Monday, July 21, 2008
Wildlife Agency Is ‘Collaborating’ Gray Wolf to Death
review, also known as the Paquet Report American people. The concepts of
BY MICHAEL ROBINSON
CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY for its lead author, Paul C. Paquet of the wildlife and habitat conservation and
University of Calgary. Paquet is one working collaboratively are key to the
of the world’s leading wolf biologists, service’s mission.”
One runs a risk rejecting a call for and his three colleagues in the review
a “reasonable compromise” issued brought additional expertise in wolf The Fish and Wildlife Service did
by a public official inveighing recovery, population demographics develop as a collaborative agency:
against “polarized groups.” But the and statistical analysis. Beginning in 1917, the agency
endangered Mexican gray wolf has developed cooperative agreements
been compromised so many times, and Unlike the authors of the five-year with private livestock associations and
consequently is so close to extinction, review, none of the authors of the local, state and other federal agencies,
that we must scrutinize any proposed three-year review are affiliated with in which those entities gave the agency
compromise. government agencies, and three of money to exterminate wolves and other
them are in academia. The Paquet wildlife.
Unfortunately, the proposal advanced Report concluded, looking at elk and
by Benjamin Tuggle, southwest deer availability and not counting With these funds and direct
regional director of the U.S. Fish and bighorn sheep, pronghorn, javelina and appropriations from Congress, the
Wildlife Service, will not mitigate the beaver, all of which wolves eat, that the Fish and Wildlife Service killed the last
threats to the lobo, and is premised on recovery area could support between western U.S.-born wolf in 1945, then
inaccurate statements. 213 and 468 wolves. in 1950 developed similar cooperative
agreements with Mexican authorities.
In his commentary “Win-Win Possible But this past January, a year after
in Wolf Recovery” Tuggle wrote: the area was projected to reach the After passage of the U.S. Endangered
“Will the Blue Range Recovery Area reintroduction project’s goal of 100 Species Act in 1973 and live-capture
support 100 wolves? Not according wolves with an estimated 18 breeding of the last known five lobos in
to the wolf project’s five-year review pairs, a count revealed only 52 wolves Mexico between 1977 and 1980, the
conducted by independent scientists. and three breeding pairs. Fish and Wildlife Service refused
Their research considered a variety of to help fund captive facilities to
factors, including the area’s biological Tuggle’s notion of a “socioeconomic
breed the animals and blocked
carrying capacity, the size of the carrying capacity,” though not addressed
in the five-year review, betrays his reintroduction until compeled to do
recovery area and the socioeconomic
agency’s bias — and points to another so by a conservationist lawsuit.
carrying capacity.”
reason his “compromise” proposal
The five-year review was conducted Having shot 11 Mexican
must be viewed skeptically. He frames
by government personnel who used the issue of wolf reintroduction around wolves since reintroduction in
data in support of their agencies’ his own agency’s fitness for the job: 1998, trapped dozens more, and
positions. They were not independent. killed 18 accidentally as a result of
More substantively, they did not write “To understand the current capture, not to mention terminated
that the recovery area could not support controversy surrounding Mexican development of an up-to-date
the modest goal of 100 wolves. The wolf reintroduction in the Southwest, Mexican wolf recovery plan, it
five-year review, released two years it is important to appreciate Fish &
is fair to say that the service’s
late in 2005, did not even address that Wildlife’s mission: Working with
decision-making culture is still
question. others to conserve, protect and enhance
fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats oriented toward predator control on
The recovery area’s carrying capacity for the continuing benefit of the behalf of the livestock industry.
was analyzed in the 2001 three-year
The agency knows that Tuggle’s solution is a multi- of the last few survivors of its
suppressing the wolf population million dollar publicly-financed earlier cooperative agreements.
is leading to irreversible genetic fund managed by and on behalf
deterioration. The government has of the livestock industry, with no Michael Robinson works for the
shot a genetically irreplaceable wolf, rules ensuring that even a single Center for Biological Diversity,
months after he ceased depredating wolf otherwise to be targeted for lives by the wolf recovery area, and
cattle and was observed feeding removal might be spared. is author of Predatory Bureaucracy:
on an elk, and has not acted on The Extermination of Wolves and
scientists’ urgent requests to adopt That may constitute traditional Fish the Transformation of the West
a protocol to save other genetically and Wildlife Service collaboration, (University Press of Colorado,
valuable animals. but it will not recover the progeny 2005).