Arizona Republic (original) Posted on February 6, 2013 by Brandon Loomis
Mexican gray wolves had a record year in the Southwest, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday, growing to their highest population number since their 1998 reintroduction into Arizona and New Mexico by successfully rearing 20 wild-born pups.
The wild population at the end of 2012 stood at 75, almost evenly split between the two states. That was up from 58 in 2011. An additional 300 or so wolves live in a dispersed captive-breeding program meant to augment the population.
Wolf-recovery advocates said that the annual census is great news but that dangers, including a lack of genetic diversity, remain for the endangered species.
"It's not enough to solve the genetic crisis," said Eva Sargent, Southwest program director for Defenders of Wildlife. "But it's still a good thing."
Four wolves were killed illegally last year, and those deaths remain under investigation, said Benjamin Tuggle, regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. However, the numbers may indicate people are adapting.
"This result shows that we are moving toward our recovery goal," Tuggle said.
The problem, according to some program watchers, is that there is no set recovery goal. The government didn't write a plan with desired numbers when it started the program in 1982 because the situation was so dire that no one knew what a recovery might take. The agency now is working on such a plan.
Officially, a breeding pair is a male and a female that parent at least two pups and see them through to Dec. 31. Other wolves parented, step-parented or otherwise had a role in producing 20 pups last year, but only three pairs met the definition. That's down from six pairs in 2011.
"That's very worrisome," said Michael Robinson, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.
The wild population sorely needs genetic diversity, but the agency is slow to release new blood from its captive program, Robinson said.
The one wolf it released this winter, a potential new mate for the widowed alpha female of the so-called Bluestem Pack, failed to hit it off with the female and was taken back into captivity.
Robinson said biologists should have let the wolf roam to see if it could find another wild mate, but Tuggle said his staff wanted to make sure the male would breed successfully.
The plan is to mate it with a female in captivity and then release both, together, during the pregnancy. Other releases will follow this year, he said.
Robinson said the government has said that before but hasn't released another wolf from the captive program in four years.
"We need to see wolves released into the wild soon, instead of promises to release wolves," he said.
Defenders of Wildlife works with ranchers on several programs, including sharing costs to pay range riders to deter wolf predation on cattle.
A rancher may provide a horse or bunkhouse, while the organization pays the wages.
