PLEASE COMMENT ON THE MEXICAN GRAY WOLF DRAFT RECOVERY PLAN TODAY
COMMENT DUE BY MON. 8-29th at 11:59 pm EST
https://goo.gl/QY1W4p
There are only about 110 left in the wild!!! They are critically endangered. Still threatened by both illegal and legal killings. Their numbers have grown slowly, and they remain the most endangered subspecies of wolf in the world! The population’s poor genetic diversity may be the biggest threat facing the wolves. To remedy this, the service must release more wolves into the wild. However, the most recent Draft Recovery Plan issued on June 29, 2017, would release too few wolves and fails to account for the genetic degradation of captive and wild populations that has already occurred. ~A
This flawed plan will set the parameters for Mexican wolf recovery for the next several decades. This is our last chance to offer input on the plan before it is finalized.
Here are the major problems that we have found with the Draft Plan:
* The cap on U.S. Mexican wolf population at 320 wolves is way too low. Previous Recovery Planning Teams (https://goo.gl/MnKZNz) recommended a minimum of 3 core populations of at least 200-250 wolves each, totaling at least 750 wolves, including populations north of I-40.
* This recovery plan gives states too much control, especially as both the Arizona and New Mexico game agencies are known to be hostile to wolf recovery.
* The plan does not provide for compensatory releases when wolves are killed. It should.
* The plan fails to consider the border wall and its impact on connectivity and recovery. In fact, the plan does not consider connectivity and instead will manage the two populations as separate and individual.
* The plan relies heavily on Mexico for recovery, where there are many questions about funding, protections, and limited public lands.
* The plan does not address what measures will be taken if targets in the plan aren’t met.
You can read the Draft Recovery Plan and “supporting” documents here with talking points and contact information to submit your comments. Provided by mexicangraywolves.org .. https://goo.gl/BaXyBX
Please write in your own words
Let’s save our Mexican Gray Wolves!
Go to www.regulations.gov and enter FWS–R2–ES–2017–0036
Comments
Save the wolves!!!!!!!???????
There is always a reason why God’s creatures are meant to be here.
These wolves are extinct as is. Please let them live. They don’t need to die. They are are living breathing lives and have the the right to live. Please give them the right to life
Please help save the Mexican grey wolves. They’re essential to us and they’re deserving of being saved. PLEASE !! Thank you.
Let’s approach the low cap first:
Minimum Viable Populations of mammals have been found to be in the range of over 5000 individuals, rather than the 320 or 750 numbers mentioned above. USFWS plans have always been solely focused on restoration of populations to a number just above that at which positive density dependence would allow a quick fallback into extinction. See literature on the Allee’ effect or positive density dependence to understand. You will usually find wolf recovery plans, state or federal, expressly saying they are not considering MVP; this is because they are NOT basing the plan on science, but instead on their estimations of human social carrying capacity – tolernace.
I attempted to address this in the proposed plan a couple years back, and in a previous plan. The Plan’s criterium of not following the established science will cause it to continue to fail.
Here for you, is Traill, Bradshaw, and Brook in their 2007 meta-analysis of 30 years of Population Viability Analysis:
Traill, Lochran W., Corey JA Bradshaw, and Barry W. Brook. “Minimum viable population size: a meta-analysis of 30 years of published estimates.” Biological conservation 139, no. 1 (2007): 159-166.
Wolves have a more selective breeding behavior than most mammals, and as few as one in ten reproduce. Mexican Wolves are constrained by extremely small allelic variation, and this genetic limitation means that their offspring are likely less viable than the average or mean. This means that the wolves must be allowed genetic mixing with other wolf populations as they were historically. While as little as one genetically highly variant per year adds to the necessary variation preventing loss of heterozygosity, NO dispersing wolf has in modern times managed to make it south across Interstate 40.
Every captive Mexican Wolf must be allowed to add its unique genes to the wild population, and this will require continuous releases until such time as that mean MVP of about 5400 (some models show that 9400 is the necessary mean connected population) is achieved.
these MVP numbers are so far beyond the Plan’s population cap that the cap must be removed entirely from any Recvery Plan, and the gene pool reattached to the northern Canis lupus irremotus/occidentalis population. Thus the I-40 recovery area or tolerance limit must also be abolished.
Further, because the Mexican Wolf functions at extremely low densities, the inclusion of the greater Grand Canyon/Kaibab Plateau and the Hopi, Navajo , Ute Mountain, Southern Ute, Jicarilla Apache reservations and trust lands should be included, upon tribal acceptance in the latter cases. Additionally the Santa FE, San Juan, northern Coconino and Kaibab National Forests are necessary recovery habitat most easily added.
Because phenotypically similar wolves were known to occupy as far west as the Mojave’s new York and Providence Mountains, recovery area will necessarily include no impediments in that direction, in order to substantially restore the population.
Because of that extreme low density and small number of wolves available, the USA and Mexico must allow for population connectivity between the two nations.
Your considered comments are vital!
Here is just one article showing how New Mexico republican administration and wildlife agency have consistently attempted to damage or destroy recovery:
http://krwg.org/post/conservationists-condemn-new-mexico-officials-trying-stop-releases-endangered-mexican-wolf
THe article doesn’t cover the machinations, and I am too exhausted by their and Arizona Fish & Game’s games attempting first, to control an internationally endangered mammal, to go into th e full extent of it, but the history and litigation have been disgusting.
SHould you be writing a comment, there are polls showing up to 85% of New Mexico citizens supporting recovery. You’ll have to look them up. It may be nnecessary to really discredit the two agencies – AZ management of recovery a decade ago was a primary cause of its failure.
I lost gigabytes of months of work on previous Mexican Wolf Recovery Plans, and can only hope you will at least once involve yourself deeply in assisting recovery. Since I did not submit my address, I wrote two comments up to the limit of allowed words on this most recent plan.
The comment process allows attachment of documents, and the 5000 word limit may be moot for those who use that method (I became overwhelmed and incapacitated by the issue in the past, and did not file a comprehensive response to this incarnation of the Plan).
The two (actually four, including Colorado and Utah) states that should be eliminated from any administration or influence on/to the recovery plan, have inordinate attention from USFWS, and their sophisticated legal maneuvering and biased antiwolf bent must be overwhelmed by the wider public.
We need to save these beautiful animals. We can’t allow for them to become extinct. Biodiversity and the ecosystem are counting on you to make the right choice for a sustainable future. Save the Lobo.