The Mexican gray wolf was placed on the endangered species list in 1976, and six years later the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan developed by an interagency Mexican wolf recovery team. The 1982 recovery plan called for continued captive breeding of wolves and reintroduction to establish an initial two populations in the wild. But in recognition that Mexican wolves were extraordinarily imperiled, the recovery team did not develop delisting criteria – they could not imagine the Mexican wolf’s desperate plight made secure enough to take it off the endangered species list – and acknowledged that their recommendations for recovery were only first steps.
In the mid-1990s, with reintroduction nearing to create the first (and thus far only) population in the wild, Fish and Wildlife Service established a new recovery team, which drafted a revised Mexican wolf recovery plan that included delisting criteria. But the federal agency never approved the draft revised recovery plan.
In 2003, the agency convened another recovery team, also charged with developing a new recovery plan, but in 2005 the agency suspended the team’s meetings and work.
The Mexican wolf, an animal reduced to just seven surviving animals before captive breeding enabled reintroduction to begin, still has no recovery plan to address the vexing genetic problems now besetting the wild population; the 1982 plan does not discuss genetics. The Mexican wolf still has no recovery and delisting criteria that can serve as a scientific and managerial benchmark for how many wolves, in what distributions and with what safeguards in place, constitutes recovery.
Without the strong public support shown through the letters, emails, phone calls, letters to the editor, and public participation of citizen activists, there would have been no Mexican wolf reintroduction in the first place. Lobos still exist because of the many actions taken on their behalf.
To take action now to make an up-to-date, enforceable Mexican wolf recovery plan a reality, please write your U.S. representatives and senators and ask them: why the delay? Shouldn’t the Mexican wolf, an animal tricked by our ingenious poisons and traps into near extinction, now get the benefit of modern science to aid its recovery? Tell elected officials to tell the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop and approve a plan.
