Conservation groups condemned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its blanket authorization to trap or kill an imperiled Mexican wolf in Arizona for the sake of protecting livestock. The agency hid the removal order from the public, but conservationists have now uncovered it.
The Service is supposed to be recovering Mexican wolves, whose populations are struggling in response to a variety of threats, from genetic inbreeding to state game agencies’ resistance to releasing adult wolves and packs in Arizona and New Mexico. Instead, the Service is bowing to pressure from the livestock industry to remove wolves in response to predation on livestock.
“Removing a native lobo for behaving normally is totally misguided,” said Guardians’ Chris Smith. “This individual wolf may be critical to the genetic recovery of the species, but apparently some non-native cows being raised on public land for private profit are more important in the eyes of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”
Read the press release.
