Feds want more evidence from ranchers who blame lobos for livestock killings in New Mexico

It could be harder to prove Mexican gray wolf attacks on livestock after a federal agency updated its standards to ensure the endangered species is not unfairly blamed and killed by ranchers.

It's known as the iconic "lobo" in New Mexico, and efforts to save it from extinction brought years of conflict between wildlife advocates and local ranchers fearful more wolves could mean more threats to livestock.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last week released the new rules that require evidence be used to support claims that wolf killings were necessary to defend livestock in New Mexico and Arizona, where the species is being recovered.

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New standards now require proof the animal was alive when the wolf interacted with it, calling for proof of subcutaneous hemorrhage, or bleeding under the skin.

This only happens if the animal was alive when attacked and combined with bite marks and other external indicators is a known indicator of wolf attacks.

But when attacking small animals like infant cattle, gray wolves usually consume most of the carcass.

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The USDA allowed evidence of wolf blood and tracks near the carcass to be used as evidence in those cases.

Bite marks and other punctures were acceptable evidence in livestock that was injured but not killed in an attack.

The updated standards came in response to outcry from conservation groups in both states where the wolf is being recovered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Previously, concrete evidence was not required of ranchers killing Mexican gray wolves claimed to have attacked livestock.

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Michael Robinson, Silver City-based conservation advocated with the Center for Biological Diversity said ranchers should also be required to removed dead cattle to avoid future wolf killings.

“It’s appalling that the U.S. Department of Agriculture blames endangered Mexican gray wolves for killing cows that died of something completely different,” Robinson said.

“I’m glad they’re tightening standards for determining causes of cattle mortality, but the government should go further and require that ranchers properly dispose of dead cattle to protect both wolves and livestock.”

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Mary Katherine Ray with the Sierra Club’s Rio Grande Chapter said the tighter requirements could help more accurately determine the causes of livestock death, while helping to balance the needs of agriculture and wildlife.

“Our small but beautiful wolf subspecies, the Mexican Wolf, bears the burden of so much undeserved hatred,” she said. “Wildlife Services has a responsibility to not only accurately determine the cause of livestock death but also to help dispel the myths surrounding wolves and promote strategies that avoid conflicts.”

Debate rages on how and where to restore lobos

Efforts to restore the wolf, listed as endangered by the federal government in 1976, are ongoing in an area of southwest New Mexico and southern Arizona where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported in February 241 wolves survived in 2022 in the U.S., with 45 in Mexico.

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That marked a 23 percent increase from 196 wolves in 2021, the Service reported, and double the 2017 population.

The latest numbers show 136 wolves in New Mexico and 105 in Arizona.

The Service also estimated there were about 380 Mexican wolves living in captivity at more than 60 facilities in the U.S. and Mexico.

Recovery efforts were also underway in Mexico along the U.S. border, but conservationists recently sounded the alarm in an Aug. 22 letter to the Service that efforts there were “faltering.”

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The groups called for the agency to establish a new population area in the southern Rocky Mountains, arguing it was proven the wolf could thrive in that region, contending only four collared wolves remained in Mexico.

“Our current understanding of the Mexican wolf program in Mexico suggests that the Service’s reliance upon it for recovery is misplaced and, again, we urge the Service to establish additional populations of Mexican gray wolves elsewhere in the United States.”

Robinson said the deserts of Mexico offered little prey for Mexican gray wolves, and that the southern Rockies could prove ideal for the species’ regrowth.

Mexico began releasing the wolves into the wild in 2011, but the Center for Biological Diversity estimated only 20 percent survive a year, with only a two-and-half-month median lifespan.

“Biologists in Mexico are heroically trying to keep lobos alive on private lands where there are few deer and no elk,” Robinson said. “That shouldn’t give U.S. authorities a pass to shirk Mexican gray wolf recovery in the Southwest.”

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Tougher rules in place to prove lobos killed livestock in New Mexico