Wolves in the Grand Canyon

[AZ402]

This will be interesting. Delw how do you like this potentially happening in our favorite unit???



To All: Take a look this, it's from the ADLAZ.org website

Do you think the Grand Canyon National Park expansion will take place before or after they introduce the wolves.

Check out the Sponsors below:

Howl for Wolves
in the Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project



March 23, 2006



Join us on the rims of Grand Canyon this summer,
as we inspire wolf activists from around the country...
And around the world!

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
The last wolf in the Grand Canyon Ecoregion, one of our nation's most wild places, was killed in 1942. This region has extraordinary wolf habitat and suffers without this key species. Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project invites you to join us for educational outreach, during which you'll get to camp out near one of the most awe-inspiring natural features of the American landscape.

WHEN: May 21-August 26, 2006
WHERE: North or South Rim of the Grand Canyon
WHAT: Volunteers needed to staff information tables
HOW: Commit to five (5) or more days and receive a stipend
WHY: Because you want to get wolves back on the ground in the Grand Canyon!

CONTACT:
Nicole Corbo, Coordinator
Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project
(928) 202-1325
[email protected]

Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project is Animal Defense League of Arizona, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Denver Zoo, Flagstaff Activist Network, Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, Northern Arizona Audubon, Prescott College, Sierra Club/Grand Canyon Chapter, Phoenix Zoo, The Rewilding Institute, and The Cramptons.

CAMPING EQUIPMENT NEEDED
We need such items as two (2) three-burner camp stoves, camp trailers (pop-ups, airstreams, etc.), sleeping pads, coolers, rain-fly's (big ones).

 

[enraeh]

What is this?

Is this one of those teach-in/love-in/tree-hugger/grateful dead/"Mommy look at me I'm saving the earth" type summer camp activities where bored and foolish college students have an excuse to vent their self hatred?

 

[Basser]

I should be able to get some time off of work that week to help with the efforts....the efforts of pushing tree huggers into the big hole

 

[Delw]

AZ Matter of fact I think wolves in the grand canyon area would be great. it would definatly thin out the tourist, they are ten times easier to catch than a deer or elk and they have a vast population up there.
Heck we bus in tourist buy the millions what a perfect way to feed a population of wolves.

I will talk to Terry and see whats up with this , he is the top dog at game and fish for protected species, plus I will be fishing with him wednesday night.

Maybe just maybe I could get him to post here.

 

[AZ402]

This email I got was the first I have heard of any Wolf re-introduction in GCNP. It'll be interesting to see what Terry has to say about it. To me it seems the North Rim would be the place they'd try to put them???

 

[Samario]

This is a very complicated issue and it would take me many, many pages to adequately address all aspects. I will do my best to be concise, yet thorough, but be forewarned this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Approving a second wolf reintroduction project in Arizona would be a BAD PUBLIC POLICY DECISION, but more than 20 years of government service tell me that in government bad policy is always among the possible outcomes. Also, sometimes today's bad policy becomes tomorrow's epiphany.

Discussion of wolf reintroduction in Arizona has been underway, intermittently, for more than 20 years. I started it in the mid-1980s when my staff helped me assess POTENTIAL reintroduction sites statewide. After a lengthy evaluation process, in the 1990s AGFD decided and USFWS agreed that the BEST reintroduction site statewide was in east-central AZ and west-central NM: the Blue Primitive Area. This decision has been reaffirmed several times since then, as independent scientists, ecologists, and agencies reconsider wolf biology, genetics of extant and historical wolves, historical ranges of wolf subspecies that still exist (e.g. Mexican wolf) and those that became extinct through government-driven eradication programs in the early to mid-1900s.

Issues in the current Mexican wolf reintroduction effort in the Blue have convinced AGFD that WE DO NOT AND WILL NOT SUPPORT an additional reintroduction effort in Arizona. Primary among the issues are the costs of reintroduction and of management necessary during and after reintroduction. Predator management costs real money! So does failure to manage predators properly. So does elimination of predators (remember the Kaibab deer herd crash of the early 1900s).

Whether wolves reintroduced up North (Northern Rockies) that eventually spread south or Mexican wolves reintroduced in the South (Blue Range) that eventually spread north should be allowed to disperse and occupy other parts of the Southwest outside their currently allowed Recovery Area is a decision we have not yet made. We expect to make that decision in 2007, but MIGHT speed that up to the end of this year. Regardless of what the decision is, it will be made through extensive public process that allows all wolf advocates, wolf opponents, and the two people in the world who are neutral on this issue, to express their opinions and provide meaningful or other comment. As I said, it is a compex issue and deserves much more than simple rhetorical statements like "I hate wolves" or "I love wolves." Neither of those helps us or any other agency make decisions, no matter what the species.

Four factors have converged to bring the issue (more wolf reintroduction sites) up again: (1) southestern (Mexican) wolf recovery, as opposed to reintroduction, has lagged horribly behind where it should be, for many reasons, all due to USFWS failure to act and all bad (this leaves us all open to litigation-driven court-decisions affirming additional reintroductions that would on the basis of common sense and practicality be ludicrous); (2) conservationists have acquired extensive land-holdings in northern Arizona, and some of the key organizations involved have a wolf-reintroduction agenda; (3) scientific understanding of wolf genetics (current and historical) changed significantly over the past few years and now supports a much more extensive historical distribution (thus POTENTIAL current distribution of Mexican wolves in the Southwest) than science supported when AGFD and USFWS made the Blue Range decision years ago; and (4) sans legal boundaries precluding it, eventual occupancy of northern Arizona by reintroduction wolves from the North or from the South is PROBABLY inevitable (with the northen delisting underway, there would be NO LEGAL BOUNDARY precluding it for wolves that are of northern or unknown origin). So, that sets the table for the current discussion.

I am quite familiar with the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project, and a friend and colleague of many of the folks in its member organizations. Even good friends and colleagues can respectfully disagree with each other on specific issues. A couple of years ago I met with them in Flagstaff to give them the official AGFD opinion on this subject, and my own perspective gained through 24 years of working on wolf reintroduction and recovery. It is simple: AGFD, under its current Director and Commission DOES NOT AND WILL NOT SUPPORT A WOLF REINTRODUCTION PROJECT IN NORTHERN ARIZONA AND WILL IN FACT ACTIVELY OPPOSE ANY SUCH EFFORT ANYWHERE IN ARIZONA. We simply can't afford a second reintroduction effort. It's not a prey base issue, it's a cost issue. Whether or not we will agree to passive occupancy through natural dispersal remains to be seen (see above), but only the Director and/or Commission can change that position opposing a second reintroduction project anywhere in AZ.

So, who makes the final decision? The Arizona Game and Fish Commission makes the final decision on wolf reintroduction in Arizona except that (1) we have no jurisdiction over what is done on Tribal Trust lands (congressionally established reservations, which does not include tribally acquired off-reservation lands); (2) State vs. Federal jurisdiction on National Park lands is hotly disputed at policy and legal levels and might be tested again in the courts by either party over this very issue; (3) USFWS could POSSIBLY decide to authorize a reintroduction that a State opposes, resulting in yet another trail of litigation and court tests; and (4) failure to consider and prepare for the dispersal issue could result in fully endangered wolves occupying the Plateau (if the Northern Rockies population is delisted, and it will be, then, as it stands right now, wolves that show up OUTSIDE that Distinct Population Segment [e.g. on the Plateau] that cannot be proven NOT to be of Mexican wolf origin would be considered endangered and fully protected by the ESA).

There are lots of aspects of wolf reintroduction (e.g. statements about prey base impacts and/or about needing wolves to balance the ecosystem) that are fun to explore (because there is truth and BS in each one, and most folks don't recognize the BS or accept the truth/facts), but I am having too much fun with other issues to get into them with you guys or the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project. What I will say is this: hunters do themselves a disservice when they discount wolf advocates as a bunch of environmental nuts out to take a nature walk and howl like pretend wolves. The enviros engaged in this kind of issue are making infinitely better use of real science, policy, asset acquisition, administrative process, and legal process than hunters are. Heck, if hunters were as far-thinking as the enviros are, hunters would have bought the ranches on the Plateau that are now owned or controlled by the Grand Canyon Trust that give the GC Wolf Project a property-owners toehold for advocating landscape level changes in habitat and species management.

Despite AGFD's position, or perhaps because of it, the Grand Canyon Wolf Project will continue to quietly yet persistently work diligently to build public and private support for its agenda. Events like the one announced in this thread help that effort. If you want to know what goes on in such an event, attend it. Join the MILLIONS of Grand Canyon National Park visitors who will be exposed to a pro-wolf reintroduction agenda through this effort over the next few years!!! Then post about it based on actual knowledge instead of assumptions, stereotypes, and misconceptions.

While you are at it, join the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and a bunch of other big-game oriented groups that will inevitably and likely too late enter the debate.

Enviros and conservationists and agency folks are just like hunters and anglers in that they come in all shapes and sizes. Some are flat out whacko idiots. Some are highly informed, motivated people dedicated to an agenda that someone else might well oppose. And there are lots of in-betweeners. But, as a whole, the enviros work hard, work smart, and are as persistent as a lifetime is long. And they often seem to be able to put their internal and individual differences of opinion aside better than most hunter and angler groups when it comes to working on Big Picture Issues, like wolf reintroduction on the Plateau.

This is all JMHO, but it is based on the fact that I am all of the following: an agency employee, a died-in-the-wool endangered species advocate, a multiple-use of public lands advocate, an enviro/conservationist, a wolf and jaguar manager, a life-long hunter and angler, A RANGER BOAT OWNER (LOL!!), and someone with 34 adult years invested in conservation and natural resource management issues in South American, Mexico, the USA, and Canada. I am not a rocket scientist or an ultimate authority on anything, but I honestly do believe that I know what the heck I am talking about in this issue. Of course, the Captain of the Titanic thought he was a pretty good sailor. Sometimes you don't know you're full of crap until the iceberg tells you.

Delw -- let me know if I did not cover any important bases well enough, or if the iceberg needs to tell me something.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Issues in the current Mexican wolf reintroduction effort in the Blue have convinced AGFD that WE DO NOT AND WILL NOT SUPPORT an additional reintroduction effort in Arizona. Primary among the issues are the costs of reintroduction and of management necessary during and after reintroduction. Predator management costs real money!

It is simple: AGFD, under its current Director and Commission DOES NOT AND WILL NOT SUPPORT A WOLF REINTRODUCTION PROJECT IN NORTHERN ARIZONA AND WILL IN FACT ACTIVELY OPPOSE ANY SUCH EFFORT ANYWHERE IN ARIZONA. We simply can't afford a second reintroduction effort. It's not a prey base issue, it's a cost issue.

If adequate funding is secured for the management, then AGFD will support re-introduction?

 

[FAIRCHASEBEN]

Samario ,
Thanks for the info , very good read . Wish we had more people like you who are 'on the ground' posting about these issues . There are always numerous misconceptions with controversial issues like this one .

If adequate funding is secured for the management, then AGFD will support re-introduction?

Please resist answering yes to JQueervo , he'll try to get Paul MaCartney doing concerts and Micheal Moron making movies for funding .

 

[The Hedgehog]

AZ sportsman should be excited about this one. Wolves could be pseudo-managed by the feds during the introduction phase (maybe a dozen years or so) who would have little concern with the impact on Arizona's other wildlife. Cost aside, It would be a bummer to give a significant portion of the already extremely limited hunting opportunites to more predators. What would wolves do to the elk/antelope in areas 9/10? How would they affect mule deer on the AZ strip? Wolves won't stay in GCNP.

Hopefully that gets shot down. But you never know these days.. Who needs hunters when we can "re-introduce" uncontrolled natural predators?

 

[Delw]

Terry, thanks for the info.

Dont forget wednesday afternoon, I will call you monday tuesdays

Delw

 

[Samario]

Delw: My pleasure. I am looking forward to it! I fished Pleasant last week and mainly just looked for beds. In one ca. 100 yard stretch that you know as my favorite main lake site, my son and I saw more than 100 2 to 5 lbers in 2 to 15 ft of water dropping rapidly off to 80+. I figured as skittish as they were they were just waiting on a little warmer water and maybe the next full moon.

Jose Cuervo: The wolf budget for the Blue Range reintroduction project is roughly $500,000/year SHORT on the Federal side of where it needs to be, and by the time the wild population doubles it will be more than $1 million/year short. Any discussion of funding for a second reintroduction effort must await resolving the current Federal shortfall, and if I were you I would not hold my breath for that to happen. I live with the downside of inadequate budgets, and there is NO WAY that I would recommend to my Director and Commission that we jump into a second wolf project with the same level of uncertainty that was associated with the first one. Sorry FairChaseBen, I can't tell Jose Cuervo "no" but I sure as hell won't tell him "yes." Like I said, it's complicated, and none of it boils down to a simplistic yes or no.

Greenhorn: the Mexican wolf reintroduction project is now (since 2002) led by the States (AZ and NM) and a Tribe (White Mtn Apache), by our choice, with strong Federal participation (USFWS, USFS, and Wildlife Services). I chair the interagency management group, and we are concerned about ALL impacts, whether on wildlife or on people. The Grand Canyon Wolf Project is NOT about reintroducing wolves just (if at all) into GCNP. The ORIGINAL and I believe the CURRENT focus is on PRIVATE lands acquired north of the Park, but at least partially adjacent to it. Who needs hunters? The same folks who need natural predators. Natural predators and hunters DO NOT tend to harvest wildlife the same way (I'm talking about effects, not methods). Emphasis on hunter harvest of adults and especially big antlers probably does not yield the same long term (evolutionary scale) selection pressure as predation by natural predators. It took a wolf (and other predators) an eternity to build a deer, and I believe (JMHO) that given enough time humans would eventually see prey base differences resulting from lack of natural predator pressure. Coyotes do not equal (replace) wolves as top carnivores, nor do lions nor bears. Humans can harvest-manage ungulate prey populations reasonably fine without wolves, as long as numbers are the only criterion. It's the LONG LONG term QUALITY of the prey animal that I THINK (again, JMHO) needs wolves for maintenance. Just think how much we have changed the face of the earth (the landscape on which wildlife live) in just the past 150 years. Given that species adapt (evolve) over millenia, how could we even begin to fathom the long-term effects of our ecological footprint, except in terms of extinction rates? Ah, poppycock. This is way too speculative and data-poor to warrant attention. Just idle thoughts on a DST Sunday.

Ciao, Terry

 

[JoseCuervo]

Jose Cuervo: The wolf budget for the Blue Range reintroduction project is roughly $500,000/year SHORT on the Federal side of where it needs to be, and by the time the wild population doubles it will be more than $1 million/year short. Any discussion of funding for a second reintroduction effort must await resolving the current Federal shortfall, and if I were you I would not hold my breath for that to happen. I live with the downside of inadequate budgets, and there is NO WAY that I would recommend to my Director and Commission that we jump into a second wolf project with the same level of uncertainty that was associated with the first one. Sorry FairChaseBen, I can't tell Jose Cuervo "no" but I sure as hell won't tell him "yes." Like I said, it's complicated, and none of it boils down to a simplistic yes or no.

Ciao, Terry

What are the major expenditures that cause such a budget to be needed for the reintroduction of a predator that is not hunted? In the Northern Rockies, the Wolves have done pretty good at re-establishing themselves DESPITE the amount of money that has been spent to "manage" the re-introduction.

 

[The Hedgehog]

The Grand Canyon Wolf Project is NOT about reintroducing wolves just (if at all) into GCNP. The ORIGINAL and I believe the CURRENT focus is on PRIVATE lands acquired north of the Park, but at least partially adjacent to it.

How much private land north of the Grand Canyon Park in Arizona? Man, doesn't look like much at all.

 

[BigHornRam]

Thanks for the well informed, real world comments Terry. He's an interesting letter to the editor from this past Friday's Missoulian.



Use science, not economics
I'd like to propose to Montana FWP a unique concept for the marauding elk in the North Hills. It's called "science based management." It requires no licenses (a negative for FWP), and no bullets whizzing over our heads as we hike the hills. It only requires the agency to look at predator-prey relationships which involve science rather than the usual management tool, economics, which is all about selling licenses and pleasing the livestock industry.

It's interesting that in Idaho, cougar and bear quotas have been increased in an attempt to increase elk numbers. Why? Because cougars and bear eat elk, especially cows and calves. I seem to recall that extra permits were issued last fall for cougar hunting in the Rattlesnake Wilderness. If there are too many elk, why would any permits be issued?

I'm all about a moratorium on both cougar and bear hunting in the Rattlesnake Wilderness until there's a reduction in the elk herd. The elk will retreat to the high country for the spring, summer, and fall where their numbers will be reduced by predation, a natural balance will be achieved, and the livestock people and developers will be happy.

Jerry Black, Missoula

 

[The Hedgehog]

BHR, Are you lucky enough to have Jerry Black as a neighbor?

From his comments, I'd bet he's a retired or trust-funded transplant from a trendy coastal city, living in a trophy home along the edge of the national forest. He probably also has 10 pets, a wife on Prozac, and does community service for HSUS. I bet he has an opinion on every issue and he's most likely looking to run for a local government position.

I could be way off base, but that's just me comparing him to the type of folks who write in the Bozeman Comical on similar subjects. I bet he's a fun guy to have a beer with and talk to at a neighborhdd BBQ. You can ask him.. "Who needs hunters?" I bet he'd agree.

 

[BigHornRam]

Good profile Greenhorn.

At the BBQ I could also ask Jerry if would go all out and put some fresh sprouts on my veggie burger as well.

 

[J bird]

hmmm. i thought you just like the big old meaty sausages at the bbg big horn

 

[noharleyyet]

hmmm. i thought you just like the big old meaty sausages at the bbg big horn

Damn Jbird, you waited 3 months and wasted an entire 4th post to make an inane comment like that. Guess BHR musta pissed on your cereal somehow.

Welcome to Hunttalk Einstein.