on duty along the Peloncillo and Animas Mountains
of southwestern New Mexico to kill wolves migrating north
from Mexico. But in the 1950’s, with export of the deadly
new poison, Compound 1080, the population in Mexico began
to crash as well, and today it is questionable whether any
wild wolves remain south of the border.
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Mexican
wolves—progeny of a tiny handful of survivors captured alive
in Mexico—were reintroduced into the Blue Range of southeastern
Arizona. The Blue Range was the site of Aldo Leopold’s killing
of a wolf in 1909—an act he later lamented in his famous "fierce
green fire" passage of A
Sand County Almanac.
The
wolves were released under the "experimental, nonessential" provisions
of the Endangered Species Act, which precludes designation
of critical habitat and allows killing of wolves that kill
livestock under some circumstances. But this sop to ranchers
has not prevented wolves from being killed or removed.
The
recovery area for Mexican wolves includes the entirety
of the Gila National Forest, as well as the Blue Range.
But
it
excludes adjacent public lands. While the Gila is clearly
the best remaining habitat for the species in the Southwest,
ultimately wolf corridors should be reestablished in
the Peloncillo
Range—and the species that strove for decades to reoccupy
its northern-most habitat should be allowed to migrate
south and reclaim the entire borderless ecosystem it
once knew
as
home.
THE
CENTER'S CAMPAIGN TO SAVE THE MEXICAN GRAY WOLF
 In
1989, Center founders catalyzed the reintroduction of the
Mexican gray wolf-protected as endangered under the Endangered
Species Act since the Act was passed in 1973-into portions
of its historic range in the Southwest. Our lawsuit against
the Department of the Interior and the Department of Defense
resulted in a settlement forcing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and DOD to study the possibility of reintroducing
the wolf in the Southwest-a study that resulted in the decision
to reintroduce wolves.
The
Center also:
- Dramatically
reduced livestock grazing in the wolf recovery area, improving
habitat and forestalling cattle rancher conflicts with wolves
- Helped
capture the killer of wolves with a $5,000 reward and an
advertisement in the New York Times, and continues to be
involved with an ongoing $5,000 reward offer for new killers
- Educated
elementary and high school kids with our "Name
a Wolf Pup Contest"
- Convinced
the Fish and Wildlife Service to re-release captured wolves
into Gila National Forest
- Developed
a Wolf
Safe Haven Plan to guide recovery efforts
- Continually
monitors all aspects of the wolf recovery program
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