NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: January 14, 2016
Contacts:
Sandy Bahr, Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, (602) 999-5790, sandy.bahr@sierraclub.org
Emily Renn, Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project, (928) 202-1325, gcwolfrecovery.org
Wolf Supporters Urge Gov. Ducey to End State Interference with Wolf Recovery
PHOENIX, AZ – Today, Mexican wolf supporters denounced a letter sent in November by Governor Doug Ducey and the governors of Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe as part of a four-state action that includes public events to support wolves in Denver, Colorado; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
The Governors’ letter seeks to keep endangered Mexican wolves, which numbered only 109 in the wild at last official count, out of habitats north of I-40 in the Four Corners states that peer-reviewed research identifies as necessary for Mexican wolf recovery. Wolf advocates say the governors’ position does not represent the interests of the majority of people in these states and is inconsistent with the best available science.
Sierra Club Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter director Sandy Bahr said, “Governor Ducey’s letter follows years of actions to undermine wolf recovery by the Arizona Game and Fish Commission, a highly political body that oversees the Game and Fish Department, and anti-wolf bills introduced by some Arizona legislators, making the need for continued Endangered Species Act protections for endangered Mexican wolves painfully obvious. We want the Governor to end this pattern of state political interference in what should be a scientific, rather than a political, process.”
Wolf supporters are presenting Governor Ducey with thousands of petition signatures and a letter signed by conservation groups across the state urging the Governor to support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in moving forward with a legally-sufficient, science-based plan to recover Arizona’s endangered lobos based on the scientists’ recommendations.
Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project executive director Emily Renn called the governors’ insistence that Mexican wolf recovery efforts target Mexico instead of the four corners states “unsupported by science and the Endangered Species Act.”
Renn added “Research increasingly suggests that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has underestimated the historic range of the Mexican gray wolf. The Endangered Species Act allows endangered species reintroduction within the best remaining habitat, outside of a species’ historic range, if it is necessary for recovery. And we need our wolves to help restore ecological health to these areas in the Grand Canyon region and beyond that were once inhabited by wolves. ”
BACKGROUND:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service convened a recovery planning team in 2010 that included a Science and Planning Subgroup made up of some of the top wolf experts in the country. The Science and Planning Subgroup developed draft recommendations for recovery of the Mexican gray wolf based on the best available science, which included the following:
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In addition to the current wild population of Mexican gray wolves in western New Mexico and eastern Arizona, two new core populations must be established in the Grand Canyon region in northern Arizona and southern Utah and in the Southern Rockies region in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, areas containing the most suitable habitat for Mexican gray wolves;
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Natural dispersal must be possible between the three core populations through habitat connectivity;
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Each of the three populations must have a minimum of 200 wolves and together, must have, at the very least, 750 wolves;
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There must be a decrease in human caused mortality; and
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Genetic rescue of the wild population must be addressed.
The draft recommendations for Mexican wolf recovery, which have since been peer reviewed and published in Conservation Biology, were leaked and the recovery planning process stalled out in 2011 amidst allegations of political interference with the science.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a scientific integrity complaint saying the US Fish and Wildlife Service has allowed politics to interfere with the new Mexican wolf recovery planning process by encouraging scientists to lower or forgo the numeric target for recovery, responding to demands to exclude Utah and other states from suitable habitat, and attempting to prevent the science subgroup from issuing final Mexican wolf recovery criteria.
Instead of moving forward with the science based recommendations from recognized wolf experts and the recovery planning team established over four years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now holding closed door meetings to discuss the Mexican wolf recovery plan with representatives from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah who have repeatedly demonstrated their opposition to wolves.
Polling has repeatedly demonstrated that Arizona voters overwhelmingly support efforts to recover Mexican gray wolves. In a 2008 poll of registered voters, 77% of Arizonans supported “the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf into these public lands in Arizona and New Mexico.” In a 2013 poll of registered voters, 87% of Arizonans agreed that “wolves are a vital part of America’s wilderness and natural heritage,” and 83% agreed that “the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should make every effort to help wolves recover and prevent extinction.”
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