I sent Arizona Game and Fish spokesman Bob Miles a list of questions on Feb. 3 for a story that I wrote last month about Mexico's plan to release endangered wolves. Although the questions I listed were intended to be examples, not a complete list, they are what Game and Fish answered in an email I received Wednesday.
Frankly, I have trouble understanding some of the endangered species jargon, although one thing that comes out clearly is the frustration of Arizona Game and Fish with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. So please, take a look and let me know what you think.
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The bolded paragraphs are my questions from the original email, and the italicized paragraphs are the Game and Fish answers.
1. What has AZGFD advocated in terms of a legal status for wolves that might cross the border into Arizona? That is, do you support extending the 10(j) status applicable in the Blue Range reintroduction area to areas that wolves might cross into from Mexico? Or some other status?
AGFD Response: We have long advocated and we still advocate evaluating alternatives for Mexican wolf management in the southern borderlands of Arizona and New Mexico through process governed by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This would include a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on possible changes in the current nonessential experimental population “10j” rule that is allowing Mexican wolf reintroduction in Arizona and New Mexico. The 1998 rule was supposed to be revised in 2001. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) staff in the Albuquerque office completed a draft revision that year but the document was never released for agency or public comment. Before deciding whether to support a particular legal status for wolves in the southern borderlands, we expected to evaluate that issue and other 10j questions with our Commission and stakeholders in the context of an EIS. USFWS staff in Albuquerque initiated scoping for such an EIS in August 2007 but the process was suspended after scoping was completed in December 2007. Now, it appears likely that we will have to advocate that presence of wolves released by Mexico near the International Border should not prevent the American public from considering through NEPA process whether 10j status for wolves in the southern borderlands in Arizona and New Mexico is the best strategy both for conserving wolves and meeting other public interests.
2. What's the status of that decision, as far as you know?
AGFD Response: If you are referring to the legal status of wolves released in Mexico that disperse into Arizona or New Mexico, in May 2009 we asked USFWS Region 2 (Albuquerque) Director Benjamin N. Tuggle and his staff that question in an agency cooperators meeting about wolf reintroduction in Arizona and New Mexico. This was a week or so after Mexico first informed us, in an international meeting in Florida, that perhaps as soon as fall 2009, it intended to release wolves about 60 miles south of the International Border. USFWS responded on August 21, 2009 that its legal counsel had advised that, in accordance with the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended, wolves released in Mexico (or wild-born to released wolves in Mexico) that disperse to Arizona or New Mexico: (a) will be considered nonessential experimental if they occur within the 10j area established by federal rule in 1998; or (b) will be considered endangered if they occur outside the current 10j area in AZ-NM. Since May 2009, we have urged USFWS several times to begin public outreach about the legal and other consequences that wolf releases in Mexico will have in the United States.
3. What other areas of difficulty remain in deciding how to deal with wolves that may cross from Mexico into the United States?
AGFD Response: By “difficulty” do you mean “How will such wolves be managed?” If so, we don’t know because there isn’t a final or even a draft USFWS management plan for such wolves. We just know that we don’t have funding to manage them for USFWS.
4. Why not take a "hands-off" approach and simply let reintroduced wolves cross into Arizona if they wish?
AGFD Response: “Hands-off” seems to be the intended USFWS management strategy. We certainly don’t know of anything would prevent wolves that are released in Mexico from moving freely back and forth across the US-Mexico border.
5. At the time of the Aug. 7 AZGF Commission meeting, there was a widespread sense among commission members and perhaps staff that Mexico's wolf reintroduction was moving too quickly. Has that concern -- the speed of Mexico's movement -- been resolved?
AGFD Response: Our concern was and is not the speed of Mexico’s movement on this issue. Mexico is a sovereign nation and has the authority to move at the speed they choose. Mexican wolf recovery has been a conservation priority for Mexico for decades and successful efforts by our colleagues there are absolutely essential to rangewide recovery. Our concern was and still is what USFWS will do to ensure that the effects of wolf release(s) in Mexico are evaluated thoroughly with interested parties, particularly affected stakeholders in the United States, including state wildlife agencies, to ensure that a plan is in place so borderlands wolves and their impacts are managed by design and not by default. That process should have been started long ago but Mexico is clearly not responsible for that not happening. Their attention has been where it is supposed to be: on wolf management in Mexico.
6. What decision has been made about whether to provide material aid or other assistance to Mexican officials in reintroducing wolves in Mexico?
AGFD Response: The Arizona Game and Fish Department has collaborated with Mexico on countless conservation efforts for more than 30 years. We treasure that partnership and we look forward to building on our shared successes over the next 30 years. We have not provided material aid for wolf reintroductions in Mexico nor have we been asked to do so. However, we have provided and we will continue to provide information on wolf reintroduction in Arizona and New Mexico, including the associated impacts, to help Mexico plan its own wolf conservation efforts.
