Wolf Weekly Wrap-up

Get ready to rally! – Are you ready to stand up for wolves? You better be, because next week is your best chance to show your opposition to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s premature delisting proposal. Defenders is hosting three rallies across the country to precede the Service’s official public hearings. On Monday, Defenders President Jamie Rappaport Clark will be taking the stage in DC alongside some of our conservation colleagues from Sierra Club and the Endangered Species Coalition (and we’re hoping a few members of Congress will show up too). On Wednesday and Friday, several of our regional wolf experts will be in Sacramento and Albuquerque, respectively, to get wolf advocates fired up for action. See rally details here.

The goal of these rallies is to show FWS that local residents want federal protection to remain in place until wolves are fully recovered. We will also be training participants how to deliver effective testimony at the public hearing and fine-tuning our messaging to make sure we are all speaking with one voice. This is a great opportunity to make a difference for the future of wolf recovery, so don’t miss out!

A Mexican gray wolf pup howling. (Photo courtesy of the USFWS.)

Imperiled lobos lose another pack member? — It seems like a bad case of déjà vu. Just two months ago tragedy struck the Southwest’s imperiled population of Mexican gray wolves when alpha female F1108 was shot and killed, and a month ago a young female died during “routine management activity.” Now, we have just learned that another female canid, very likely a Mexican wolf, has been found dead in New Mexico. Law enforcement officials are investigating the case, but it seems likely to be determined an illegal killing.

Mexican gray wolves are on the brink of a second extinction in the wild and if in fact this is another loss, it is nothing short of devastating for the population fighting to barely survive. The lobos are vanishing one by one from America’s wilds and unless the Fish and Wildlife Service makes some immediate, drastic changes to recovery efforts, we could lose one of our country’s most iconic species.

“If these wolves are going to have any kind of fighting chance at survival, the Fish and Wildlife Service must do everything in its power to ensure recovery beyond merely investigating this incident,” says Eva Sargent, Defenders director of Southwest programs. “It must complete and  implement a comprehensive recovery plan that includes the release of many more wolves into the wild, and that establishes the additional core populations lobos need to survive and thrive.”

This troubling news is yet another reminder of just how important it is for wolf supporters to attend the public hearing in Albuquerque on Oct. 4th (one week from today!) in order to speak out on behalf of Mexican gray wolves.

California wolves need protection – Defenders California Representative Pam Flick and California Wolf Center’s Lauren Richie (formerly at Defenders) took to the airwaves recently to explain why it’s so important to protect wolves like OR-7 that might soon return to California, at both the state and federal level. Listen to Pam on Public News Service and watch Lauren on CBS-8 San Diego below:

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