Take Action to Save Endangered Mexican Gray Wolves!

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is mandated to recover endangered species.

But its current proposal for managing Mexican gray wolves ignores the best available science and tens of thousands of comments urging greater protections and freedom to roam for these endangered animals, who numbered only 83 in the wild at last official count.

Instead, the Service wants to allow Mexican wolves to be killed as soon as the wild population reaches 326 wolves, to give employees of Wildlife Services a free pass on killing protected lobos, and to allow Arizona Game and Fish to determine when wolves should be killed/captured for consuming their natural prey to survive, so that human hunters will have more sport.

Comments are due no later than December 27, 2014. Please submit yours today, and ask others to do the same.

Please include these underlined points in your comments:
(If you write in your own words or personalize these, even just by rearranging talking points, it will make your comments more effective and make sure they get counted individually. If you’re short on time, you can just copy and paste them as they are into the comment form here.)

US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) should move forward with allowing new wolves to be released throughout the larger area proposed.
The Mexican gray wolf is the most endangered mammal in the U.S.  Additional wolves must be released into the wild now to increase the genetic health of the species.

Numerous wolves are in captive breeding facilities around the country, prepared for, and awaiting, release. Too much time in captivity will reduce the fitness of these wolves to live in the wild.

There should be no cap on the number of Mexican wolves allowed to live in the wild.
Top carnivores like Mexican gray wolves play an important role in ecosystem restoration and will balance themselves with their prey as they did for millennia before humans intervened.

The proposed changes should focus on increasing the wild population’s genetic health and moving the wolves towards recovery, rather than promising that lobos can be killed if they increase beyond an arbitrary number.

USFWS should not allow more killing of critically endangered wolves. The proposal will push Mexican gray wolves towards extinction by allowing many more of them to be killed under all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with science or recovery, including for eating their natural prey to survive. With so few in the wild, every wolf is important. These native lobos need more protections, not less.

Wolves need freedom from boundaries.
Given room to roam, the wolves will establish themselves in suitable areas with adequate game. They will generally avoid places with high densities of humans and low prey availability.

USFWS must change the rules that do not allow wolves to establish new packs and populations in additional areas that are essential to their recovery.

Additional populations of Mexican wolves north of I-40 are necessary to their recovery and genetic health, as is the ability for wolves to move between populations.

Capturing and moving wolves because they roam beyond an artificial boundary is always a risky business that can result in death or trauma to the wolf.

The USFWS should designate Mexican gray wolves as essential.
By labeling all of the wild wolves as “nonessential” the USFWS ignores science and the reality of 16 years of experience with reintroducing wolves.

The 83 wolves in the wild have up to 5 generations of experience in establishing packs and raising pups and are over 22% of all of the Mexican wolves in the world. The fifth generation wild lobos are not expendable and are essential to recovering this unique subspecies of wolf.

The USFWS needs to quit stalling and complete a comprehensive recovery plan. USFWS admits that their 1982 recovery plan is not scientifically sound and does not meet current legal requirements — yet in its proposed rule USFWS continues to ignore the best available science and the recommendations of its own science recovery planning subgroup.

Submit your comments by the December 27, 2014 deadline here: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FWS-R2-ES-2013-0056-8790

Or by mail or hand delivery to:

Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R2-ES-2013-0056; Division of Policy and Directives Management; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters, MS: BPHC, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803.