Campaign Unavailable

As a result of invitation-only meetings arranged by Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) between ranchers and senior regional officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency has proposed a moratorium on new releases of Mexican gray wolves to the wild and new restrictions on where wolves can be re-released after their capture.

These measures, along with a proposed stringent new protocol that would require government killing of more wolves, jeopardize a reintroduced species whose population is already in decline because of government predator control actions.

The Mexican gray wolf was reduced by Fish and Wildlife Service poisons and traps to just five animals captured alive in Mexico between 1977 and 1980. No more wolves have since been confirmed alive in Mexico. The captive population was bred in captivity, and reintroduction to southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico began in 1998. Now the "lobo" is threatened by proposed policies more reminiscent of the era of extermination than that of reintroduction and recovery.