Mexican Gray Wolves Are Threatened by Illegal Killing.
Read About the Award Pledged by Public Interest Organizations and
Private Individuals Here.
Great News:
Southwesterners Are Wild About Wolves!
Residents of Arizona and New Mexico overwhelmingly support having
Mexican gray wolves back in the wilds of their state, with 77 percent
of Arizona respondents and 69 percent of New Mexico respondents
supporting the reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves into public lands
in Arizona and New Mexico, according to a new poll released on June 16.
More information here.
May 16, 2008, Wolf Managers Turn Down Governor and Scientists on Wolf Rule, 17 Conservation Groups Write to Oppose Anti-Wolf Policy News Release and Letter Here
Media Advisory, May 20, 2008, Congressional Committee to Hear About Mexican Wolf Mismanagement, Former Recovery Coordinator to Testify About Political Interference WASHINGTON, D.C.— Retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator David Parsons will testify tomorrow in an oversight hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee on the mismanagement of the Mexican wolf recovery program. More...
How you can help Mexican gray wolves:
Speak Out for Wolves by June 25!
The Adaptive Management
Oversight Committee for the Mexican gray wolf program is proposing
changes to two destructive Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), 11 and
13. More info here
Visit our What You Can Do page.
2008 Population count shows a further decline in Mexican gray wolf numbers
 photo from Wild Canid Center |
At latest count, in January 2008, there were 52 Mexican gray wolf hearts pumping strong in the wild, six of them as three breeding pairs. All those wolves, about three quarters of them wild-born now, stem from a program to reintroduce the Mexican wolf to the wild that began in March 1998.
Those wolves are mainly preying on elk, some on deer, fewer on cattle. (There are statistics from a scientific study. We’ll get to those numbers, too. Book-mark this website.) They’re helping ensure that the stronger and more alert elk and deer survive and pass on their genes. Most wolf attempts to capture prey end up unsuccessful for the wolves. There’s a real winnowing process at play.
So few wolves probably aren’t making a huge evolutionary difference, as yet. But if the successful model from Yellowstone National Park plays out in the Southwest, we can expect to accrue broad ecological benefits. In Yellowstone, wolves have kept elk from eating streamside vegetation in places with poor visibility, such as canyon bends, where wolves might sneak up on them. As a result, more cottonwoods and other trees are growing to maturity, the beaver are returning, and the beaver dams are extending the benefits of this uptake in biological productivity to a wider area. The increased riparian habitat has led to a resurgence of birds. Fish are also benefiting.
There’s so much we don’t understand about how ecosystems operate. But keeping things natural to the extent we can is always the best bet. Putting the Mexican gray wolf back on the land was one of the best bets our society ever made. It was and is the right thing to do.
Up there on the mesas, in the slotted draws and wooded canyons -- places hardly anybody ever gets to -- there are wolves about. We’ll tell you their stories, a lot of them tragic ones. But those lobos are survivors. They’re the great-grand-pups of the last of their kind. They’re a whip-smart, cautious bunch for the most part. And about half of the mature wolves out there (plus an unknown number of pups born this year), the lucky or more wary ones – have never even been radio collared, never touched by a human hand.
The Mexican wolves need all the help they can get to combat anti-predator prejudice and violence, some of it institutionalized at the highest levels of our government. Are you ready to stand up for your wolves, testify for them when the chips are down, write elected officials and letters to the editor? There is a lot of clever anti-wolf propaganda carefully and cynically disseminated. It’s time to speak truth to power. The lobo needs each and every one of us now as never before.