By Matthew Holloway |
Arizona Ranchers are sounding the alarm and appealing to Cochise County Supervisors for help as the successful program to reintroduce Mexican wolves to the wild in Southern Arizona has begun to have consequences. The increasing number is creating problems for the ranchers, leading to calls to change their conservation status. As reported by KOLD-TV, Cochise County rancher Mike Wear, the owner of the Wear Ranch which covers an 18 square-mile area south of Willcox, told reporters, “Every cow that I lose hurts my bottom line. Immensely.”
Wear went on to explain that the wolves near his ranch have taken two cows in recent days as the 30-year effort to reintroduce the Mexican wolf to Southern Arizona has progressed. The rancher is not alone in Cochise County, and the County Supervisors have launched a dialogue to address potential changes in the federal listing of the species this week.
“It’s clearly, this deal, this wolf, Mexican wolf experimental population is on a definite runaway. They’ve had an immense amount of growth and in doing so, their primary prey base is our cattle,” Wear told KOLD.
“It’s very hard to find them. It’s created labor intensity on our ranches. I’d say ten-fold. We have to watch and check our cattle that much more because we only learn about the wolves after the kill,” Wear said.
According to Citizen Portal, during a recent meeting, the county outlined a series of requirements that must be met before delisting the Mexican wolf from the Endangered Species List would be considered.
A slide from the Cochise County Supervisors Meeting obtained by Citizen Portal entitled “Compliant delisting” stated:
“The Mexican wolf will be considered for delisting when:
1) A minimum of two populations meet all abundance and genetic criteria as follows: United States
a) The population average over an 8-year period is greater than or equal to 320 wolves;
b) The population must exceed 320 wolves each of the last 3 years of the 8-year period;
c) The annual population growth rate averaged over the 8-year period is stable or increasing; and
d) Gene diversity available from the captive population has been incorporated into the United States population through scheduled releases of a sufficient number of wolves to result in 22 released Mexican wolves surviving to breeding age in the United States population. ‘Surviving to breeding age’ means a pup that lives 2 years to the age of breeding or an adult or subadult that lives for a year following its release.”
The outlet reported that the present U.S. population stands at 286 individuals just 34 shy of the cutoff. Furthermore, 21 of 22 successful gene insertions have already been achieved.
Arizona Game & Fish reported in March that the 2024 minimum count of Mexican wolves revealed an 11% increase over the minimum of 257 wolves counted in 2023. The new survey found that the population was distributed with a minimum of 162 wolves in New Mexico and 124 in Arizona. The wolves were spread across sixty packs at the end of 2024, 37 in New Mexico and 23 in Arizona with 164 pups born in 2024 and 79 surviving their first year for a 48% survival rate. At the reported rate, it appears likely the population will exceed the delisting criteria within two years.
“Each year, the wild Mexican wolf population numbers increase, and the areas they occupy expands. Genetic management using pups from captivity is also showing results. In total, 126 pups carefully selected for their genetic value have been placed in 48 wild dens throughout the recovery area since 2016 and some of these fosters have produced litters of their own,” Chief of Wildlife for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Stewart Liley said in a statement. “As we evaluate Mexican wolf recovery efforts, examining the last decade of data certainly provides confidence that recovery will be achieved.”
Clay Crowder, Assistant Director for the Arizona Game and Fish Department indicated that the 2022 Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan is exceeding expectations. He said, “The results of this year’s count reflect the hard work of many people and agencies that lead recovery. It also supports the recovery strategies in the 2022 Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan as we see both demographic and genetic objectives being exceeded this year.” He noted that the program has seen the ninth consecutive year of population growth saying the wolves are “knocking on the door of recovery.”
Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds Project told KOLD, “Wolves inhabited this area until about 70 years ago when they were eradicated at the behest of the livestock industry by the federal government. So this is wolf habitat,. This is where wolves belong. This is their native wildlife in this area, and it’s really the humans that are the interlopers here.”
She added, “Livestock depredations that have occurred have all been pretty recent so this is kind of a new problem, but these wolves are not new.”
Anderson continued, pointing out that ranchers have options under the current conservancy status. “They’re allowed to lethally remove animals that are in the act, so to the extent that there’s already a difference in what you’re allowed to do on public and private land and I think one could say they have more flexibility because it is private land.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
