Mexican wolves removed from Slash ranch

[Emily]

for those of you that are fans of Slash Ranch Hounds...and those of you interested in the relocation/release of Mexican Wolves...
press release from anti-hunting site:
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news ... -2008.html
For Immediate Release, March 4, 2008

Contact: Michael Robinson, (575) 534-0360

Bush Administration Admits Wolves Removed
After Alleged Baiting Incident Revealed

SILVER CITY, N.M.— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed that it ordered the removal from the wild of the Aspen Pack of Mexican gray wolves late last year due to their predation on cattle owned by the Adobe/Slash Ranch, just nine days after learning that an employee of the same ranch may have illegally baited another pack of wolves by deliberately branding a pregnant cow on the verge of giving birth within half a mile of the wolves’ den. (The depredation that followed that alleged baiting incident, which was reported in a December 2007 High Country News article, resulted in the government shooting one of the wolves and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson calling for a cessation to wolf removals.)

Responding to a January 3, 2008 letter* addressed to Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne from 16 conservation and animal welfare organizations, the Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed in a February 22 letter received yesterday that the agency first learned of the alleged baiting of the Durango Pack on October 17, 2007 and nine days later, October 26, ordered the removal of the Aspen Pack – despite the possibility that if the Durango Pack had been baited to cause them to prey on cattle, so might the Aspen Pack.

The High Country News article quoted Adobe/Slash ranch employee Mike Miller stating, “We would sacrifice a calf to get a third strike.” (So-called “strikes” are assessed against wolves under the predator control protocol, SOP 13, in a formula leading to government wolf trapping and shooting.) Miller was subsequently quoted in the Albuquerque Journal contesting this admission, although High Country News has stood by its story.

In the response letter, the Fish and Wildlife Service refused to accede to the conservationists’ request to re-release all surviving members of packs that depredated on Adobe/Slash cattle subsequent to the agency learning that baiting may have occurred.

“Today’s revelation that the Aspen Pack were removed despite Fish and Wildlife Service being aware of the alleged deliberate baiting of wolves on the same ranch paints a tawdry picture of the Bush administration in bed with the endangered wolves’ worst enemies,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity.

In today’s letter, the Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed that a law-enforcement investigation of the alleged baiting incident is still ongoing, and also stated that the groups’ requests for an independent Inspector General investigation of its own culpability was “under advisement.”


Dirk Kempthorne January 3, 2008
Secretary of the Interor
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20240

Re: Illegal baiting and take of endangered Mexican gray wolves.

Dear Mr. Kempthorne,

In light of the enclosed article from High Country News in which an employee of the
Adobe/Slash Ranch in New Mexico is quoted in an admission of baiting wolves in order
to induce them to kill cattle and thus (successfully) cause a wolf’s removal from the wild,
we urge you to (1) formally request an independent investigation by the Interior
Department’s Inspector General; (2) order a separate U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service law
enforcement investigation; and (3) implement two corrective actions (all explained in
detail below).
The High Country News article describes, based on statements attributed to Adobe/Slash
Ranch employee Mike Miller of New Mexico, how Miller baited wolves with vulnerable
cattle facilitated by radio telemetry receivers provided by the Fish and Wildlife Service
and by a rigid, formulaic procedure of the Service for deciding upon the removal of
Mexican gray wolves from the wild.
According to the article, Miller “branded cattle less than a half-mile from the wolves’
den, the enticing aroma of seared flesh surely reaching the pack’s super-sensitive nostrils.
Miller was, in essence, offering up a cow as a sacrifice.” The article quotes Miller as
saying, "We would sacrifice a calf to get a third strike" — referring to depredations in the
so-called “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” rule governing the Mexican wolves, formally
known as SOP 13.

There is a need for an independent investigation by the Department’s Inspector
General.

The Inspector General for the Department of the Interior, whose role is to serve as an
independent watchdog to reveal and curb illegalities, conflicts of interest and other
improprieties in official conduct, should investigate the possible role of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service in facilitating illegal take of endangered Mexican gray wolves. The
High Country News article suggests several questions (aside from whether the incident as
described took place) which only the Inspector General may have the independence to
fully investigate:
1) On what date was the Fish and Wildlife Service first made aware that Mr. Miller
may have branded vulnerable cattle in close proximity to a wolf den with the
intention of attracting wolves and inducing them to kill the cattle?
2) Did the government remove wolves from the wild on the basis of depredations on
livestock owned by the Adobe/Slash Ranch subsequent to the Fish and Wildlife
Service learning of the apparent June 2007 baiting incident?
3) Have other incidents of possible baiting of Mexican wolves occurred? If so, was
the Fish and Wildlife Service aware of them, and what effect did such incidents
have on the progress of wolf recovery?
4) Is it possible that telemetry receivers are encouraging wolf baiting?
5) What steps if any did Fish and Wildlife Service take, and on what dates, to ensure
that government telemetry equipment and codes are no longer made available to
private citizens who may use them to illegally take wolves?
6) Are government actions to remove wolves significantly suppressing the numbers
of Mexican wolves in the wild?
7) Is Standard Operating Procedure 13, which requires the removal of a Mexican
wolf that has killed three or more head of livestock in a one-year period,
encouraging the baiting of wolves in order to precipitate depredations and
subsequent wolf removals?

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement division should separately
investigate.

There have been at least 35 incidents in which Mexican gray wolves have been illegally
taken in the wild, primarily through shooting but also through vehicular hit-and-run
incidents that have not been reported to authorities as required by the January 12, 1998
Final Rule (63 FR 1752) on reintroduction. These illegal takes have contributed
substantially to the failure of the Fish and Wildlife Service to grow the population of
wolves to 102 animals including 18 breeding pairs as intended by the end of 2006. The
government killing of the Durango Pack’s alpha female on July 5, 2007, as a result of the
putative Adobe/Slash Ranch baiting incident, exacerbated the biological emergency faced
by the Mexican gray wolf. It is incumbent on the law enforcement division of the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service to investigate whether illegal take of an endangered Mexican
gray wolf occurred as described in the High Country News article.
The possibility that illegal take was perpetrated through abuse of government-provided
telemetry radio receivers and through taking advantage of SOP 13, the rigid predator-
control protocol applied to Mexican wolves, merits thorough investigation. If
substantiated, this incident should lead to prosecution of all the malefactors who were
involved.


Two corrective actions must be implemented expeditiously.

Even in the absence of sufficient probative evidence to justify prosecution, the
circumstantial evidence presented in the High Country News article merits two corrective
actions to prevent further such abuses and to rectify, to the extent possible, the loss of
wolves from the wild due to actions already taken. According to the article, government
telemetry receivers were used to situate vulnerable cattle (freshly branded to ensure an
olfactory attraction) in close proximity to the den of the Durango Pack of wolves. Such
receivers have been distributed to private entities utilizing a wide variety of means to end
the reintroduction program. The high rate of wolf poaching and suspicious
disappearances strongly suggests that the federal take of wolves, the telemetry receivers,
and the other substantial steps taken by the Service to conciliate the livestock industry
have not resulted in reducing illegal take – and may have contributed to the opposite
result. Therefore, the following corrective actions should be taken.

1) The Fish and Wildlife Service should retrieve all telemetry receivers from any
and all persons affiliated with the livestock industry, county governments that
have passed ordinances authorizing illegal take of wolves, and any other
citizens not working affirmatively for the recovery of Mexican gray wolves.
Furthermore, the wolves’ radio collar frequencies should be assumed to be
compromised and should either be changed or the collars removed to ensure
that non-governmental equipment cannot be used to enable taking of the
wolves.

The Saddle Pack and Aspen Pack of wolves were removed from the wild in 2007 as a
consequence of their depredating on cattle owned by the Adobe/Slash Ranch. It is
prudent to assume that if an employee of the Adobe/Slash Ranch baited the Durango
Pack to affect its destruction as described in the article, that he or other Adobe/Slash
Ranch personnel also baited other wolves.

2) All surviving members of the Saddle and Aspen packs whose genetic
composition would enhance the wild population should be expeditiously
released back into the wild, and any animals with unfavorable genetics should
be replaced in the wild with genetically suitable surrogates.

Such action would send a clear message that illegal take of endangered species will not
be abetted or rewarded – and would partially remedy the damage done heretofore.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.

Sincerely endorsed by:


Elisabeth A. Jennings, Executive Director
Animal Protection of New Mexico and Animal Protection Voters
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Jeff Williamson, President
Arizona Zoological Society
Phoenix, Arizona

Michael J. Robinson, Conservation Advocate
Center for Biological Diversity
Silver City, New Mexico

John Horning, Executive Director
Forest Guardians
Santa Fe, New Mexico