December
13, 2018 by Susan Montoya Bryan
In this
undated file photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a Mexican
gray wolf leaves cover at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, Socorro
County, N.M. Wildlife managers have confirmed that a record number of
Mexican …more
Wildlife
managers have confirmed a record number of Mexican gray wolves have been
reported dead this year, fueling concerns about the decades-long effort to
return the endangered predator to the southwestern U.S.
Five
wolves were found dead in New Mexico in November, bringing the total for the
year to 17. That marks the most wolves killed in any single year since the
reintroduction effort began in 1998, and it's one of the deadliest months in the
program's history.
The U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating but hasn't said how the animals
died.
The dead
wolves include a female pup, two male wolves and the leaders of two packs—one
that roams the mountainous area along the Arizona-New Mexico border and another
that lives in the north-central portion of the Gila National Forest in
southwestern New Mexico.
"The
very small population of Mexican gray wolves in the wild cannot sustain this
level of mortality for long," said Bryan Bird, the Southwest program
director for Defenders of Wildlife. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
must immediately get a handle on the losses and resume releases of captive-bred
wolf families."
Members
of the wolf reintroduction field team pointed to the larger population of
wolves in the wild in 2018, saying the percentage of mortalities this year is
actually less than in some past years when there were fewer wolves roaming
parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
The lower
percentage for 2018 indicates more of the wild population is surviving, which
they say is a good sign.
All this
comes as ranchers continue to report conflicts. In November, federal
authorities documented six instances in which wolves killed cattle, and there
were two nuisance reports.
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