Balancing biodiversity
Sean McAlindin
Campus Press staff writer
Michael Robinson, the founder of Sinapu and member of The Center for
Biological Diversity visited campus Nov. 4 to help what he called “the
most imperiled mammal in North America.”
Robinson founded Sinapu while studying at CU in 1991. Sinapu, named for
the Ute word for “wolf,” is an organization dedicated to protecting the
healthy existence of carnivores throughout the Rocky Mountains.
Sinapu has taken a part in the recent restoration of wolves in Yellowstone
National Park, Idaho and the Southwest.
The Nov. 4 event was sponsored by CU-Sinapu, a sister organization of
Sinapu. “We’re about returning the balance of biodiversity to the Southern
Rockies,” said CU-Sinapu director and senior environmental studies major
Joshua Ruschhaupt.
He said wolves originally lived throughout the entire United States but
because of government- and rancher-led extermination programs, there was
not a single wolf left in the country by the 1950s. The remaining wolves
were moved to Canada and Mexico.
Ruschaupt said this threw off the natural balance.
“The ecosystem evolved with wolves. (Wolf extermination) has taken a major
link out of the food chain,” Ruschhaupt said.
“Wolves are a keystone species that create a cascade of effect. Chasing
deer aerates meadows, dead carcasses provide food for the microbes in the
soil and hunting prevents overgrazing.”
In 1973, Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act. Robinson said
this sparked a nationwide interest in returning wolves to America and led
to the creation of wolf reintroduction programs.
Robinson said over the past three decades, these programs have effectively
situated a few hundred wolves in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Utah.
But the Mexican wolf reintroduction, aimed at Arizona and New Mexico, has
been less successful he said.
Mexican wolves originally inhabited an area ranging from Mexico City to
the Grand Canyon and east into New Mexico.
Robinson said U.S. Fish and Wildlife extermination programs left
approximately six wolves on the planet by 1945, all residing in Mexico.
Through his lecture and slideshow, Robinson explained how advocates for
wolf reintroduction managed to capture five of the remaining Mexican
wolves and move them to a sanctuary. The single surviving female wolf
became the mother of the species. There are now nearly 200 Mexican wolves
alive today and no genetic mutations have been seen.
In 1998, after more than 25 years of captive breeding, Mexican wolves were
returned to the wilderness of eastern Arizona.
There are currently 24 radio collared Mexican wolves in the wild.
Approximately 170 others reside in controlled environments throughout the
country, such as zoos or wolf sanctuaries.
But, Robinson said, there have been problems in keeping Mexican wolves in
the wild.
He said that in order to appease ranchers, wolf advocates agreed to keep
the wolves within a proposed boundary area that spans the border of
Arizona and New Mexico. Any wolf found outside the boundary was to be
killed or recaptured. This scenario has been repeatedly playing out
throughout the past five years, as wolves are brought in and out of the
wild.
“We need to rewrite the rules of boundary crossing,” Robinson said. “This
is a control program masquerading as a recovery program. If we can reform
the program these wolves will thrive. Very few wolves can read road signs
or understand the concept of borders.”
But, he said, ranchers aren’t supporting any initiative that will benefit
the wolves.
“(Southwestern ranchers) want to convince people it won’t work,” he said.
“They are trying to get a rider on an upcoming bill, which will kill the
reintroduction program.”
Robinson said he and his colleagues have promised to fight back. “The
master plan is to build up political heat on the government,” he said.
However, politicians representing the area in question are currently
backing ranchers.
“The politicians aren’t heeding the public interest,” he said. “They’re
not doing their job.”
“We are saving a critically endangered animal,” Robinson said. “Wolves are
part of a functioning ecosystem that evolved over thousands of years.”
Robinson said he will continue to work for a natural, balanced ecosystem.
“It’s a question of whether we want to live on a planet that is
artificial, Disneyland, or if we want something more than the satisfaction
of our immediate desires,” he said.