KEEP THE FOX MOUNTAIN WOLF MOTHER WILD!!!

Mexican gray wolf and pup (National Geographic Wallpaper by Joel Sartore)

Continue the pressure to save this alpha female from a life in captivity. It looks like they’re ignoring our pleas and are still trying to catch her.

“Service spokesman Tom Buckley said the agency would not change course and allow the wolf to remain in the wild, despite the ongoing public pressure.”

Taking this mother from the wild is wrong!! Either remove the cattle from the wolf recovery area or  recover these critically endangered wolves in a cow free zone, where they don’t face continual persecution over cattle. This is why after 14 years the wolf program has been a failure. It’s the same story repeating itself, wolves are either poached or get in trouble over cattle.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again, expecting a different result.

The North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park would be perfect for the wolves. No ranchers, no cows and lots of mule deer. Is that too sensible of a solution?? Of course people have been calling for this for years but sadly it’s fallen on deaf ears.

This appeared in the Albuquerque Journal

Wolf Will Live, But Maybe Not In Wild

By on Thu, Aug 16, 2012

LAS CRUCES – Conservationists were thrilled when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last week rescinded a two-day-old order to kill a Mexican gray wolf blamed for killing four cattle in recent months, but they continue to press federal officials to let the wolf remain in the wild.

Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity said removing the Fox Mountain pack’s alpha female, the mother of at least four pups, is bad policy for a recovery project that has only 58 wolves in the wild in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico.

Fish and Wildlife’s acting regional director rescinded the kill order on Aug. 10 after the Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., stepped forward and offered to house the alpha female for the rest of her life.

Service spokesman Tom Buckley said the agency would not change course and allow the wolf to remain in the wild, despite the ongoing public pressure.

Before the first release of wolves in a national forest in Arizona in 1998, federal officials projected there would be 100 wolves in the wild by the end of 2006. However, illegal shootings and strict management of cattle-killing wolves have slowed the population’s growth.

Removal, Robinson said, “will have the same results ecologically on the wolves that are remaining as if they killed her.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s regional office in Albuquerque was inundated by hundreds of phone calls and emails protesting the Aug. 8 kill order, the first such order issued by the Service in four years. Killing the wolf, advocates said, would decrease the wolf pups’ chances for survival.

Federal agents on Wednesday afternoon were continuing the efforts they started last week to capture the Fox Mountain alpha female.

READ MORE:

http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/08/16/news/wolf-will-live-but-maybe-not-in-wild-2.html

====

KEEP CALLING AND EMAILING.

Don’t give up on her. We need increased pressure on USFWS to do the right thing!!

===

US Fish and Wildlife Service Southwest Regional Office: 505-761-4748 or 505-363-2797

USFSW Regional Director Tuggle: RDTuggle@fws.gov

White House (202) 456-1111

Senator Tom Udall (202) 224-6621, (505) 988-6511 or (505) 346-6791

Senator Jeff Bingaman (202) 224-5521 or 1-800-443-8658

Congressman Ben Ray Luján (505) 984-8950 or (202) 225-6190

Congressman Martin Heinrich (505) 346-6781 or (202) 225-6316

===

Photo: National Geographic Photo by Joel Sartore

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Mexican Gray Wolf

Tags:  Keep her wild, no legholds, retire grazing leases, remove cows near den site, Fox Mountain Alpha Mother, USFWS, Dr. Tuggle