u.s fish and wildlife service

109 Mexican Wolves – “Cross-Fostering” New Technique to Grow More Wolves

February 14, 2015 by Tom 1 Comment

From the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Southwest Region:

The Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team (IFT) has completed its annual year-end population survey, documenting a minimum of 109 Mexican wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico at the end of 2014. At the end of 2013, 83 wild wolves were counted. This is the fourth consecutive year with at least a 10 percent increase in the known population – a 31 percent increase in 2014.

“In 1982, the Mexican wolf recovery team recommended a population of at least 100 animals in the wild as a hedge against extinction; until we initiated the first releases in 1998, there had been no Mexican wolves in the wild in the United States since the 1970s,” said Southwest Regional Director Benjamin Tuggle. “Although there is still much to be done, reaching this milestone is monumental!”

“This survey demonstrates a major accomplishment in Mexican wolf recovery. In 2010, there were 50 Mexican wolves in the wild; today there are 109, a more than doubling of the population in Arizona and New Mexico. With our Mexican wolf population consisting of wild-born wolves, we expect the growth rates observed this year to continue into the future. In spite of considerable naysaying, our 10(j) program has been a success because of on-the-ground partnerships. We have every reason to believe that our efforts at reintroduction will continue to be successful,” said Arizona Game and Fish Director Larry Voyles.

In spring of 2014, the Interagency Field Team (IFT) successfully implemented a field technique in which genetically valuable pups were transferred to a similarly aged litter of an established pack. During the count operation, the IFT captured one of the two pups that were placed in the established pack during 2014, which confirmed this “cross-fostering” technique as an additional method for the IFT to improve the genetics of the wild population. In addition, the IFT conducted 14 releases and translocations during 2014, some of which provide promise for improving the wild population’s genetic health in the future.

“Testing and implementing new management techniques, such as cross-fostering, can help us improve the genetics of the wild population,” said Tuggle. The experimental population is growing – now our strategy is to focus on establishing a genetically robust population on a working landscape.”

The results of the surveys reflect the end-of-year minimum population for 2014. Results come from population data collected on the ground by the IFT from November through December of 2014, as well as data collected from an aerial survey conducted in January and February 2015. This number is considered a minimum number of Mexican wolves known to exist in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico, as other Mexican wolves may be present but uncounted during surveys.

The aerial survey was conducted by a fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter. Biologists used radiotelemetry and actual sightings of wolves to help determine the count. The results from the aerial survey, coupled with the ground survey conducted by the IFT, confirmed that there are a total of 19 packs, with a minimum of 53 wolves in New Mexico and 56 wolves in Arizona. The current survey documented 14 packs that had at least one pup that survived through the end of the year, with two that had at least five surviving through the end of the year.

The 2014 minimum population count includes 38 wild-born pups that survived through the end of the year. This is also considered a minimum known number since it might not reflect pups surviving but not documented.

The Mexican wolf recovery program is a partnership between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona Game and Fish Department, White Mountain Apache Tribe, USDA Forest Service and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service – Wildlife Services, and several participating counties. For more information on the Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Program, visit http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/mexicanwolf/ or www.azgfd.gov/wolf.

Filed Under: Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, National/World, Predators Tagged With: arizona, cross-fostering, new mexico, u.s fish and wildlife service, wolf survey, wolves

Let’s See The Proposed Great Lakes Wolf Bill

February 11, 2015 by Tom Leave a Comment

THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW! Not really but isn’t that usually the cry we hear when things don’t go the way we have been brainwashed to think they should?

We’ve been hearing about PROPOSED bills that would remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act in the Great Lakes region. I’m tired of hearing about all the promises that are going to be in this bill. I’m not that stupid. I’ve been down this lousy road before. Bill titles and false promises get people on all sides revved up and squawking like a gaggle of geese. The reality is all too often that the actual text of the bill is useless drivel, written so most can’t understand (not that it matters, they never read the bill anyway).

So, let’s see the text of the bill already! Why do these clowns get to spend weeks spreading what, more than likely, will turn out to be lies and more lies, when they can’t, don’t, won’t share their proposal until after a formal submission….if then? Are they hiding something? This is the same tactic President Obama is using in his plan to seize full control and censorship of the Internet. WHAT’S IN THE BILL?!?

It’s fun for some to get all worked up over this supposed wolf bill proposal that’s been talked about from Congressman Reid Ribble, and yet none of us knows what’s in it. If we pay attention to the tidbits of information being said about the bill, it might give us some hints.

For instance, in this news article, Mr. Ribble is quoted as saying, “My bill doesn’t have anything to do with the Endangered Species Act. It just says a court should not be making a determination. And, in fact, if the population [wolves] decreases the Fish and Wildlife Service can re-list the wolf at any time.”

What’s he saying here? Looks to me like he is suggesting that the Courts will longer be able to make any rulings on wolves in those states listed in this bill….whichever ones those are. What I find troubling is that he says that if the wolf population decreases, the Feds can relist anytime they want to.

So Ribble, if this is what’s in his bill, is tossing blindly all his support and ceding all power to the decisions of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service(USFWS). Really? Those corrupt, agenda driven clowns? I see the USFWS as being really no different than the Humane Society of the United States, Midwest Environmental Advocates or any of the well-greased groups that steal their money from the taxpayers of this country. USFWS history shows their constant and consistent caving in to pressures from environmental groups.

If this bill doesn’t contain the right language, then what a waste of time. The idiot wolf lovers have pushed and demanded for so long, taking advantage of and bastardizing any semblance of law and order to get their way and more, when it comes to wolves. And now people have had enough. Screw em!

Not only would I make it so leeches can’t make their living filing lawsuits, I would permanently remove the wolf from Federal protection and disallow the USFWS any say in the future events that surround the wolf. We mustn’t forget that these criminals at the USFWS created this mess in the first place. They lied to the American people and foisted a plague upon the people and land.

It appears to me this secret proposed wolf bill does nothing but give USFWS dictator status. Way to go!

Filed Under: Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, Legislative News, National/World, Predators Tagged With: bill proposal, endangered species act, michigan, rep. reid ribble, u.s fish and wildlife service, wisconsin, wolves

V. Paul Reynolds: Lynx ITP “Doesn’t Pass Straight Face Test”

February 9, 2015 by Tom Leave a Comment

“If you applied the Florida panther math to the Maine lynx, trappers would be permitted to accidentally take 50 to 100 lynx a year and not impact the population appreciably. And yet, USFWS, in collaboration with Maine’s state wildlife managers, is restricting Maine’s incidental take to .006 percent of the lynx population – not over a year – but over 15 years! Really now, does this pass the straight face test?”<<<Read More>>>

Filed Under: Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, Maine Hunting News, Trapping Tagged With: canada lynx, florida, incidental take permit, maine, panther, Trapping, u.s fish and wildlife service, v. paul reynolds

Wolf Lessons from North Carolina

February 6, 2015 by James Beers Leave a Comment

Written by and Presented by James Beers:

Last Friday, 30 January, I wrote a piece, Kudos to North Carolina and Her Wolves that Never Were, complimenting the recent success of some men in North Carolina regarding how to stand up to the federal government and the Endangered Species Act. This involves “red” wolves, an enviable (to most of us) State Wildlife Agency and both federal and State elected politicians from North Carolina listening to and standing up for the rural residents of North Carolina.

Since writing that article, I have had numerous e-mails and some phone calls asking me how they have accomplished what they have. It is with trying to answer that question that I have spoken to some of those involved and they have shared with me some samples of their methods and approaches. I have attached a series of items below for the use of those involved in this fight from the Great Lakes toYuma to Dorris (CA) and Spokane.

I would caution you to keep in mind that the US Fish and Wildlife Service and all their environmental/animal rights’ allies are watching this closely as well. They are no doubt involved in high level and intense conferences to determine how to keep this from being repeated elsewhere not only with wolves or grizzlies but with every songbird, minnow or “bunnie” they have “Listed” or intend to “List” in the shade of the Endangered Species Act.

Here are a few observations I have made over the past few days as I dug into this victory of Constitutional government and the rights of all citizen’s to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness:

– This success story is really the victory of a few determined North Carolinians that, until recently, would have appeared to be no different than you or me. A farmer/businessman, a boat entrepreneur, and a volunteer Coordinator of the North Carolina Legislature’s Sportsman’s Caucus are three that leap out. The farmer was having “wolf” problems as some of his land lies alongside federal “wolf” habitat. The boat entrepreneur (an important vocation in a State rich in freshwater, brackish water, saltwater, seafood, fish, duck hunting and every other imaginable water recreational pursuit) is an example of a concerned citizen doing what he believes to be the right thing. The Sportsman’s Caucus Coordinator is the sort of all-too-rare political worker that sees what is best for the residents and wildlife of his State – and does it.

– They evidently made a conscious decision to proceed without any lawyers. They knew what their goals were and they seemed to have found that the lawyers either did not understand what they were about or they were not receptive to what these men knew had to be done.

– Among other things they did to gain public support while they were uncovering federal violations and trying to organize political support, was inexpensive, novel and apparently worth every penny. They hired one of those old prop planes you see hauling advertising signs along and over East Coast beaches in the summer to fly back and forth over and throughout a big (in North Carolina) college football game (UNC & ECU I believe) with a sign trailing behind that said something like “Google Red Wolf Restoration Scandal @ …….”

– They recorded federal government answers and non-answers to questions.

– They carefully read the regulations and documented violations by federal employees.

– They publicized (see below) everything they found.

– They got scientific and media help from a wide range of North Carolinians with a similar devotion to what is best for their state plus skills and experience these men needed.

– They lobbied both the newly elected conservative federal and state officials and also those progressive officials that wanted what was best for North Carolina. I was told one that one long-standing state wolf supporter politician who had had a “Research” Center named after him remained unconvinced of these men’s mission. NOTE: Naming a Refuge or Bridge or other public project after either an alive or deceased (as an invitation to others) powerful politician who supports government growth and benefits is an old (at least since The New Deal) and tried ploy of those like bureaucrats that anticipate annual returns to the public money or new law trough.

– As you consider what is useful to you from North Carolina, remember that North Carolina has its’ share of large urban concentrations and a good deal of out-of-state professors and technical workers and researchers that one would expect to be big fans of wolves “out there over the hill from where I live but where I may want to vacation one day”. Yet the politicians and rural residents generated the political support necessary within the political climate of the day to do what they have accomplished. For instance, I was told that about 75% of the current wildlife students at one of the large and respected Universities are either unconcerned about animal management and/or anti-hunting and trapping. Yet these men have accomplished what they have.

– As with many such accomplishments today, getting a coalition of state and federal elected officials on your side to not only stand up to bad laws and federal abuse but to just as importantly remind the state bureaucrats that they work for the residents of the state and that they will be backed up when they look out for and protect them; is most important.

What they have done can be done where you live and it can be, and probably is best, done by men and women just like you. Look over the following information but keep in mind that these men have jobs and not staffs for things like you might expect from all the other “players” in these wolf melodramas. Rethink what you have done and are doing as well as what you might do tomorrow. Share this around, speak with your friends and neighbors, and consider how lucky we are to have a State like North Carolina and men like these in this great Nation – and don’t forget the info below.

Jim Beers
3 February 2015

If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.
Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting. You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to: jimbeers7@comcast.net

1.) Videos explaining aspects of North Carolina’s steps to force the federal government to remove the so-called (hybrids of dog/coyote and wolf) “red” wolves.

http://www.nchuntandfish.com/forums/showthread.php?95624-quot-Red-Wolf-quot-restoration-scandal&p=1486239&viewfull=1#post1486239

2.) A humorous but telling explanation of what is being called a “red” wolf.

3.) Public Information examples:

1. NCWRC Resolution to End the Failed Red Wolf Program
http://vimeo.com/user28731375/redwolfrestorationscandal

(Official Video) USFWS Illegally Releases 64 Red Wolves on Private Land and Lacked Federal Authority

***MEDIA CONTACT; Jett Ferebee, 252-714-2774***

Congressman Walter B Jones, Water Jones, Congressman Jones, Joey Hinton, Doc Hastings, House Committee on Natural Resources, Congress, Congressman Doc Hastings, ESA Oversight, Sue and Settle, Sue & Settle, T. Delaene Beeland, The Secret World of Red Wolves, Cornelia N. Hutt, Cornelia Hutt, Red Wolf Coalition, FOX, FOX News, ABC, ABC News, NBC, NBC News, WRAL, WRAL News, Raleigh, Charlotte, Sean Hannity, Bill Oreilly, Bill O’Reilly, The Factor, Megan Kelly, Greta Van Susteren, N&O, News and Observer, Bob Pendergrass, Dan Nicholas Park, Kim Wheeler, Red Wolf Coalition, David Rabon, RWC Board Member, USFWS, Red Wolf, Hybridization, International Wolf Center, Rob Schultz, Nina Fascione, Defenders of Wildlife, ESA, Endangered Species Act, Nonessential Experimental Population, North Carolina, Alligator River Wildlife Refuge, Red Wolf Coordinator, Section 10(j), 5 – Year Summary, Captive Breeding, Reintroduction Area, Coyote, Coywolf, Coywolfs, Coy-wolf, Coywolfs, Predator Control, Service, Take Permit, Adaptive Management, Sterilization, Federal Game Lands, Fish and Wildlife Service, Animal Welfare Institute, Lawsuit, NCWRC, North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission, Depredation, 5 County Red Wolf Recovery Area, Hyde County, Beaufort County, Tyrrell County, Dare County, Washington County, Red Wolf Recovery Program, Reward, PHVA 1999, George Amato, Mike Chamberlain, Jennifer Gilbreath, Ed Bangs, Brian Cole, Karen Goodrowe, Karen Beck, Gloria Bell, Dave Flemming, Jack Grisham, Art Beyer, Randy Fulk, Mary Hagedorn, Mike Bryant, Todd Fuller, Phil Hedrick, Onnie Byers, Eric Gese, Gary Henry, Brian Kelly, Phil Miller, John Theberge, Fred Knowlton, Michael Morse, Mary Thebarge, Sue Lindsey, Dennis Murray, Kathy Traylor-Holzer, Chris Lucash, Ron Nowak, Will Waddell, Ford Mauney, Mike Phillips, Bob Wayne, Dave Mech, Ulysses Seal, Kathy Whidbee, Scott McLellan, Doug Smith, Aubrey White, Michael Stoskopf, Paul Wilson, Dan Ashe, Sally Jewell, Department of the Interior, Red Wolf Study, Peer Review, Peer Reviewed, Howlings, Columbia NC, Columbia
Last edited by BR549; 01-30-2015 at 07:54 PM.
*********** Please forward this link to likeminded Hunters, Anglers and America’s Conservationist, via Email, Facebook, Twitter etc.***********

From: Jim Beers

> Subject: Wolf Hybrids, North Carolina and What a Few Good Men Can Do
>
>
>
> Kudos to North Carolina and Her Wolves that Never Were
>
> As someone with a long involvement in US and European wolf debacles of the past three-plus decades, it is with admiration and a wry sense of amusement that I have followed the sordid history of federal red wolf impositions on the good people of North Carolina. I admire what you are doing about “wolves” and I am deeply amused by your resurrection of the lost power of State governments as spelled out in the US Constitution.
>
> Red (I call them GI for “government issue”) wolves released on Bull Island at Cape Romaine National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina and then in North Carolina at various and sundry sites were always true hybrids composed largely of coyote; dog; and long gone, small SE US wolves’ genetic material. That these GI or red “wolves” (actually hybrids) are and always were fully capable of reproducing viable offspring with not only coyotes but with every variety of dogs from deer hounds and Dobermans to pit bulls and basset hounds is something honest biologists recognize as the classic definition of a Species, that is a group of similar animals capable of producing viable offspring. In other words, the bureaucratic manipulation of a federal law clearly intended to save “Species” such that something bureaucrats call a “red” wolf is given the unique identity of, say, a giraffe or a rhinoceros as a Species in order to execute a very severe federal authority capable of superseding State jurisdiction over wildlife in the State; the activities of rural residents in things from animal husbandry and hunting to animal control and the safety of all, especially children and the elderly; rural property owners like dog owners; and ultimately the economic activities of struggling rural communities: all this was and remains a scandalous abuse of government power and environmental oppression. That any citizen could be imprisoned for a year and fined $100,000 for killing or attempting to kill such mongrels placed in his midst by a remote central government is a travesty once thought to be unimaginable in a Constitutional Republic or even a “majority rule Democracy.
>
> To see a State Government and its’ Wildlife Authority (the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission) stand up to this federal bullying is heartening and a hopeful sign for other States, to say the least. The Commission’s Resolutions to order the federal bureaucrats to remove the “wolves” that they have been illegally releasing on private property in North Carolina, plus their Statement recognizing and calling for a Declaration of Extinction due to the Hybridization of the “Red Wolf” Genome (i.e. a full set of chromosomes representing all the inheritable traits of a singular group of organisms) are models to not only other US States hosting these GI wolves from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Coast to the Southwest ; they are a much needed encouragement to Europeans from Germany and Italy to Spain where wolves are spreading death and destruction due to the same sort of abuse of government power by the European Union government as Americans are suffering from Washington politicians and bureaucrats. Increasingly these European wolves are being shown to be “hybrids” with dogs and just as in the US, what dogs are not being killed by wolves are bred by or breed with dog/wolves “in heat” creating the inevitable and increasingly complex hybridizations that will always be the hallmark of wolves living in settled landscapes.
>
> In France alone, just last year, nearly 10,000 domestic animals were killed by wolves. Throughout Europe; sheep flocks, shepherds, and self-sufficient rural families are, like their American rural cousins, enduring untold stress and disappearing much to the distress of their rural communities where they have contributed so much for untold generations and where grazing lands are beginning to revert to brush and fire fuel. European men are being incarcerated for killing what appeared to be rogue dogs that, after lengthy and extensive laboratory by government’ experts, were declared to be wolves. The same propaganda about wolves (“restore stream banks”, “don’t kill stock or game animals”, “belong”, “necessary”) and the same paradigm of a remote and all-powerful central government controlled by wealthy, urban factions is destroying much of rural Europe with GI wolves just as we see in the rural western States today and just like federal bureaucracies have long-intended for North Carolina and an ever-expanding ring of surrounding States.
>
> So thank you North Carolina. Your intestinal fortitude and your moxie are both a model and a ray of hope to far more than merely those ensnared by the “red” wolf spider web manufactured in Washington. All of us with wolves or about to “receive” wolves from our Pacific Shores to where East meets West in Eastern Europe salute you and will begin watching your progress and learning how we can begin emulating you.
>
> Jim Beers
> 30 January 2014

4.) A note from one of the North Carolina men:

I will ask of you to leverage our message by sharing with others in the “WolfBGone” Community. If you will drive them back to ” Google Red Wolf Restoration Scandal” that would be great!! Also feel free to post and share the following two videos that expose this Federal Mess!

Video #1 – http://vimeo.com/user28731375/redwolfrestorationscandal

Video #2 – http://vimeo.com/user28731375/googleredwolfrestoratonscandal

5.) Another note and two documents from the North Carolina men:

“Here are the Official Doc’s to publish!!”

Filed Under: Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, National/World, Predators Tagged With: corruption, federal government, fraud, law breaking, north carolina, red wolves, u.s fish and wildlife service

Groups Want Sen. Franken to Help in Court Appeal on Wolf Ruling

January 24, 2015 by Tom Leave a Comment

Several organizations, including the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, have signed a letter urging Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., to encourage Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that returned gray wolves in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin to protected status under the Endangered Species Act.<<<Read More>>>

Filed Under: National/World Tagged With: appeal, court rulings, endangered species act, minnesota, sen. al franken, u.s fish and wildlife service, wolves

The Courts v. Congress

January 22, 2015 by Tom Leave a Comment

What a mess the Courts have made as it may pertain to Endangered Species Act (ESA) rulings. Court interpretations of the ESA have essentially rendered the Act a useless instrument to deal scientifically with specie issues. Because of out of control Courts, it has literally taken an act of Congress to effect some sort of sanity back into reality…..or not.

In the latest issue of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine (SAM) newsletter, Gerry Lavigne, a former Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) biologist, now works with SAM as a science adviser, wrote an article titled, Trojan Lynx.

In that article he writes: “To make matters worse, the USFWS lumped all 14 states into one recovery area, or “Distinct Population Segment” (DPS). Biologically, there are four distinct and separate lynx populations in the lower 48 states. Each of these four lynx populations extend into Canada….

“Recovery and removal of the lynx from the endangered species list depends on all four subpopulations attaining some as yet undetermined recovery standards simultaneously. What are the chances? How the USFWS chose to define the listing appears corrupt, and lacking biological integrity.”

The yellow-shaded areas show the historic range of Canada lynx throughout North America.

I’m not sure I agree totally with Lavigne’s assessment but that has little bearing on the bigger issue at hand. There was corruption all around during the Canada lynx listing process, and so we know that the choice to list the lynx was all based in political corruption and animal rights activism. Little can be done to reverse that act as history has shown government agencies and their pal environmentalists are not held accountable for any of their corrupt actions.

At this juncture, it matters not whether the USFWS listed lynx as “threatened” in one recovery area, 4 or 4,000, the Courts have decided, twice that I am aware of, that the USFWS doesn’t have authority to do that. Yesterday I explained this in an examination of Judge Beryl Howell’s recent gray wolf nonsense ruling.

Lavigne states that the only way the lynx can be taken off the list of protected species is when all lynx in all of the Lower 48 States are recovered – and we don’t know what the recovery criteria is because the USFWS has, of yet, to make that determination. (Sanity would suggest that in order to declare something “threatened” there must be some kind of data to show that and at the same time to have knowledge of what it will take to declare a species recovered. Otherwise how can such an act come about other than through corruption? But we don’t deal in normal things.)

At the present moment I think Lavigne is correct, according to the Courts. Judge Howell’s and Judge Friedman’s rulings both said that the USFWS doesn’t have authority to create a DPS for the purpose of delisting a species. And yet reality shows that they have authority to create a DPS for the purpose of listing a species. This cannot be and makes no sense at all. A complete one way street as I see it.

I almost never support the USFWS because they are agenda oriented, biased, corrupt and inept, but I do believe that part of the USFWS’s decision in listing the lynx originally as one segment in the Lower 48 States, their belief was, from past events, that they could chunk out a separate population segment and declare lynx (or any other species) within that segment recovered. The Courts have said no way.

Even though the USFWS has provided the Friedman Court an explanation of where they get authority within the ESA to create DPS and delist, and the Obama Administration drafted and entered into the Federal Register their definitions of historic range, current range and “significant portion of its range” evidently the Courts don’t want anything to do with that stuff.

The Courts have created a legal mess, destroying the ESA and rendering the functioning of the USFWS as nothing more than a government agency trying to work with both hands tied behind their backs. This all brings the solution back to Congress. As with what happened in Montana and Idaho, because the Courts are so ignorant of wildlife issues, and corrupt due to activism, then the Legislature has to do what legislatures do and that’s write more laws. When a corrupt Congress decides that the corrupt courts can’t interpret laws as they were corruptly written, then the lawmakers simply write new corrupt laws even if if means circumventing the corrupt rule of law. Make sense to you?

Lavigne asks what the chances are that lynx will be recovered simultaneously throughout 14 states. The answer is never and that is the reason why the Courts rule in favor of the environmentalists because animal protection, in their perverted minds, must be continual, and that includes no hunting, trapping and fishing. Go ahead. Keep denying it.

Filed Under: Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, Maine Hunting News Tagged With: canada lynx, congress, corruption, endangered species act, judge beryl howell, judge paul friedman, maine, sportsman’s alliance of maine, u.s fish and wildlife service

Feds Plan Wolf Releases Outside Approved Areas

January 22, 2015 by Tom 1 Comment

Press Release from Wolf Crossing:

Call to Action:

Please be aware Fish and Wildlife Service are issuing themselves a permit to release Mexican wolves in Vermejo park in Northern NM. We believe this to be in violation of NEPA and the APA not to mention all the lip service FWS ever gave the general public during the past years rule change NEPA process.

Wolves at the park would be out of the Mexican wolf experimental population area, making them fully endangered. This was our worst fear, that a large landowner could provide a staging ground for releases into areas not approved under 10-J experimental rulemaking, but land that could still qualifying for recovery habitat of the animal.

Why did this happen? FWS simply gave themselves permission for a categorical exclusion. Legally a CE is limited in it’s analyzed impacts, for it to qualify there has to be no change to ongoing process. definition of CE can be found here. http://environment.fhwa.dot.gov/projdev/docuce.asp Clearly this is a big change, wolves in N. NM and S. Colorado outside the current recovery area, with full status is a MAJOR FEDERAL ACTION that doesn’t meet the requirements for a Categorical Exclusion. FWS may be trying to tier the CE off the Mexican wolf NEPA analysis just concluded and the new rule issued Jan 15, with only the barest mention of deeded land deals in the Draft and Final EIS, with no analysis of impacts, regardless, it is illegal.

The current rule and final decision, is already under scrutiny by several organizations both producer and environmentalist, as the final decision was based on an agreement rather than any of the alternatives vetted by the public in the NEPA process, it too is illegal. FWS made a backdoor deal on a new alternative the public had no chance to comment on, during public meetings or comment periods and now they pursue an entirely new plan.

Clearly FWS is acting outside the parameters of the ESA behaving lawlessly and trying to release Mexican wolves outside the Mexican wolf experimental population area and recovery area. This could allow them to spread onto ranch-lands north of I-40. This will make Mexican wolves fully endangered up in this area which means no control of problem animals and no removals even with depredation problems.

Make your comments and donate funds to the legal battles. Folks we have to do something this time, talk to your organization and insist they communicate with the members on the implications of this new plan and the legal strategy that is being embarked upon.

Comments on the permit, can be made here. Cite the permit number in your comments.
Comments on this permit are due by February 17.

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/01/15/2015-00551/endangered-and-threatened-species-permit-applications#h-16

Permit TE-091551

Applicant: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—Mexican Wolf Recovery Program, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Applicant requests a renewal to a current permit for research and recovery purposes to conduct the following activities for Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupis baileyi) within Arizona and New Mexico: Capture, including, but not limited to, leg-hold traps, helicopter or ground darting and net-gunning, and captive capture methods; handle; possession; administration of health care; propagation; radio collar or other marking techniques; release; obtain and preserve blood, tissue, semen, ova, and other samples that are considered parts of wolves (scat is not considered a part of a wolf and can be collected without a permit); translocate; transport between approved Mexican wolf captive management facilities in the United States and Mexico, to approved release sites, and to and from the Vermejo Park Ranch; purposeful lethal take (lethal control is limited to Mexican wolves within the MWEPA in Arizona and New Mexico); hazing via less-than-lethal projectiles; injurious harassment; research; and any other USFWS-approved husbandry practice or management action for Mexican wolves.

Filed Under: Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, National/World, Predators Tagged With: endangered species act, new mexico, u.s fish and wildlife service, wolves

Historic Range: All Or Nothing? Intellectual Bankruptcy?

January 21, 2015 by Tom 4 Comments

It is more and more obvious with each passing day that the United States has eagerly, and yet unknowingly, moved into a Totalitarian socialist government and existence of servitude. Much of this occurred the result of intellectual bankruptcy at all levels. If you at all get it, this might appear to you as obvious in Court rulings about endangered species…and then again, maybe not.

The latest in this seeming Kabuki theater is one ruling and explanation of a Washington, D.C. judge, Beryl Howell, who essentially ruled that the United States, under the Obama-administrated Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) cannot remove any species from federal protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) unless that species is fully recovered throughout all of its historic range. In other words, the USFWS does not have authority because of the ESA to manage species through the confines of the ESA by declaring a species recovered within a designated region, most often called a Distinct Population Segment (DPS).

In Judge Howell’s Memorandum of Opinion in the Humane Society of the United States v. Sally Jewell, Judge Howell states, “The FWS’s interpretation is unreasonable on two levels. First, the structure, history, and purpose of the ESA do not permit the designation of a DPS for the purpose of delisting the vertebrates that are members of the DPS. Second, the ESA does not allow the designation of a DPS made up of vertebrates already protected under the ESA at a more general taxonomic level.”

This statement must be understood in its entirety in order that one can see the intellectual bankruptcy of such a statement. This statement says that the USFWS’s interpretation of the ESA is unreasonable because that department cannot create or designate a DPS for the purpose of delisting a species. Let me better explain for those who might not be able to fully understand. In the specific case in discussion, Judge Howell contends that gray wolves were listed as an endangered species in 1973 throughout all of the Lower 48 states – with the exception of Minnesota, where the wolf was listed as threatened.

The USFWS, after determining that wolves in a broad area of the Western Great Lakes had fully recovered, drew some boundaries and declared wolves within that boundary as no longer protected by the ESA.

Howell is not the first judge to rule this way. I have written about it before. Another Washington, D.C. based, intellectually bankrupt judge ruled pretty much identically as Howell did. My explanatory response to Judge Howell’s ruling can be found at this link.

At this link location you’ll be provided links to responses by the USFWS to Judge Friedman’s demand for an explanation as to why the USFWS has authority to create DPSs.

What Judge Howell is driving at is that because the USFWS cannot designate a segment as an area of recovered species, the only way that such a designation can be done is once wolves (or any other species) are fully recovered throughout its entire historic range. Howell reinforces this claim by saying, “The FWS’s interpretation of the ESA as authorizing the simultaneous designation and delisting of DPSs—or the designation of a DPS solely for the purpose of delisting—directly conflicts with the structure of the ESA and, consequently, this interpretation is entitled to no deference …. The ESA is remarkably clear: the FWS must identify “species” that are “threatened” or “endangered,” afford them the protections necessary to help them “recover,” and then re-evaluate the listed entities once such “species” are recovered.”

Hopefully you have come to understand exactly what both Judges, Friedman and Howell, are saying, because I’m going to spoil their party. There are two things to consider but the major one is this: After the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was signed into law by the crooked Richard Nixon, wolves were designated as “Endangered” under the authority of the ESA. I know of nobody who disputes that event. My logical, and I think rational (sorry if you don’t see it that way) question is this: If, according to Friedman and Howell, the United States Government, under its own created law (ESA), cannot designate an area to delist a portion of a species’ historic range as recovered, then how did the United State Government have authority to designate the listing initially in the Lower 48 states?

Supposedly under this brand new law, the U.S. carved out an area, defined by the borders of the United States, and designated wolves endangered within those borders. How could they do this? In addition, at the same time, they carved out another area, separated by the borders defining the State of Minnesota, and declared wolves there “Threatened”. How could they do that?

But it gets worse. Because a group of people, which included not only the USFWS but also some of the very same activist, animal protectionist groups suing the U.S. Government to stop delisting wolves, wanted wolves introduced into the Greater Yellowstone National Park region, the U.S. Government carved out three areas where wolves would be introduced and protected with different protections than the rest of the country. How in God’s name, according to Friedman and Howell, could the USFWS do that?

Then the same USFWS and the same animal rights, environmental, totalitarians, headed for the Southwest. Once again they carved out and set boundaries and protected a fake hybrid species of wild dog they wished to call a Mexican wolf. Why was the USFWS able to do this? Friedman and Howell say that the ESA doesn’t provide authority to do that.

These hypocritical wolf lovers, carved out borders in the Southeast and created a Frankenstein wolf – red wolf- and introduced it into the landscape. How could the USFWS do that if the ESA doesn’t provide authority?

This same thing happened in the Western Great Lakes and all we hear about everyday are more and more environmental groups seeking to carve out borders and introduce wolves…wolves in everybody’s back yard.

And on and on it goes but only now, now that wolves are a damned menace, destroying wildlife wherever it goes and posing threats to humans for safety and health, do these people want an end to carving out populations for delisting. The cognitive dissonance is amazing. What was acceptable to get their damned wolves infesting this nation is no longer acceptable to bring them under control.

The second issue, which I will touch on only briefly, has to do with the determination of historic range and significant portion of a species range. Historic range and currently feasible range should be determined as different. Whether we like it or not, what once was historic range can no longer be acceptable to support a species that may have once roamed that area.

Once that has been determined, because the ESA uses as criteria in determining if a species deserves ESA protection, we must decide if the species under question is “threatened” or “endangered” throughout a significant portion of that range.

Section 3 – (6) of the Endangered Species Act defines “Endangered Species” as: “(6) The term “endangered species” means any species which is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range…”

The Obama-administered USFWS placed into the Federal Register what it deemed to be the definition of “significant portion of its range.” This determination attempts to separate the differences between historic range and range.

Determination of “significant” is not so cut and dry and leaves far too much wiggle room. “…we determine that a portion of the range of a species is “significant” if the species is not currently endangered or threatened throughout all of its range, but the portion’s contribution to the viability of the species is so important that, without the members in that portion, the species would be in danger of extinction, or likely to become so in the foreseeable future, throughout all of its range.”

Making determinations would be easier if definitions actually meant something. To many, the use of “endangered or threatened throughout all or a significant portion of its range” has not at all been followed in listing of species for protection. The gray wolf is a prime example. Wolves live by the thousands all over the globe and only an idiot would think of them as being in danger of extinction. But that doesn’t bode well for those eager for other people to be forced to live with the animals.

It is my contention that the USFWS was wrong when it initially declared wolves endangered throughout all of the Lower 48 states because the determination was made utilizing historic range, with absolutely no determination as to whether wolves could conceivably exist in all of the Lower 48 States or that we would want them too.

According to statements made in the past by Ed Bangs and others, bent on protecting the wolves, they said that circumstances and “best available science” changes all the time and that the USFWS is forced, under the ESA, to recover wolves and they must make changes according to those influences. Perhaps then, it is time for these same ESA administrators to practice what they preach and begin making changes.

But this will be impossible to do provided this country gives jobs to judges that are clueless, intellectually deprived, make interpretations far outside anything historic or reasonable and to make statements like, “[The Courts] must lean forward from the bench to let an agency know, in no uncertain terms, that enough is enough.”

That door swings both ways.

Filed Under: Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, Featured Article, Predators Tagged With: endangered species act, historic range, judge howell, judge paul friedman, obama administration, significant portion of its range, u.s fish and wildlife service, wolves

Service Finalizes Changes to Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Rule in Arizona and New Mexico

January 15, 2015 by Tom Leave a Comment

Press Release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

Revises Mexican Wolf ESA Listing as Subspecies, Maintaining Endangered Status

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized the revised rule under which Mexican wolves are managed in Arizona and New Mexico. The revised rule expands the area where wolves are allowed to occupy and increases the Service’s ability to further the conservation of one of the nation’s rarest mammals while being responsive to the needs of local communities. The final rule will be formally published in the Federal Register later this week.

Additionally, the Service has issued a final rule listing the Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) as an endangered subspecies under the Endangered Species Act. The Mexican wolf had previously been protected under the listing for the gray wolf (Canis lupus). Under this listing revision, the experimental population will be associated with the Mexican wolf subspecies’ listing rather than with the gray wolf species.

“This revision of the experimental population rule provides Mexican wolves the space they need to establish a larger and more genetically diverse population – a population that can meaningfully contribute to the subspecies’ recovery,” said Benjamin Tuggle, the Service’s Southwest Regional Director. “The revision also provides us with the necessary management tools to address negative interactions. The expanded area for the Mexican wolf experimental population is accompanied by clearer and more flexible rules to support the interests of local stakeholders. Successfully establishing a larger population of Mexican wolves in a wider working landscape requires striking an appropriate balance between enabling wolf population growth and minimizing impacts on livestock operators, local communities and wild ungulates. This new rule achieves that balance.”

The revised regulations for the experimental population of the Mexican wolf:
• provide for a fourfold expansion of the area where Mexican wolves primarily are expected to occur and a tenfold increase in the area where Mexican wolves can initially be released from captivity,

• allow management activities in Arizona to be methodically phased west of Highway 87 over a period of up to 12 years,

• extend the Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area’s (MWEPA) southern boundary from I-10 to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and New Mexico to provide for a larger area where management flexibility applies,

• clarify definitions in the rule, including provisions for take of Mexican wolves if necessary to protect domestic animals (defined as livestock and non-feral dogs), or as needed to address unacceptable impacts to wild ungulate herds (particularly elk and deer), and

• provide for a population objective of 300-325 Mexican wolves in the MWEPA.

Since 1998, the Service and cooperating state, federal and tribal agencies have reintroduced and managed Mexican wolves under a rule designating the U.S. population as “non-essential experimental.” This designation provides for increased management flexibility for populations of threatened or endangered species that are reintroduced into a designated experimental area within their probable historical range.

The 1998 rule was established to determine whether a reintroduced population of at least 100 wolves could be established in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area, but it limited releases of wolves from captivity to 16 percent of the Blue Range in Arizona. Those regulations constrained managers’ ability to achieve the necessary population growth, distribution and recruitment that would improve genetic variation within the experimental population and establish a persistent experimental population of Mexican wolves – a population that could then be expected to substantively contribute to the Mexican wolf recovery in the wild.

“We are excited about the changes we are about to put in place,” said Sherry Barrett, the Service’s Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator. “We are looking forward to working with our partners in the reintroduction, local communities, landowners and other interested parties to significantly improve the status of the experimental population.”

The final rule for Revision to the Regulations for the Nonessential Experimental Population of the Mexican Wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) implements the decision made by the Service following completion of a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The rule revision was informed through input from 28 cooperating agencies that included federal and state agencies, local governments and tribes throughout Arizona and New Mexico. More than 40,000 public comments were submitted and considered in forming the revised rule.

The final rules, FAQs, etc., are posted at:

http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/mexicanwolf/PR10jM.cfm. To learn more about the Mexican
wolf recovery program, and experimental population rule revision, including maps of the MWEPA,
visit http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/mexicanwolf/.

Filed Under: Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, National/World, Predators Tagged With: Endangered Species, endangered species act, experimental, mexican grey wolf, non essential, u.s fish and wildlife service

Arizona Intent to Sue USFWS For Failure to Create Wolf Recovery Plan

January 7, 2015 by Tom 1 Comment

*Note* Click here for a copy of letter sent to DOI/USFWS

For immediate release, Jan. 6, 2015

Arizona Game and Fish issues notice of intent to sue federal officials over Mexican wolf recovery plan development

PHOENIX – The Arizona Game and Fish Department today served a Notice of Intent with the secretary of the Department of Interior and director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service). The action was taken in an effort to support development of an updated recovery plan for Mexican wolves that utilizes the best available science as legally required by the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Game and Fish has requested an updated recovery plan from the Service on multiple occasions over the past several years because the current recovery plan for Mexican wolves developed in 1982 is so outdated that it no longer provides an adequate framework to guide the recovery effort. That plan also fails to identify the recovery criteria required by the ESA including downlisting and delisting criteria.

“This Notice of Intent is an effort to ensure that the Fish and Wildlife Service adheres to its legal obligation to develop a thorough science-based plan that will lead to a successful recovery outcome that recognizes Mexico as pivotal to achieving recovery of the Mexican wolf given that 90 percent of its historical range is there,” said Arizona Game and Fish Department Director Larry Voyles.

Bi-national recovery plans for endangered species have been successfully established with Mexico for other species including Sonoran pronghorn, Kemp’s ridley sea turtles and, most recently, thick-billed parrots. The department asserts that to succeed, Mexican wolf recovery must include an integrated, bi-national approach that incorporates the recovery work already underway in Mexico.

“I fully support today’s action and I look forward to working with the department to develop a legal and sound plan for the recovery of the Mexican wolf,” said Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

The Service is currently in litigation with several parties that are pushing for reestablishment of Mexican wolves in areas that are not part of the subspecies’ historical range and requesting a resolution in an unreasonable timeframe. These groups are basing their litigation on a draft report developed by a Mexican Wolf Recovery Science and Planning Subgroup. The department completed extensive analysis of the subgroup’s recommendations and found the science used as a basis for the recommendations to be significantly flawed. This misguided approach could jeopardize genetic integrity of the subspecies if the Mexican wolf is permitted to reestablish in close proximity to Northern gray wolves.

Secretary Sally Jewell of the Department of Interior has 60 days to respond to the Notice of Intent. If the secretary fails to respond, the department will pursue civil action. A Notice of Intent is a required precursor to pursuing civil action.

Arizona Game and Fish’s involvement in Mexican wolf conservation began in the mid-1980s. Since that time, the department has spent more than $7 million on wolf recovery in the state and has been the predominant on-the-ground presence working to manage Mexican wolves.

For more information on Mexican wolves, visit www.azgfd.gov/wolf.