US Fish and Wildlife kills Mexican gray wolf in New Mexico, plans to kill another after cattle loss

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to kill an endangered Mexican gray wolf because of livestock kills, and environmental advocates are asking the agency to reconsider.

The agency has killed at least three wolves this year because of livestock depredations, including one female wolf in Catron County last week. Arizona Game and Fish also euthanized an ill wolf pup when relocating a pack in May, according to Arizona Republic reporting.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service is committed to conservation and recovery of Mexican wolves, and we believe this is contingent upon both a healthy wolf population and acceptance of co-existence within the communities where the species is found,” Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Aislinn Maestas said in a statement. “The Service is aware and shares the increasing concerns about health and human safety and negative impacts to ranching from the growing wolf population. … All of our decisions are made to foster wolf conservation and recovery and co-existence within affected communities.”

The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group, is asking the agency to call off its plan to kill a young adult male wolf, M3008, in the Bear Canyon pack.

“I’m very concerned, particularly because of the genetic value of the wolf who is targeted, and the inordinate importance he holds for the population and even the subspecies as a whole,” said Michael Robinson, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.

The agency’s removal order says the wolf’s genetics will continue in the wild because of its siblings and father.

In April, the agency mistakenly killed the wolf’s mother, AF1823, who was also the pack’s breeding female. They were authorized to kill an uncollared wolf from the pack after the wolves were connected to six confirmed and one probable cattle death over the previous year.

The male wolf’s most recent publicly available map location was in Arizona’s Apache National Forest, but the pack also crosses into New Mexico in the Gila area. The agency approved plans to kill the wolf in July after four cows were killed by the pack and seven were injured in recent months. Another calf injury was assigned to a different wolf pack. The cows were grazing on leased public lands in Arizona.

The agency placed diversionary food caches that M3008 showed no interest in, according to the removal order.

New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association President Bronson Corn thinks the number of livestock killed by the pack is likely higher. The way cattle depredations are confirmed was changed several years ago, the result being that livestock producers have to find killed cattle more quickly if they want to prove a wolf kill, according to Corn.

“If there’s four confirmed depredations, I can assure you, there’s another 15 that have not been found. And at today’s cattle prices, if there’s four cows, that’s $12,000 on four cows,” Corn said.

Livestock producers do get reimbursed for confirmed wolf kills. The Arizona Livestock Loss Board and the County Livestock Loss Authority in New Mexico approved more than $950,000 for Mexican wolf depredation compensation from 2018 through 2022, according to the five-year evaluation of the Mexican Wolf recovery strategy. They also approved close to $735,000 in conflict avoidance grants during that time.

“The payment that has been made for those livestock producers is not anywhere remotely close to the actual value of those animals that were killed,” Corn said.

The removal order authorizing killing M3008 expires at the end of August. Fish and Wildlife did not confirm if the wolf has already been killed.

An uncollared female wolf from the Dillon Mountain Pack living in Catron County was killed by Fish and Wildlife last week. The pack was involved in 10 confirmed livestock kills, two probable wolf-caused depredations, one injury and one probable injury. The wolf was 3 months old, according to Robinson. Fish and Wildlife did not confirm the animal’s age.

“If the genetics doesn’t improve, extinction is not around the corner, and it’s not around two or three corners, but it’s definite,” Robinson said. “... These more genetically valuable wolves, they are the path out of that trajectory toward extinction.”