May 9, 2005
NM Representative Browbeats Wolf Program into Proposing 1 Year Moratorium
Your interest in this issue would be a help.
[And a note to MN's: If the "critical number" of breeding pairs (6) is breached, then reintroductions of captive bred wolves would resume despite the proposed moratorium. So panic is optional. Even so, to read is to weep.]
Direct from USFWS and AZGFD:
Public comment sought on five Mexican wolf reintroduction project standard operating procedures and a proposed moratorium on new releases of captive wolves.
Since 1998, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and five other agencies have been involved in reintroducing the Mexican Gray Wolf to areas of Arizona and New Mexico where the species once thrived.
The cooperating agencies use an adaptive management approach to manage the project, operating as a core team called the Mexican Wolf Blue Range Reintroduction Project Adaptive Management Oversight Committee (AMOC). The group has drafted five new standard operating procedures (SOPs) to guide wolf management activities and related decisions regarding the reintroduction project. The new AMOC SOPs address supplemental feeding, roadkill salvage, wolf control, helicopter capture, and aerial monitoring flights. The SOPs are accompanied by a proposed AMOC 1-year moratorium on new releases of captive-bred Mexican wolves that have never been in the wild.
AMOC is inviting interested parties to review the draft SOPs and the proposed moratorium, and provide written comment to AMOC by May 31, 2005(Extended to by July 31, 2005). View the proposed procedures and moratorium here. Individual copies of the SOPs and the proposed moratorium are also available by telephone request to 602.789.3500.
Comment on these documents may be submitted via email to the Mexican wolf reintroduction project mexwolf@azgfd.gov or via postal mail to: Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Project, c/o Arizona Game and Fish Department, Attention: Terry B. Johnson, 2221 West Greenway Road, Phoenix, Arizona 85023.
Comment must be received by May 31 to be considered.
The agencies cooperating in the Mexican wolf reintroduction project are the Arizona Game and Fish Department, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services, and White Mountain Apache Tribe.
.