Two wolves in, one out.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will introduce two
endangered Mexican wolves into the wild and remove another, the agency
said.
An interagency field team took two male wolves from the wild
in January and paired them with two females in captivity. When the
couples are released in Arizona, the females will be considered “new” to
the wild population – and important contributors to a gene pool that
has been taxed by inbreeding, according to the agency. “The pairing of genetically valuable females with males with
wild experience accomplishes two goals, adding genetically valuable
genes into the population and replacing wolves that were taken
illegally,” Benjamin Tuggle, Fish and Wildlife Southwest Regional
Director, said in a statement.
The two “new” wolves will replace two of the four wolves that were illegally killed last year.
The agency has been managing the reintroduction of the
species to national forests in New Mexico and Arizona. A 2013 census
showed a minimum of 83 wolves in the wild, up from 75 wolves in 2012. It
was the fourth consecutive year of population growth. “This population needs a big infusion of new genes from the
captive population,” said Michael Robinson, a wolf advocate for the
Center for Biological Diversity. “Two additional wolves are a very
important first step but aren’t nearly enough to combat the ongoing
inbreeding.”
In a Feb. 12 memorandum, the Fish and Wildlife Southwest
office said it plans to capture an uncollared wolf in the Gila National
Forest in response to a series of cattle depradations. The memorandum
attributed the deaths of four cows in a recent 10-day period to an
uncollared wolf in the Fox Mountain pack’s territory.
Clashes with ranchers occasionally lead to the removal of wolves. The federal agency pulled four wolves from the wild last year.
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