The Arizona Game and Fish Department and Office of the Arizona Attorney General today filed suit against the secretary of the Department of Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing their statutory duty to develop an updated recovery plan to guide Mexican wolf recovery. The action was taken in an effort to spur development of an updated recovery plan for Mexican wolves that utilizes the best available science as legally required by the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
This action was preceded in January with a Notice of Intent, which went unanswered by the Service.
“The Service (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) is currently in litigation with special interest groups and settlement discussions could possibly occur without our knowledge or involvement, as has occurred in previous Mexican wolf lawsuits. As the state’s wildlife authority, we will not sit on the sidelines when it comes to decisions affecting Arizona’s wildlife,” said Robert Mansell, chair of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission.
Arizona State Representative Mark Finchem said, “I appreciate and applaud the work of the Attorney General on this front. The ESA, along with other federal agreements with environmentalists have routinely been negotiated lacking recognition of the requirement for coordination and collaboration with the State government(s). How the federal government and environmentalists can negotiate actions related to fish, foul and other game that is the property of the State of Arizona, and not the federal government, and have standing in the courts remains an open question for me. The man-caused increase of apex predators, like the wolf, into an environment where wildfires have killed scores of large game including deer, elk and antelope ought to be reexamined in light of the flawed science that has been uncovered.”
Arizona State Representative Bob Thorpe said of the move, “I applaud our Arizona Attorney General and Game and Fish Department for taking legal action in order to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to adhere to its own rules, to uphold integrity and scientific standards, and to follow to the letter of the law the Endangered Species Act. After 80-years without wolves within Arizona, the USFWS has repeatedly demonstrated little regard for the opinions and concerns of our citizens and the negative impacts associated with releasing these predators into our state. Too often, Federal authorities have entered into secretive ‘Sue and Settle’ agreements, where closed-door deals are made with environmentalists, without those citizens who are directly and negatively impacted or state officials represented at the table. Millions of taxpayer dollars have already been spent on reestablishing wolves within Arizona and New Mexico, without the consent of a vote of the citizens or the permission of local government leaders, and with a total disregard of state’s rights and sovereignty. In most cases, Federal authorities have refused to compensate ranchers and pet owners for financial losses due to deadly wolf attacks. Additionally, the Mexican Gray Wolf is listed as an ‘Experimental, Non-Essential Population’ which means it is not essential for these wolves to be reestablished in the first place. However, USFWS now wants to dramatically increase the number of wolves and the size of the territory within our state where wolves will kill livestock, pets and game including deer and elk. Without established, defined criteria, Arizona officials cannot know when the wolf program has actually reached its recovery goals.” Thorpe is the Chairman of the House Government and Higher Education committee and sat on the Energy, Environment and Natural Resources committee for 2-years.
The Game and Fish Department has repeatedly requested an updated recovery plan from the Service over the past several years. The current recovery plan for Mexican wolves was developed in 1982 and fails to provide several of the key legal requirements. One of the key failings of the current recovery plan required by ESA is the identification of criteria required to downlist and delist this subspecies of wolves from the ESA. Without these criteria, it is impossible to ever remove Mexican wolves from endangered status.
“The State of Arizona and Game and Fish have long been committed to Mexican wolf recovery. However, we have reached a point where without a current recovery plan to provide a framework by which to operate and objective science-based goals to target, the Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Project we started in 1998 will be faced with unwarranted litigation with little regard for how biologically successful our efforts become,” said Arizona Game and Fish Department Director Larry Voyles. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is legally obligated to develop a thorough science-based plan that incorporates all of the elements needed for successful recovery, including the inclusion of Mexico and its core range, and criteria for downlisting and delisting. 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. Mexico holds 90 percent of the Mexican wolf’s core historic range.
“The federal government has failed to do its part to provide an updated Mexican wolf recovery plan, one that provides real world guidelines for measuring success,” said Attorney General Mark Brnovich. “While long supporting a recovery for the Mexican wolf, we have a responsibility to insure Arizona has a seat at the negotiating table.”
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.
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.
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