New Mexico in Focus; In Focus Pgm # 0323 - IF-0323 - Wolves; 323; Gray Wolf Reintroduction

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.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . major funding for in focus is provided by the Mckoon Charitable Foundation, enriching the cultural life, health education, environment and spiritual life of the citizens of New Mexico. . . For the past several years the Mexican Gray Wolf has been at the center of a heated debate over its right to thrive under the Endangered Species Act. introduce it into public lands and ranchers say it threatens their livelihood. A look at this recovery program is next on Infocus. Good evening and welcome to Infocus.

I'm R.C. Choppa. Two conservation stories have dominated the environmental news in New Mexico in recent years. The reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf and the impending doom of the Rio Grande Silvery Mino. Tonight our focus is on the Mexican gray wolf. The Mexican gray wolf is believed by biologists to be extinct in the wild. To preserve the Mexican gray wolf population, 175 wolves are in captivity. To reestablish the Mexican gray wolf in the wild, these captive wolves are gradually being reintroduced to their normal habitat. Environmentalists call the reintroduction plan a giant step toward restoring a damaged ecosystem and ranch groups call it an illogical infringement on their livelihoods. We wanted to know more about the reintroduction plan, so we invited Wendy Brown, wolf biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Wendy, thanks so much for being here today. It sounds strange that I'm saying Mexican gray wolf so often, but you can't shorten it, you can't call it the gray wolf because they're two different things, right? Well actually the Mexican wolf is a subspecies, the gray wolf. They're all the same species, but the Mexican wolf is the southwestern subspecies. It's our native here in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. So it is correct to call it Mexican gray, that's correct, but you can't call it the gray wolf or the Mexican wolf. You can call it the Mexican wolf, it makes it easier. Okay, well we talked about the reintroduction, how many wolves have been reintroduced so far today? The first reintroduction took place in March of 1998, so it's just exactly two years old down and about 40 wolves have been reintroduced to date. And how are they doing? Well, given that they were in the second year or just entering our third year of reintroduction, they're doing well. Many of the wolves out there are doing well. The numbers that we have on the ground right now are less than we'd like them to be, and

that's really been related to two things. The first year that wolves were reintroduced, a lot of wolves were shot and killed, but none have been shot and killed since November of 1998. Shot and killed for what reason? Do you know? I don't know, most of these are open law enforcement cases. Some have been solved, one just very recently, two people were charged with the shooting of the Mexican wolf, but in most cases we don't yet have those answers. This is a very controversial plan. Why are you going through this? Why are you reintroducing them? Well, I guess the easy answer from an agency perspective, we're doing it, we as the Fish and Well, our mandate, our responsibility is to restore endangered species and ecosystems whenever possible, and the Mexican wolf is in fact the rarest and most endangered subspecies of gray wolf in North America, perhaps in the world. It's been completely extirpated in the wild.

Perhaps a little more complete answer to that is that I think the American people through their Congress have supported the restoration of ecosystems and the wolf, and a wolf fills a very special role in the Southwestern ecosystem that's been gone for some 50 years. Give me a little bit of history of what happened to the gray wolf in its extinction. Wolves occupied this part of the world and really all of North America, probably in pretty good numbers through the turn of the century. Wolves were eradicated throughout most of the United States through a very intentional government-funded program to eradicate predators and particularly wolves in support of the livestock industry. What has the elimination of the top predator of this ecosystem that we're talking about the healer forest and what other area we're talking about? Well, the wolf recovery area that was approved for this program was what we call the

Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area, so you may hear me talk about that, and that encompasses all of the Apache National Forest in Arizona and all of the healer national forest in New Mexico. It's about 7,000 square miles of mostly public land. Now, I was going to ask you what has the elimination of this top predator done to the ecosystem there? I guess it's changed it. I don't think we really, we don't have all the answers about how it's changed it, but wolves once were certainly one of the top predators in that ecosystem, and they have been removed, and when you remove something at the top of the chain like that, it certainly has an effect on everything below it. Probably one of the things that's been well documented is that coyote populations have increased as wolves were eradicated throughout the United States. Now, it's now occupy habitats and even geographic regions that they historically did not. Now, I know that ranchers are very vocal about this, and they're very concerned, and they

have a lot of fears about the wolves, getting their children, and in a moment we will go to a clip from a public hearing from that. Why did you go through the process of trying to hear what everybody, including environmentalists, the ranchers, and whoever else had something to say about the wolves? Well, we have a responsibility to hear what the public has to say about any federal action, and that's addressed through something called the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. We completed an environmental impact statement on the issue of wolf reintroduction, that record of decision and the decision to reintroduce wolves and to have wolves occupy this blue-range wolf recovery area in both Arizona and New Mexico. Curred in 1997, we also have authority through something called an experimental population rule to manage these wolves and to move these wolves around. We have a pressing management need now to relocate or translocate some of the wolves that

had been previously reintroduced. We felt it was important to go through a very full public disclosure of this proposed action and to ask the question, is there new information out there that we should be considering, or that wasn't addressed in this original NEPA document, this original EIS, that we did, and so we conducted what's called an environmental assessment on this issue of translocating wolves from one place to another. Now, the last environmental impact statement you did was, you just said 1997, but I heard a lot of the ranchers say 1996, the EIS was completed in 1996, the record of decision on that, which was signed by the Secretary of Interior Curred in 1997. Okay. Well, on that note, I want to go to our piece because it starts with, and I can't, I don't have her name, but she is with the Kendall Girls Association, if you're now Booker King, she talks about the concern with the environmental impact statement being four years

old. So if we could go to that, then we will ask you to respond to some of their comments. Okay. Okay. New Mexico cattle growers association is strongly opposed to this or any other effort to reintroduce the Mexican gray wolf. Rural families will be harmed when their ability to make a living is taken away by the wolves killing their livestock. Not to mention the danger the people themselves will be in. Local communities and economies will suffer if these rural families are not able to survive. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did an environmental impact statement in 1996 to analyze wolf reintroduction and is claiming that the four-year-old document also covers the current effort. While the document may have been sufficient in 1996, a lot can change in four years. It is your responsibility to depend on a four-year-old document for a decision of this magnitude. The Danger Species Act mandates the use of the best available science. How can four-year-old science be the best available?

People packing wolves in, building pins, feeding, monitoring, and finally releasing the wolves goes against the whole concept of wilderness. The surveys that are cited in the 1996 EIS and February 10th environmental assessment did not focus on those that would be most affected by the release of wolves. The surveys also excluded non-English speakers. Therefore, the socioeconomic analysis is flawed and should be thrown out. It is very easy for people who don't live in the area here to accuse us of ignorance and intolerance and unwarranted fear. But the fact is, we are fearful. We have reason to be fearful. I want to submit that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife has been and continues to be negligent for not considering public safety as an issue in the final environmental impact statement. One of my main concerns in this whole thing is the wolves getting our children. These people, some of the people here perceive that we're ignorant.

We're part of the ecosystem here. We know the land, we know the force, we know our animals. We know when something's on a decline. We may not have went to the great school of minds and got some colleagues that could agree or have been educated way beyond our intelligence. But the fact is, the fact is, we do know what's going on. Many livestock deaths can't be confirmed. Myself and a personal calf that we had attacked on our farm right down here off the road. We had the people come out to see, well, there was a wolf or not. The calf was shredded. Both sides of the shoulder. His eyes were clouded. He was almost dead. Well, they said it was a one dog attacked, a domestic dog. You ever hear of one dog attacked? Dog full of dog food? No, it was a wolf.

A wolf came from the Gavlan pack, came through our country. People saw it. It had a collar on and another one didn't have a collar on. Went right on through, attacked my calf, incidentally, defenders of wildlife. You can come and pay me for it. We have heard from fishing wildlife about everything, from spotted owls, to whooping cranes, to now the wolves. We're tired of having this stuff shoved down our throat. Give it to Ted Turner. He's got 2.2 million acres in New Mexico. And he loves them. Give them to him. Then if these people want to go see them, they can go over and see them wolves. These wolves are hybrids. Now you can tell us all you want that wolves don't bother people, wolves don't attack people. These wolves are hybrids. Hybrid wolves have been limited out of every city that I know about, probably even Albuquerque. And they have said this before, and I'll say it again, and for no apparent reason, the big freight train coming down the track called the gray wolf, reintroduction is going

to keep going no matter what I do or say. But we would ask you to not put those wolves in our backyard. Put them in Albuquerque's backyard. Put them in Tucson. Put them in Phoenix. Put them where the people want them. They do not want them here. I don't have very much say, I'll say one more thing, windy brown. When one of these children died here because of these wolves, how are you going to feel? All of you people supporting wolves out here when a wolf kills a child, how are you going to feel? Please don't tell us any more lives. We know you're going to shove this thing down our throats. We know we're going to have to live with it. But keep in mind, my own property, wolf comes in, I kill. And I don't mean that as a hostile man, but I do have pets and children.

I'm not going to give them the 500 foot or wake to make a phone call to see what this animal is going to do. I'm going to do what I need to do and suffer the consequences later. But it hasn't survived in other areas. It didn't work on the blue. Please don't shove it down our throats. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Levinson. We're the purpose of our viewers and want to let you know that there were a lot of comments made by environmentalist at this public hearing, but for the purpose of this show, I wanted to give Wendy an opportunity to respond to some of the ranchers' concerns. Wendy, let me ask you first of all, what were some of the comments that you heard from environmentalists briefly so that we can get to a lot of these concerns that were brought up? Of course, the environmental community in general very much supports wolf recovery, but we hear a lot from the environmental community about our heavy-handed management actions on wolves because we have, in fact, removed wolves when they have been involved in depredation of livestock.

And this does slow down the process of wolf recovery. There are many people that believe that we should have reintroduced these wolves under the full protection of the endangered species act. But in fact, we introduced the Munder Special Clause, which allows us to manage wolves that get into conflict situations because we believe that it's necessary to manage wolves in an environment in which humans also live. And that brings me to a question that I heard you were on 60 Minutes the other night. And I heard them, one of the reporter asked you, well, these are intensely managed. How are they going to be wild? I mean, that's a good question. Well, reintroduction by nature requires intensive management. And I think one of the things that we've been sort of fighting in this program is Yellowstone, the comparison with Yellowstone wolves. So what Yellowstone is a very different situation. You had the ability to take wild wolves that already were existing in Canada, pick them up as a family unit, and drop them into wolf heaven, which is was a national park where

the primary use of that park is very, very much controlled for preservation. What we have is captive herd animals because Mexican wolves were completely extirpated from the wild. There's no question that there's a very big difference between introducing a captive herd animal and an animal that has already had experience in the wild. However, there's also a very big difference between a domesticated animal and a captive herd animal. These wolves are captive herd, they're not domesticated. They are raised, the wolves that we do reintroduce are raised under very strict conditions, minimizing their contact with human beings, exposing them to at least eating native prey. We use road-kill animals. We don't put life prey in their pens, it isn't necessary. Their instincts are very much in place, but I will be the first to acknowledge that there is a very important transition that these wolves have to go through between captivity and the wild.

Our responsibility is to try to see them through that transition period, and then they become more effective in their environment as they have their pups and the wild. Those pups are completely wild wolves, but we've certainly got enough experience within our own project and that of the Red Wolf program, which has been in existence since 1987, that captive herd wolves can make that adjustment and that transition to the wild. Some will do it better than others, some won't succeed. That's part of it. Well, you heard the ranchers, they're not going to believe that, and they believe that these wolves aren't fearful of humans and they fear for their children. What do you respond? How do you respond to that? To that one rancher who said, how are you going to feel when one of their children is killed? Well, I would feel terrible when a child is hit by a car, mauled by a dog, beaten by their parents, and certainly I would feel terrible if a child was killed by a wolf. The facts are that in North America, no child ever has been killed by a wolf.

There are 2,000 wolves in Minnesota. There are thousands upon thousands of wolves in Canada and Alaska. The facts simply don't support the level of fear that we were hearing or the level of concern that we were hearing at these meetings, at these hearings expressed by people in terms of what the public safety issue is. I always say that wolves should be treated with respect and caution just as any wild animal should be treated with respect and caution, but to live in fear of wolves, I think, is a very big mistake and simply not supported by the facts. You are addressing the public safety concern with your environmental impact statement, which is, by the way, what the Canada Grow Association woman said was four years old. Well, the environmental impact statement addressed the impacts of wolf recovery throughout this blue range wolf recovery area, which is Arizona and New Mexico, and something although I think we tried very hard to clarify what the issue is that we were addressing in our

recent environmental assessment. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what that really is. The impacts of wolf recovery, including the public safety issue, were addressed in that EIS. Part of what we went through in this environmental assessment is said, okay, let's look and see. Is there any new information out there that suggests that something is different or new or additional to what we looked at in that originally I.S.? The fact is there really isn't. The opportunity was there for people to provide that information. We did do an analysis, there were issues that we had to address in that analysis, but the impacts are not significantly different from what we addressed. Why not just do another one, though? EIS is tremendously, and it's simply not necessary. It isn't necessary to address. It's already been addressed. To undertake another analysis, the NEPA process, we all pay for that, just like we pay for

a wolf recovery or any other government action through our taxes. It would be an unnecessary use of resources, of money, and of time to address an issue that's already been addressed. Our objective now, through the authorization from the Secretary of Interior in 1997, is to recover the wolf. But it's also to recover the wolf in a way that's responsible, and that's very much what I believe that we're doing and what we're attempting to do. What mechanisms are in place to address livestock, depredation, and other conflicts that we heard? Well, first of all, as I said before, we've reintroduced these wolves under something called a non-essential experimental clause of the Endangered Species Act that relaxes some of the restrictions of the Endangered Species Act to allow us to manage wolves more intensively. And that clause allows, for instance, us to trap and remove and even insert certain circumstances

kill wolves that depredate livestock, or get into other conflicts situations with humans. It allows ranchers to kill a wolf that they see attacking livestock on their private land. So that's really what we're doing. We also, we monitor these animals very intensively. Wolves are predators. Wolves will depredate livestock. This was acknowledged in the environmental impact statement. I will never go up and say that wolves will not depredate livestock. They do. They evolved hunting hoofed mammals. That's what they did. They hunted the deer in the elk and the moose and the caribou, and they will still hunt those animals when they're available. They will also take sometimes take livestock. The other issues that ways that those issues are being addressed are through the defenders of wildlife, which is a conservation organization which participates in this program that compensates ranchers for the loss of livestock to wolves. And they are not compensated if those livestock are lost to the mountain lion or the bear

of the coyote that they also lose livestock to. But because defenders of wildlife wanted to accept some responsibility for their very strong wish that wolves be reintroduced in North America, they've come up with, I think, a very innovative program to help address this issue. Do you think that you're going to be able to come up with some kind of compromise or some kind of workable solution? We saw the ranchers. They were very angry. Are all the ranchers angry about this? Or are you talking to some ranchers who agree with you that the wolves should be reintroduced? I think that most ranchers that we have encountered personally will work with us. Most ranchers are very law-abiding, very decent people who are trying to make a living on the land. They have a legitimate concern about their livelihood and that's why we have these programs in place to help address these issues.

But I don't think that vocal support for wolf recovery from the livestock industry is a very near in our future, but I have a very strong belief that we'll continue to be able to cooperate and work with them. This first happened in terms of wolves, first being released in Arizona, and there was no difference in the response of the local community there. I think our working relationship with the local community around alpine Arizona is very good, even though there are many people there who still don't support wolf recovery. But I think what they've found is that wolf recovery is not the disaster that they perhaps thought it might be, and in some cases it has been very much a benefit. Do you think the wolf can succeed? I mean, what is your goal? What do you hope to see in the helen in the future? I'd like to see wolves be just another wild animal out there. That's my personal goal. I would like to see the wolf become treated just like the bear and the mountain lion and the elk and the deer out there.

Ultimately, if wolves are recovered, they can be a game species just like some of these other species and be hunted. There are many people who would very much oppose that. From the sufficient wildlife services perspective, our goal or objective for this recovery area is to have approximately 100 wolves living out there as wild animals throughout this 7,000 square miles of public lands. This is going to happen regardless of what rancher say or what is said from now on. Basically what I'm getting at is if this is going to happen and you say you told me earlier that this is happening, what kind of educational outreach programs are you doing to help people get acclimated to this new ecosystem? We have a variety of levels, I guess, about region education. We put out a lot of public information about our program that's accessible to everybody through a website. We do a lot of public presentations. I personally give a lot of and other members of our field team, give a lot of presentations

to local groups, community groups, special interest groups like the cattle growers, associations and hunters and outfitters and so on. I think in local communities what works best is one-on-one communication with the field team that's actually working there so that they can see that we are responsive, we are responsible and I think that builds the relationships that allow this and other programs to succeed. And you're open to that, you're open to communicating with anybody who wants to know. Absolutely. Absolutely. We welcome it. Well, Wendy, our time is up and I hope to revisit this issue again because we just barely touched the surface of this one but thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. That's our report for this week. Next week join us for a special session interview with the governor and legislative leadership Until then, from all of us at K&M-E, I'm R.C. Chapa, have a good night. Major funding for in focus is provided by the McCune Charitable Foundation, enriching

the cultural life, health, education, environment and spiritual life of the citizens of New Mexico. Thank you.