Wildlife Reintroduction May Be Species’ Last Chance

Mike Miller watched from a rocky bluff as the female went down. The dart pierced her hip, its sedative seeping into her bloodstream. Half an hour later, after a pursuit along a canyon wall, the gunner clipped the male in the neck.

He felt a rush of elation.

The cowboy had ridden to Railroad Canyon in the thick of the Gila National Forest to watch as the feds swept down in their helicopter and scooped up the Pipestem wolves, named for a mountain near where they were first set free.

He had come to celebrate one small victory in his and his neighbors’ war against “el lobo” -- sworn enemy of the cattle rancher for as long as there have been ranches in the West. He had, unabashedly, come to gloat.

When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first proposed reintroducing the Mexican gray wolf to the wilderness that connects Arizona and New Mexico, ranchers warned: Wolves and people cannot coexist, and wolves and cattle are a lethal combination.

This pair alone, Miller believes, killed 19 calves on the outfit he manages, although federal officials confirmed only two deaths. Some calves were too far gone to say whether a wolf was the culprit.

They had come within a stone’s throw of his home and his kids, terrifying his wife. “I can handle the bears and the mountain lions and the bobcats,” Debbie Miller said. “When you see them, they take off. They’re scared of you. These wolves, they’re not scared. And that’s what scares me.”

So on a quiet spring morning, after months of pursuing the marauding predators, trappers with the federal wildlife agency arrived to return them to captivity.

“I was glad it was done with,” Mike Miller recalled, although his relief was short-lived.

This summer, a month after the Pipestem pair were removed, nine more wolves were released in the wilderness straddling the border. At least 21 roam the pine-studded woods, and an unknown number have been born in the wild. Others could be freed down the road.

Sooner or later, this cowboy knows, “el lobo” will be back.

*

It is considered their best chance at survival and, sometimes, their last. When habitat restoration alone won’t sustain them, when there are so few left that the odds of natural recovery are slim, establishing a new population of animals in the wild becomes the lifesaving solution for many of the nation’s most imperiled species.

“It’s emergency-room treatment,” said Ed Bangs, who oversees restoration of the gray wolf to the northern Rocky Mountains. “You’ve got a patient that’s dying and you want to save their life. You do everything you can. And then you wheel in the next patient.”

Wildlife reintroduction has become an integral part of efforts to protect and restore endangered species. Without it, the California condor would likely have vanished from the sky, the black-footed ferret disappeared from its prairies.

There would be no red wolves in refuges along the coast of North Carolina, nor gray wolves for tourists to view in Yellowstone National Park. Because of Bangs’ program, that species is recovered in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, and could be removed from federal protection in those states next year.

But success stories are often overshadowed by setbacks. Whether by gun barrel or bulldozer, man rid the land of these creatures decades ago, and man remains one of the biggest roadblocks to restoration.

In California, commercial fishermen went to court after sea otters were found in a prohibited zone where they compete with man for profitable shellfish. In Delaware, developers challenged restrictions stemming from a new population of Delmarva fox squirrels.

Lawsuits also come from the other side -- environmentalists who insist that the government isn’t doing enough to promote or sustain reestablished species.

Then last year, the government shelved its own plan to reintroduce grizzlies in Montana and Idaho. Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton suspended the program after complaints from politicians and ranchers that the bears would put livestock and people at risk.

“It’s not so much a biological issue. This whole thing is a social issue,” said Carter Niemeyer, federal wolf recovery coordinator in Idaho. “We spend most of our time dealing with a concerned public, sometimes an angry public.”

The animals don’t always cooperate either.

Managers are considering scrapping a program to establish a second population of sea otters off the Southern California coast after some died during relocation and others strayed from the area. Of 140 otters moved in three years, 30 remain. The overall population of California otters is now in decline.

Programs involving captive animals face additional challenges. More than two dozen condors raised in zoos had to be removed from the wild because of adaptation problems such as roosting on the ground and interacting with people at swimming pools.

Forty-five of the 144 condors released in Arizona and California since 1992 died, some from lead poisoning after feeding on bullet-riddled carcasses and others from colliding with power lines. Managers don’t expect to meet their goal of 300 wild condors for at least another decade. There are 75 now.

“It takes a lot to bring it about,” condor recovery leader Bruce Palmer said of reintroduction.

At the heart of the debate over these programs are two divergent views of how this puzzle that is our nation fits together. Can we put the pieces back the way they were, or have new parts created a landscape that can no longer be altered?

“While we may all have this view of what the ‘wild’ ought to be, we don’t have it anymore,” said Caren Cowan of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Assn., which sued unsuccessfully to stop the Mexican wolf program. “There are a lot of people around a lot of roads that weren’t there 50 years ago.

“You can’t turn back the clock.”

*

There are still old-timers in southwestern New Mexico who remember when wolves roamed these parts as freely as coyotes and bears. They tell tales of bloodthirsty predators who could take down a calf like a rag doll.

And they remember when, in the 1900s, the government came to their aid and began systematically poisoning wolves and executing other “pests” seen as economically crippling to farmers and ranchers.

Although the government’s position has changed, attitudes have fluctuated little in this place where stories of “el lobo” pass from one generation to the next.

“People didn’t kill these things out for no reason,” said Laura Schneberger, a third-generation rancher who raises 100 head of Brahma crossbreeds on 42 square miles of Gila wilderness. She blames wolves for the death of one cow, although a necropsy was impossible by the time it was found.

So when the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed reintroducing captive-raised gray wolves in 1995, ranchers in Arizona and New Mexico fought back. They held “Stop the Wolf” picnics and distributed “No Wolves” bumper stickers. They vowed to shoot on sight any wolves near their livestock. They wrote letters and went to court.

In March 1998, despite protests, the government released the first 11 wolves in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest on the Arizona-New Mexico border. Within a month, a wolf had been shot by a camper who said it attacked his dog. Within a year, four more were found shot to death, a sixth was missing and presumed dead, and the rest were recaptured.

A total of 74 wolves have been released since the program began. Twenty-six died, including 10 from gunshots, and 31 were recaptured because of such problems as livestock depredations or straying from the management zone. Some of those were re-released.

Twenty-one radio-collared animals are now free in the forest, although managers believe that the numbers are higher because of wolves that have lost their collars and newborn pups.

Meanwhile, residents have been compensated more than $15,000 for 27 animals that were killed or injured by wolves, including cattle, horses and dogs. either ranchers nor some environmentalists consider the program a success.

“I’ve got bruises on all sides of my body,” said Brian Kelly, program coordinator. “Most of the groups are ... trying to find ways to work this out. If they’re doing that, there’s hope.”

Another sign of hope: Wild-born litters increased from one in 1998 to as many as eight this year.

“You hear about negative aspects -- wolves being removed or shot -- but there are wolves out there reproducing.... I see that as a success,” tracker Dan Star said.

But the controversy hasn’t cooled. This year, some New Mexico county commissioners called on the government to allow ranchers to kill any wolf on their property more than five days after its removal has been requested.

Wolves are even a campaign issue, with one Republican congressional candidate in New Mexico arguing that the $1 million budgeted annually for the wolf program would be better spent on schools.

And problems with the predators continue.

In August, trackers began intensive monitoring of the pack released this summer after they showed up at a lodge in eastern Arizona. Another pack has been killing calves on an Arizona ranch.

Meanwhile, seven pups born to the pair taken from Miller’s outfit were tested to determine if they are hybrids, which would be a setback for the program. Managers suspect the female mated with a dog, with the results pending.

The Pipestem pair remain in captivity.