Wolf recovery should focus on duties
By John Kamin, assistant editor
Arizona Game and Fish Department Nongame Coordinator Terry Johnson said
he wants to allow the Mexican Gray Wolf recovery coordinator to focus
solely on duties concerning the recovery project instead of also becoming
involved with the Blue Range reintroduction project.
Johnson’s comments were in response to quotes from Center for Biological
Diversity representative Michael Robinson, who contested language in the
wolf project’s latest management documents. The document Robinson
contested was the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the Adaptive
Management Work Group. The Courier quoted Robinson’s thoughts on the MOU
in a Dec. 21 article.
The AMWG was formed to include the opinions of local county officials in
the Blue Range reintroduction project. Greenlee County Supervisor Hector
Ruedas and Graham County Supervisors represent their respective counties
in the AMWG.
Robinson said language in the MOU will help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service “pass the buck” by not requiring that a Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery
Specialist be accountable for all wolf control decisions. The position was
occupied by Brian Kelly, who resigned six months ago. The position has
been temporarily filled by Assistant Mexican Recovery Coordinator Colleen
Buchanan.
Johnson said management and monitoring of wolves on the ground does not
have much to do with the recovery project, which is separate from the
reintroduction project that the MOU was designed for. The recovery project
has to do with the endangered species’ overall recovery throughout
Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico, he said. The reintroduction project
strictly deals with the reintroduction of wolves along the Arizona and New
Mexico border.
Johnson said he does not agree with making recovery employees work with
the reintroduction project because the recovery project has enough
responsibility to require their full attention.
“If I was a director, I would be happy to have no obligations but to work
on the recovery plan,” he said. The current timetable for the Mexican Gray
Wolf Recovery Plan suggests the plan will be finished by Dec. 2005,
Johnson said.
The lack of a full-time recovery specialist does not mean the agency is
not accountable for its decisions, he said. Johnson analogized the death
of a wolf to the execution of a prisoner in a movie. He said that in most
movies, it appears that the warden made the decision to execute the
prisoner, when in reality the decision to execute was made in court.
Johnson said decisions to trap or kill wolves are decided by higher levels
throughout the field teams, who base their decisions on protocol. He said
Robinson was “way off base” in assuming that the paragraph has taken the
decision-making ability away from the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Language in the Dec. 21 article insinuated that the wolf decisions in
question are only for trapping and killing, which is not true, Johnson
said. The article quoted a Center for Biological Diversity press release
that said, “The second troublesome provision in the MOU cryptically
pledges the (Fish and Wildlife) Service to ‘provide all necessary USFWS
authorizations and permits to all signatories on a timely basis.’ ”
Robinson said the phrase concerned him because it could pressure USFWS
employees to make quick decisions instead of patient ones.
Johnson said the permits refer to a wide variety of permits required by
groups such as the White Mountain Apache Tribe and relevant counties. The
article paraphrased Robinson as saying that the permits are for killing
and trapping wolves.
Acclimation permits are required by the U.S. Forest Service to release the
wolves, Johnson said. Special permits are required for almost all of the
reintroduction project’s activities because they usually involve at least
one local, state or federal agency, he said. Johnson was concerned that
the public might think that the permits are only used for one use.
I’m sorry
Johnson explained why he apologized to citizens who attended wolf
management meetings during the last year and a half.
“I’m the only guy here in the room who has been present since before the
first release was made in 1998,” he said. “So I’m the only guy you can
actually point a finger to.”
Johnson began studying reintroduction projects with the Nature Conservancy
as early as 1982. His expertise eventually led to his position as the
nongame coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. He said he
helped build the framework for a nongame and endangered species program
for the state.
“I had made an effort to find out if the program was acceptable,” Johnson
said. “The game plan was to do the public business in public from the year
when the wolf first hit the ground, in 1998.”
When he felt cooperating agencies strayed from the plan to include public
interests in the project, he became concerned. Johnson thought it should
include public participation and said the lack of it was “unacceptable to
my agency.”
That’s why he brainstormed a framework to include the opinions of “anyone
with an interest or a stake,” which is now the Adaptive Management Work
Group. The group includes the Arizona Game and Fish Department, New Mexico
Game and Fish Department, U.S. Department of Agricul-ture Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Services/Wildlife Services, U.S. Forest Service, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the White Mountain Apache Tribe, Graham
County, Greenlee County, Navajo County, Catron County, Sierra County and
the New Mexico Department of Agriculture.
“I’m not trying to play a martyr or a hero here,” Johnson said. “That
seemed to be the helpful way to do it.”