Feds kill female gray wolf for attacking cattle
By Tom Jackson King, Managing Editor
The controversial effort to reintroduce up to 100 endangered Mexican gray wolves into Arizona and New Mexico forests has sustained its first federally killed wolf — at the hands of permitted personnel who shot adult female wolf 592.
The circumstances surrounding the killing of wolf 592, a member of the Sycamore Pack that was released into Gila National Forest on April 18, and the capture of her alpha male mate, are both clear and confused.
The stories told by New Mexico rancher Laura Schneberger, Michael Robin-son of the Center for Biological Diversity and Victoria Fox of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service overlap and diverge in ways that carry echoes of the Japanese movie “Rashomon,” where the same event is related through the eyes of seven different observers.
What is definite is that alpha female wolf 592 was killed May 27 by federal personnel Dan Stark and Nick Smith, who had a USFWS permit to shoot her, and her male mate was captured in a leghold trap May 21.
Both wolves were involved in harassing, attacking and allegedly killing livestock belonging to Schneberger.
The cattle were grazing on a federally permitted allotment when they were attacked by the Sycamore Pack.
All parties agree that the two wolves were involved in cattle attacks. What differs is the interpretation for why those attacks occurred.
Victoria Fox, spokesperson for the Albuquerque USFWS office, said in a news release issued May 30 that “the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authorized the first lethal control action on a wolf since the (reintroduction) program’s inception in 1998.
“On May 27, Interagency Field Team personnel shot and killed Sycamore Pack alpha female 592 in New Mexico after trapping attempts to capture her were unsuccessful. The Interagency Field Team confirmed that since 2001 the female’s cattle depredations resulted in four dead and five injured animals.
In addition, two calves are missing.
Despite intensive efforts by Interagency Field Team personnel to haze her from the area where the cattle were, their efforts were unsuccessful.
Although the female was secretive and elusive, the alpha male was successfully captured on May 21 and returned to the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge,” Fox said.
According to information provided by Schneberger, Stark stayed several days and nights among the Schneberger cattle on the Rafter Spear allotment.
He used rubber bullets and spotlights to discourage the two wolves from attacking newborn and young calves that were part of a herd.
Schneberger, in a series of e-mails describing the events of May 21, 23 and 25, criticized the federal program for “re-releasing livestock killers.”
“As you can see, it has been hell week,” she said in an e-mail to the Eastern Arizona Courier.
The events that began the evening of May 21 involved ranchers, federal personnel, wolves and cattle in a running confrontation that became so intense at times that Stark, the only person on the ground with authority to harass or kill the wolves, had to forego an offer of dinner at the Schneberger house.
“Dan said he was going to stay with the cows all night and we told him to come to the house and eat first. He said, OK. He called an hour later and said the wolves were in the calves again and he wasn’t coming in to eat. By then it was 10 p.m. so I made him supper and coffee and we took it out to him,” Schneberger said.
“He (Stark) said they (the Sycamore Pack) were all over the cows and calves and howling at him because they were frustrated and he was firing rubber bullets at them. He only had enough light to set one trap, though. Dan showed up at 5:15 with some good news. He caught the male about 20 minutes before. Dan gave the wolf a light sedative-type drug so he would relax and not hurt himself in the trap. Melissa (a wolf biologist hired by wildlife advocate Ted Turner) showed up and we sent the wolf home to Sevilleta,” she said.
“These livestock killers and problem wolves should not be turned out at all . . . Mad as we are about all this, at least we had competent help and we are grateful for that. Why the hell they are re-releasing stock killers is beyond me. It is plain dumb and only makes the program look bad,” Schneberger said.
Even though Schneberger was badly upset at the “mayhem” caused over 12 hours by a pair of wolves, she said of the female wolf, “I hope they can just trap her.”
That didn’t happen and Stark, after failing to trap wolf 592 in any of the several traps put out for her, finally shot and killed the animal.
That action resulted in intense criticism from Robinson, a resident of southern New Mexico who, like Schneberger, has regularly attended Arizona and New Mexico fish and game commission meetings to argue that the endangered wolves should just be left alone, and that trapping and relocation of the wolves was harming their ability to adapt to the outdoors.
“She is the first Mexican gray wolf shot by the government since passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973.
“Four other Mexican wolves are known to have been accidentally killed by the government as a result of capture attempts,” Robinson said.
He blamed wolf 592’s cattle attacks on cattle carcasses left in both the Apache National Forest and Gila National Forest, in violation of scientific advice offered in a report by the Paquet panel.
“Almost all the Mexican wolves that have attacked livestock are known to have first scavenged on the carcasses of stock. The Paquet report advised that carcasses of cattle and horses that die of other causes on the forests be removed or destroyed before wolves scavenged on them and become habituated to stock,” Robinson said.
The number of radio-collared wolves in the wild have declined from 27 in 2000 to just 19 this year, he said.
The USFWS reports a low number of radio-collared wolves but claims a number of wolves have grown to young maturity and are roaming the two-state forest area without any radio collar.
However, field reports examined by the Courier over the last three years do document a nearly 90 percent fatality rate for wildborn wolf pups and a steady decline in number of radio-collared wolves. When those numbers increase momentarily, it is mainly due to either new wolves being released into the forest or young pups being born.
“Her killing and the low number of Mexican wolves in the wild today reflect systematic mismanagement of the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program stemming from policies demanded by the livestock industry and supported by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton,” he said.
“Due to policies that led to the destruction of the Sycamore Pack and killing of wolf 592, the Mexican wolf today is still the most imperiled mammal on the continent today,” Robinson said.
H. Dale Hall, the Southwest regional director of USFWS, said the wolf program did right in destroying wolf 592.
“This wolf demonstrated that she was prone to killing livestock and that is unacceptable behavior.
“The service made a commitment to the livestock industry that we would remove wolves with a history of depredations. The first step usually entails moving the wolves to another area in order to minimize livestock conflicts.
“However, if the wolves continue to depredate, lethal means can be taken in order to be responsive to the needs of those economically affected by wolf recovery. This situation warranted such action,” Hall said.
While both Robinson and Schneberger agree that the wolf program is poorly managed, Schneberger said the death of the wolf that plagued her herd for a week was not welcome news.
“This whole event is tragic and could have been avoided,” she said.
“Our family is relieved this is over. It was extremely distressing to all of us. We appreciate what the Fish and Wildlife Service did to remove the wolf and we feel that this is a loss for everyone involved.
“I commend the Fish and Wildlife Service personnel for their hard work in getting this situation under control. In particular, one Fish and Wildlife Service employee spent the better part of a week at the ranch and had many sleepless nights trying to trap the wolf. This action was not taken lightly by anyone, including our family,” Schneberger said.
As of April 30, the score for the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program is $8 million spent to date; five wolves killed by government action; 12 wolves killed by gunshot; 19 radio-collared wolves roaming free; a suspected but unproved 15 more uncollared wolves that USFWS says survive in the wild; and continuing conflict between federally permitted cattle grazing on public land allotments and the ESA-mandated recovery effort that began in 1998.
Depending on who is asked, the solution to increasing the number of endangered Mexican gray wolves is to “just let the wolves be wolves” and allow them to roam freely in the Southwest across public, private and tribal lands; to remove the wolves from federal lands that have suffered a drop in natural prey of deer and elk; or to take steps to increase wolf pup survival so that new generations of wolves will not pursue cattle or be exposed to easy meals through dead livestock scavenging.
The multiple solutions may require a sequel to “Rasho-mon.”