Roaming Mexican wolf Asha will stay in captivity another breeding season
Originally published July 15, 2024 in the Santa Fe New Mexican: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/asha-southwests-wide-roaming-mexican-wolf-will-stay-in-captivity-another-breeding-season/article_a8dbb016-4ac4-11ef-b16a-bfa4c0135471.html
The rules of attraction aren’t always applicable to Mexican wolves.
The rules of a controversial reintroduction program are.
Asha, a Mexican wolf captured twice last year after roaming out of her government-designated stomping grounds, will be kept in captivity near Socorro for another breeding season after officials said she and her handpicked-by-humans mate didn’t get the job done this year.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials say it’s important Asha, technically identified as F2754, gets the best chance possible to produce pups to help advance the goal of getting Mexican wolves off the endangered species list.
“We’re really going to do everything we can to support her breeding in the hopes that we can release [her, her mate and their eventual pups] as a pack next season,” said Aislinn Maestas, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman.
But members of several conservation advocacy organizations are outraged by the decision, saying the wild-born wolf should not be penalized for failing to get pregnant after two successive seasons placed in pens with male wolves.
“The given rationale is … basically she didn’t breed, and so she is not contributing toward the recovery of the species, and I think that’s problematic on all kinds of levels,” said Chris Smith, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians.
“… To capture her twice and then basically punish her for not successfully bearing pups, I just think it’s incredibly disappointing.”
Efforts to keep Mexican wolves from extinction have been ongoing for years. Wolves not in captivity are allowed to roam in New Mexico and Arizona from the Mexico border north to Interstate 40, a boundary Maestas said is required to remain in place until the animals are no longer considered endangered.
Asha, who was born into the Rocky Prairie Pack in Arizona in 2021 and fitted with a radio collar in the fall of 2022, has not complied.
In January 2023, she was captured near Taos, some 500 miles from southeastern Arizona, where she’d started. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials brought her to the Sevilleta Mexican Wolf Management Facility outside Socorro, where she was placed in a pen with two captive-bred male wolves, brothers. There was a distinct lack of fireworks, however, and observers don’t believe Asha mated with either brother, Maestas said.
“We probably missed the opportunity to successfully have her breed with a male,” said Maestas, who added wolves typically breed in February and whelp in May. Asha was re-released in southeastern Arizona, the agency said last summer.
Then, in November, Asha was captured again, this time near Coyote, west of Abiquiú. She was once again taken to the Socorro-area facility, and placed with the two male wolves.
Thing went a little better this year, and “she did seem to prefer one over the other,” Maestas said.
Asha was observed twice engaging in mating activity with one brother in the 1-acre pen, situated in a remote canyon area.
“We think because the other male was still in the pen, the other brother, there was a little bit of interference with the breeding this year,” Maestas said. “… Both times the other male was like, very, very interested and excited about what was happening.”
Whether because of the nosy brother wolf, or because it’s not uncommon for wolves to fail to reproduce in their first year as a mating pair, no pups were forthcoming.
Maestas said the executive management committee that oversees the Mexican wolf program determined they would either return Asha to the wild alone within the recovery area, or keep her in captivity with her mate, in hopes they would further bond and breed successfully next year.
Wildlife officials don’t believe the captive-born male has the skills needed to survive in the wild, and do not want to release him with Asha unless they have pups, Maestas said, although wolves typically stay with mates for life.
“The hope is that they would stay as a pack, live a life as a pack and succeed as a pack, whereas we’re not as confident that that would happen if they were released as a two adult wolves without pups,” Maestas said.
Ultimately, officials made the decision to keep Asha in the pen for another year — with one key difference.
“The brother’s been moved out,” Maestas said. “The hope really is that they will be more successful this next breeding season.”
But a number of conservation advocates say they don’t agree with the decision, including representatives of WildEarth Guardians, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project, the Western Watersheds Project, the Wolf Conservation Center and New Mexico Wild.
Smith and Michael Robinson, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the government’s rationale has to do with ensuring Asha’s best chance for reproduction. But they pointed to another female wolf captured north of I-40 near Flagstaff earlier this month, who was collared and re-released in hopes of allowing officials to capture “an additional wolf known to be in the area.”
Robinson said it’s possible the two wolves in that instance are mates.
“At the very same time that they made this decision not to release Asha this year, they’re in the process of removing a pair of wolves north of Interstate 40,” Robinson said, adding he believes the I-40 boundary was heavily influenced by livestock owners opposed to the wolf recovery program. “So, the very condition they suggested would have allowed them to leave Asha north of I-40.”
Maestas said the I-40 boundary was determined some time ago after public comment and is “final” as long as the endangered species designation is in place.
“If we want the I-40 boundary to go away, we need to work to achieve recovery, at which point all the boundaries on the map go away,” she said.
Robinson said he fears Asha will be kept in captivity for the rest of her life if she fails to reproduce, and questioned why she can’t be released into the wild where she might find another mate or successfully breed with her current mate.
“Who knows what she would meet in the wild if they would release her?” he said. “If they release her with her current mate, maybe they would be well established and have pups. … Let them be free.”
Maestas said no long-term decision has been made about Asha’s future. She said the decision to keep Asha in captivity is to support the goal of getting the species out of danger.
“Everything we do is to achieve Mexican wolf recovery,” she said. “… This decision was made in the best interest of … us wanting for her to contribute to recovery in the future.”
