Mexican wolf restoration hits (another) snag
The feds want to release captive animals to increase genetic diversity in the wild, but New Mexico isn’t having it.
Earlier this year, things seemed to be looking up for the long-struggling effort to restore Mexican wolves to the Southwest. The population grew to more than 100, a threshold the 17-year-old effort hadn’t reached before. And wolf advocates cheered changes to the ground rules of the federal recovery program that seemed poised to benefit wild wolves at a critical juncture.
As the population has grown, it’s also become increasingly inbred thanks to past removals of genetically valuable packs and the outsized reproductive success of one that remained. Animals from the captive population could help to shake up the gene pool if they’re introduced soon, while the wild population is still small. But though the recent rule changes looked like they would free the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service up to make releases they couldn’t before, the state of New Mexico is not on board – and it’s where releases are needed most.
The recovery program’s struggles have always come down to politics. After Mexican wolves were reintroduced in the late 1990s – after being completely wiped out in the U.S. – they were only allowed to roam a 7,000-square-mile area straddling Arizona and New Mexico. Any that ventured outside of it were trapped and returned to captivity or their sanctioned territory. And early on, New Mexico refused reintroductions, leaving only a small area of Arizona for potential releases. Since wolves quickly established territories in that area, additional releases were often impractical and happened infrequently. Then there were the killings. Mexican wolves were poached, hit by cars, and baited into violating a three-strikes rule, which allowed the feds to kill any that thrice preyed on livestock. What Montana-based biologist Rich Fredrickson calls a “spasm” of removals in the mid-2000s, without regard for genetics, initiated the declining genetic diversity that’s evident today.
In January, though, the Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a new rule that cracked open the bureaucratic handcuffs hobbling recovery. Wolves would be free to roam through an expanded area, and the revisions allowed for the reintroduction of animals directly into New Mexico.
New Mexico, however, still hasn’t warmed up to the idea. So far, state officials are standing in the way of reintroductions that biologists say are essential for improving the long-term viability of the wild population.
Later this month, the state’s Game and Fish Commission will make a final decision on permit requests from the Fish and Wildlife Service for new releases. The agency hoped to release a mating pair of adult wolves and also to “cross-foster” pups, where captive-born wolves are swapped with wild pups before two weeks of age. But earlier this summer, the state denied the permits; the feds appealed at a commission meeting in August.
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