Danny Udero, Silver City Sun-News Sports Editor
SILVER CITY — The Office of the Inspector General concluded its investigation into allegations about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program, specifically in Catron County. It also included specific allegations of misconduct by former Field Coordinator Elizabeth Jozwiak.
U.S. Congressman Steven Pearce, R-NM, requested the U.S. Department of Interior investigate the FWS and staff that oversee the Wolf Program. The Catron County Board of Commissioners had submitted a complaint in July of 2013 to then Congressman Doc Hastings.
The complaint was filled with numerous allegations but in particular focused on Jozwiak and her failing to properly document nuisance complaints about wolves. It also stated that she did not communicate effectively with Catron County residents in relationship to addressing public safety concerns involving the wolves. The complaint also said that Jozwiak mismanaged livestock depredation investigations and compensation, and had destroyed a wolf DNA sample. Mishandling a wolf bite incident involving a FWS volunteer was also among some of the complaints.
The FWS was already aware of some of these issues and had already transferred Jozwiak to another position. The OIG did find that ranchers had not consistently received full compensation for their livestock losses, and that communication with county residents was poor.
Since the reintroduction program began, Catron County has complained that the wolves have affected both the economy and personal safety of the county residents. Catron County hired an employee to investigate and document interactions between wolves and residents in April of 2006. No information was shared with an Interagency Field Team that was established to coordinate the wolf recovery efforts and he reported opposition to wolf reintroduction on behalf of the county. He said that psychological and economic impacts are detrimental to county residents by the wolves.
Jozwiak told the OIG that under her supervision data occasionally went uncollected, either because staff was “busy” or because the information “slipped through the cracks.” She stated that she didn’t fill out a form for every call about a wolf and blamed it on “workload demands” and “human error.”
The new IFT coordinator who began in August of 2013 did state that he required every team member to complete a form when receiving a complaint about a wolf because excluding any information would significantly affect the Wolf Recovery Program’s science and management decisions.
As for the alleged failure to communicate with Catron County residents, the current IFT coordinator denied that the Wolf Recovery Program employees were not concerned about public safety and that this perception may be on how the IFT determines its response to reported wolf activity which usually isn’t to the local residents’ liking. The senior wolf biologist noted that historically, the chance of a Mexican gray wolf attacking a human was extremely low. Staff members discussed the rarity of wolf attacks at public meetings and on Wolf Recovery Program websites and that advice was given to members of the public that if they ever feel threatened by a wolf they have a legal right to kill it.
Ranchers said they have received compensation for only a small percentage of their cattle depredation caused by wolves. Ranches did cite the difficulty of confirming that a missing or dead animal has been killed by a wolf and also the time it takes to look for a missing animal and if they find it the kind of condition the carcass is in may not be able to tell the cause of death. The process of submitting a report for depredation kills was frustrating and some ranchers didn’t have any incentive to do any more. The guideline to funding this is that ranchers should get 100 percent of the market value of confirmed wolf kills and 50 percent for probable kills.
There was a list of changes given after the complaint by Catron County. The first was that the former IFT coordinator had been reassigned to another position in the FWS. She is still involved with the Wolf Recovery Program, but at an administrative level. The Wolf Recovery Program added new biology staff and an outreach specialist to work with partner agencies and the media. The reorganization, according to a Wolf Recovery Program coordinator, resulted in improvements that included shorter response times to nuisances, better interactions with livestock owners, improved documentation of nuisances and depredations and improved communication and working relationships with owners and partner agencies.