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Sunday, June 12, 2005

Ranchers, Environmentalists Agree It's Time for a Change for Grey Wolf

By Tania Soussan
Journal Staff Writer
    The Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program is at a crossroads. The most vocal sides in the debate— cattle ranchers and environmentalists from New Mexico and Arizona— each say changes are needed, but they would take the program in dramatically different directions.
    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners are considering recommendations made by biologists in a five-year review of the Endangered Species Act program in the Southwest.
    Biologists and environmentalists say wolves should be free to set up territories outside the current boundaries.
    Ranchers don't like the idea and they say the program team should get tougher on wolves that kill livestock.
    Because of the ranchers' concerns, a one-year ban on some new wolf releases also is on the table.
    Each proposal is likely to spark debate at a series of public meetings starting Wednesday in Reserve, ground zero for wolf controversy in southwest New Mexico.
    "This program is in deep trouble the way it's being run now," said Pinos Altos resident Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. "We may be looking at the second extermination of the Mexican gray wolf. It's that bad."
    Robinson said changes are needed to increase the wild wolf population and give the endangered animals a better shot at survival.
    Rancher Laura Schneberger, president of the Gila Livestock Growers Association, agrees changes are needed. But she said the wolf program team must do more to control wolves and help the ranchers.
    "At stake is the very survival of the livestock industry in this part of the state," she said. "We won't survive if they're allowed to continue the status quo."
    Mexican gray wolves were pushed to the brink of extinction in the Southwest by federal eradication efforts in the early to mid 1900s.
    Today, captive breeding and the multi-agency reintroduction program straddling the New Mexico-Arizona border are the cornerstones of an effort to restore the lobos.
    The reintroduction program, begun in 1998 and run by federal, state and tribal governments, has infuriated ranchers suffering livestock losses and has rallied environmentalists to the wolves' cause.
    Now, the five-year review, which was issued two years late, has provided a stage for renewed debate.
    Key issues the public meetings will address include a new study of wolf reintroduction impacts, the proposed one-year moratorium on some wolf releases and new operating rules.
    "There are important issues at stake here that these things are addressing but I think it's all part of Mexican wolf management and it's the evolving, growing process that we're involved in," said wolf recovery coordinator John Morgart.
    State and federal biologists who worked on the five-year review said wolves should be allowed to set up territories outside the current program boundaries, something they can't do today.
    As part of an earlier program review in 2001, an independent team of scientists also recommended scrapping the boundary rule. It also recommended that ranchers take some responsibility for cattle carcasses that can attract wolves, and that wolves be released directly into the Gila Wilderness.
    Current rules allow only wolves that have been released in Arizona and then been recaptured to be let loose in New Mexico.
    The Fish and Wildlife Service has not moved forward on any of the significant changes recommended by the scientists, but it has proposed some restrictions on wolf releases at the request of ranchers.
    For one year, no captive-bred wolves without experience in the wild would be let loose, and wolves that had killed livestock would not be moved from one state or Indian reservation to another if the proposal is accepted.
    Environmentalists say those restrictions would jeopardize recovery of the wolves.
    Ranchers say slowing down releases would give the program time to get a better handle on the number of wolves in the wild.
    Ranchers believe there are 100 or more wolves in the wild, while the program estimates the population at 51-56, plus an unknown number of pups born this spring.
    Robinson said there are likely fewer animals than the program team estimates. He points to data showing lone wild wolves are not finding mates. "Why are these animals still alone month after month when they travel hundreds of miles in some cases?" he said.
   
Livestock kills
    The big reason that wolves are controversial is that they sometimes kill cattle.
    Recently, the Francisco Pack wolves in the Gila National Forest have been targeted for capture or killing because of a series of livestock kills, or depredations. This month, the Ring Pack alpha male has been implicated in two killings and is targeted for capture.
    Ranchers say the current situation and the overall depredation problem are much worse than the government agencies running the program admit. It's hard to tell who is right.
    "Estimation of economic impacts on ranching communities, and particularly the level of wolf depredation, remains controversial," according to the new socioeconomic impact study by Cambridge, Mass.-based Industrial Economics Inc. and Berven, Harp & Associates.
    It is perhaps the biggest understatement in the study, which was prepared as part of the five-year wolf program review.
    Ranchers argue that wolves can kill and consume a calf while leaving no evidence behind. Other carcasses can be hard to find, and it is sometimes difficult to determine a cause of death when a carcass is found.
    The Industrial Economics study for the first time compiles numbers on livestock depredations from the government and from the ranchers. The researchers concluded that anywhere from 37 to 245 cattle, sheep, horses and dogs were killed by wolves in New Mexico and Arizona from 1998 to 2004.
    Based on those numbers, the economic impact to ranchers was $38,650 to $206,290, including the market value of the animals killed, the costs of injuries from wolf attacks and the value of the 10 hours or so it takes to prepare each claim for compensation, according to the report.
    But the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, which pays the compensation for lost animals, said all ranchers must do is send in a report prepared by the government and sometimes make a call to report the death.
    "They have to put an envelope in the mail," said Craig Miller of Defenders of Wildlife in Tucson.
    Defenders of Wildlife has paid Southwest ranchers more than $33,000 in compensation since 1998.
    Even using the high estimate of losses provided by ranchers, wolves killed only about a quarter of 1 percent of the 34,800 cattle in the area in 2002— the year with the most depredations.
    But Schneberger said there are a lot fewer than 34,800 cattle in the area now, so the percentage killed by wolves is larger.
    An average of 4 percent of the cattle in the area died from causes other than slaughter in 1997, the year before the wolf program began, according to the report.
    Of course, the pain has not been spread equally. There are 94 active grazing allotments in the Gila National Forest and some have lost multiple cattle, Schneberger said.
    Many operations are very small with just one or two dozen cows, she said.
    Environmentalists contend ranchers can change some of their management techniques to minimize wolf depredations.
    Some ranchers already have bought additional guard dogs or increased supervision of their herds when wolves are in the area.
    Defenders of Wildlife helps ranchers pay for extra riders, fencing and other measures.
    "This is about working together," Miller said. "Our proactive fund is intended to put ranchers' ideas to work to reduce wolf-livestock conflicts."
    The fund has helped pay for six projects this year. In one New Mexico project, Defenders is paying the salary of a wrangler while the rancher is providing food and equipment. Still, Miller said the fund is underused.
    Robinson said ranchers must be held responsible for eliminating or making unpalatable cattle carcasses that can attract wolves.
    He said 91 percent of wolves that scavenge on carcasses later kill other livestock.
   
Measuring 'value'
    The wolf program also has benefits, researchers say.
    There is a public "non-use value" or intrinsic value in preserving the Mexican wolf that is hard to measure, according to the socioeconomic study.
    Federal and state government spending on the wolf program totals about $1.5 million a year, with a benefit of 31 jobs, according to the study. Although not all that money nor all the jobs are in the recovery area itself, there is spending and staff based among the wolves.
    The chance to see wolves has attracted some tourists to the area, a trend that is expected to increase as the wolf population grows.
    There also are ecological benefits, as demonstrated by wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park. Wolves there reduced elk populations that had been overgrazing riparian vegetation. That change, in turn, benefited beavers, bears, foxes and birds.
    No similar ecological research has been done in the Southwest, but Robinson said it's reasonable to assume wolves have started "sharpening the wits of prey species."