A lawsuit has been filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by a group of conservation and environmental protection advocates accusing the agency of the same basic failing that groups opposed to wolf reintroduction have complained about–lack of a plan.
The suit was filed Nov. 12 on behalf of Earthjustice, the Center for Biological Diversity, Wolf Conservation Center, Endangered Wolf Center and Defenders of Wildlife.
Information released by the coalition notes that the suit was filed, “for repeated failures over the last 38 years to develop a valid recovery plan for the imperiled Mexican gray wolf, one of the most endangered mammals in North America.”
According to the members of the coalition, there are only a total of 83 Mexican gray wolves in the wild, including just five breeding pairs.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has plans to release wolves throughout most of Arizona, including areas in Navajo County south of Interstate 40. The Arizona Game and Fish Department has asked the federal agency to create a plan prior to the release.
Winslow Councilman Marshall Losey reported that at a meeting held in late October, Game and Fish officials explained that they do not support the release of wolves without an overall plan.
“Arizona Game and Fish’s stance is that an unmanaged wolf program will be disastrous. They are looking toward a compensation program for farmers and ranchers,” Losey said. “It’s a matter of trying to manage it rather than buck it.”
Members of the Navajo County Board of Supervisors sent a similar message to the federal agency, noting that they believed the meetings held regarding the reintroduction of wolves throughout Arizona were superficial and that the agency had already determined a course of action without considering any input from the public or affected agencies.
The pro-wolf coalition is making a similar accusation, noting in a report compiled by the Center for Biological Diversity that, “A review of documents and internal memos details the service’s repeated failed efforts to develop a recovery plan and reveals an agency that repeatedly solicited, then ignored, the recommendations of top scientists.”
According to the report, however, federal inaction was due to resistance from western states.
The report notes, “The most recent effort to develop a recovery plan was quashed by the Service in 2012 and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act demonstrate this was done at the behest of the states of Arizona, Colorado and Utah, which did not want to see Mexican wolves recovered to more of the Southwest. A draft recovery plan produced by the team called for establishing two additional populations, one centered on Grand Canyon National Park and another in the southern Rocky Mountains of New Mexico, with an overall goal of establishing a total population of 750 wolves with movement between the three sub-populations. This was determined by the team of experts to be absolutely essential to ensuring the long-term viability of the Mexican gray wolf.
“Despite the Service’s mandate to rely on the best available science and implement a recovery plan for the highly endangered Mexican wolf, the Service gave in to the states’ demands, halting the recovery planning process, cancelling the last recovery team meeting and never publishing the draft recovery plan.”
Members of the coalition have asked the federal court to “order FWS (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) to prepare and implement a scientifically based, legally valid recovery plan for the Mexican gray wolf, with a draft plan required within six months of the Court’s judgment, and a final recovery plan required within six months thereafter…”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to release a final environmental impact statement regarding Mexican wolf reintroduction sometime this month.
