The Associated Press
TUCSON, Ariz. — Bullets remain the top killer of endangered Mexican gray wolves along the Arizona-New Mexico border.
Since reintroduction efforts began in the Southwest in 1998, illegal shooting has claimed at least 20 wolves.
This fall, ground zero for the human-wolf conflict has been along the Blue River, home to about 60 ranchers and others who live on private parcels tucked within a primitive area.
Residents along the Blue aren't being accused of shooting wolves, but the nuisance created by a newly released pack has stiffened local opposition.
"When the wolves come down, I don't sleep the rest of the night," said Jean Hutchison, who moved to the area in 1987.
Hutchison said the wolves have increased her labor and costs because she must keep her livestock indoors at night and buy feed because it's too risky to let them graze in the open.
"They impact our economy, our lifestyle and our very basic right to feel safe and secure," she said.
At an April 23 meeting in Morenci, residents pleaded with officials not to release wolves nearby and predicted they'd come down to the Blue. But in July, two adults and three pups were set free, in part to make up for the illegal shooting of six alpha wolves in 2003. By September, the Aspen pack was at the post office in Blue.
The wolves have scuffled with two dogs but haven't killed any livestock, and officials say they still aren't enough of a problem to warrant recapture. Still, biologists are now usually stationed along the Blue, ready to scare off the wolves with firecrackers and shouting.
The government has given some residents boxes with bullhorns that blare the sound of gunfire, sirens and helicopters when activated by wolves' radio collars. The captive-bred wolves may still associate people with food, and the aversive conditioning is meant to reverse that.
The wolves are still naive, but largely avoiding people, said Shawn Farry, an Arizona Game and Fish biologist who has been stationed overnight on the Blue.
"When push comes to shove, the animals will lose, so it's in their interest to learn to give people a wide berth," he said.
Despite the unsolved shootings, the wolves are starting to come back.
At least 50 wolves are now in the wild — halfway to the goal of getting 100 to roam the rugged Blue Range by 2008. Wolves are taking down full-grown elk and pumping out enough pups that releases of captive-bred animals have been scaled back.
"It's functioning as a population now," said Colleen Buchanan, assistant recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We don't have to be so concerned about individual animals as we used to be. You have to put the losses in that perspective."
The government launched its program in March 1998 to re-establish wild populations of the rare wolf in Arizona and New Mexico after it was hunted to the brink of extinction in the early 1900s. The program aims to establish a population of 100 in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.
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