AZ Game and Fish Commission Update

Many thanks to all of you who emailed the AZ Game and Fish Commissioners and/or attended their meeting to speak up for Mexican gray wolves Friday! 
 
Since the Mexican wolf item was not added to the Commission’s agenda until Wednesday night, many of you didn’t have a chance to participate. And, since AZ Game and Fish still has yet to give its support for the much-needed release of the waiting wolf family into the wild, it’s important that we continue to email them and urge them to cooperate. 
 
The Commissioners did vote to sign on to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)  as written. The MOU is far from perfect, as it does not focus on Mexican gray wolf recovery as much as it should, but it is also non-binding and at least lists “further conservation and wild persistence of the Mexican wolf…” as its first objective.
 
Thanks to massive public pressure from folks like you, added to legal strategies, last year the Fish and Wildlife Service formally confirmed that it holds the ultimate, overriding decision-making responsibility and authority for Mexican wolves. This MOU should not change that.
 
Remarks by the Commissioners indicated that they had received a significant number of comments urging support for the Engineer Springs release. Unfortunately, they felt compelled to state that this MOU did not mean they would be supporting the release.
 
The release of this family of eight wolves will go a long way toward increasing the population from only 42 and strengthening its genetics. Please, if you haven’t emailed or spoken yet, use this link to urge the Commissioners to support the release: http://www.azgfd.gov/inside_azgfd/commission_members.shtml
 
The words Contact Me appear at the end of each of the Commissioners bios-click on them and a form to let you send them an email will appear.
 
Again, many, many thanks for all you do to save the lobos!!