Fish and Wildlife Service sued over Mexican gray wolf recovery plan
Fish and Wildlife Service sued over Mexican gray wolf recovery plan
By LOUIS SAHAGUN
Los Angeles Times
November 12, 2014
LOS ANGELES — Conservation organizations on Wednesday sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to force it to complete a long overdue, legally required recovery plan for the Mexican gray wolf, the lobo of Southwestern lore.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona, aims to enforce compliance with rules the agency adopted 38 years ago to guide recovery of the federally endangered species driven to near extinction by wolf extermination campaigns of the 19th and 20th centuries.
It asks the court to declare the agency in violation of the Endangered Species Act, and order it to "prepare and implement a scientifically based, legally valid" final recovery plan within a year of the court's judgment.
The Mexican gray wolf was reintroduced into a small area of eastern Arizona and western New Mexico in 1998 as part of a strategy to reach a population of 100 wolves, including 18 breeding pairs, by 2006.
Today, the population stands at 83 wolves, and five breeding pairs. They are managed under restrictions that do not permit the mobile, clannish hunters to colonize new territory, increasing the likelihood of inbreeding, according to the lawsuit. The restrictions also allow excessive killing and removal of wolves that take livestock, the lawsuit says.
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