They need to realize that they have to Participate in The Endangered Species Laws in Every Single State!!
A federal judge on Friday granted the New Mexico state government a temporary injunction preventing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from releasing any more Mexican gray wolves into the wild.
U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson of Las Cruces sided with the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, which objected last month after the federal agency released two 9-day-old wolf pups into the Gila National Forest. The state agency said wolves cannot be released in New Mexico unless it issues permits for them, an argument that Johnson accepted.
The state also asked that the wolf pups be removed from the wild, but Johnson denied that request.
For its part, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said sending more wolves to the wild was part of its attempt to grow and diversify a population in which inbreeding is rampant.
Just 97 Mexican gray wolves are living in the wild, according to the annual survey conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Johnson enjoined the U.S. Department of Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from importing or releasing any wolves or wolf offspring without first obtaining a permit from the state.
The service had argued that its authority to add to the wolf population was rooted in the Endangered Species Act. It said that law should override the state’s permit process.
One conservation group quickly criticized Johnson’s ruling.
“The court’s actions today take the Mexican gray wolf one step closer to extinction in the wild,” said Eva Sargent of Defenders of Wildlife.
Sargent said the wolves’ survival might be dependent on the federal agency appealing Johnson’s ruling.
“For the wolves it is incredibly time-sensitive because we need to get as many new wolves released into the wild as possible,” she said. Sargent said the opportunity to release any more pups had already passed and the period where adult wolves can be released, typically summer months, is quickly passing, too.
“If they miss that because of this preliminary injunction, there won’t be any releases in New Mexico this year,” she said. “And that is really serious.”