The official S. Rockies wolf documents have now been released to the public. CLICK HERE to visit biggameforever.org/blog where you can download and read the proposal. Here's how these documents were released to the public.
On December 2, 2011 Arizona Fish and Game commission released official documents, which would mandate wolf proliferation across the Southern Rockies and into Texas. The documents have been confirmed by several sources, including a regional director for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service testifying at Friday's Arizona Fish and Game Commission hearing.
Despite denials by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding these plans, it has become clear that these plans are moving forward. This official "draft" was released for official comment by members of the wolf recovery team in the last couple of weeks. In the wake of criticism by western states, USFWS' national director accused states of "mischaracterizing" the Southern Rockies wolf plans. These leaked documents confirm that the criticism of these plans by western states were well founded.
Here are several quotes from the document that illustrate the dangerous nature of these plans:
(1)An acknowledgment of the intent to force wolves into Texas
"Several questions at the August recovery team meeting focused on...availability of suitable habitat in Mexico and the United States, especially Texas." "Approximately 24,000 square kilometers of potentially suitable [wolf] habitat...occurs in western Texas."
(2)Mandated wolf proliferation across the entire southern Rockies
"Based on the material below we recommend that the Mexican wolf recovery area include "Mexico...western Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and the southern portions of Utah and Colorado."
(3)Dramatic increases in forced wolf populations minimum numbers
"Three major zones of suitable wolf habitat exist in the area encompassing Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado and southern Utah. Under current habitat conditions, it is estimated that over 1,000 wolves could inhabit this large area." This is more than triple the number of wolves that were required in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
(4) Mandating Mexican wolves OUTSIDE their historic range using the Endangered Species Act
The report spends several pages trying to justify mandated Mexican wolf populations outside their historic range. The report concludes "recovering [Mexican Wolves] outside purported historical ranges...may establish a useful and critically important precedent." Given demonstrable damage from invasive species, most biologists we have spoken with feel this is a slippery slope and a dangerous precedent. The areas outside of historic range includes Utah and Colorado.
(5) Plans designed to prevent S. Rockies wolves from ever being managed by Western states
The devil is in the details. Legally, no delisting can occur until Mexican wolves are recovered across a "substantial portion of the range." 90% of Mexican wolf range is in Mexico. With no plans to recover wolves in Mexico, there is little hope that wolves in the Southern Rockies would ever be delisted. The legal mechanism of preventing wolf management in the future is by eliminating the safe-guards provided by "non-essential experimental" status and instead create a "subspecies" listing. A "subspecies" listing would prevent delisting even if populations objectives are reached in the Southern Rockies. As a result, these plans provide little in the way of safeguards for livestock and wildlife.
(6) The plans would result in "swamping" of Mexican Wolf Genetics
Despite claims these plans are about recovering Mexican wolves, Wolf specialists have confirmed that interbreeding with Northern Gray wolves could overwhelm Mexican wolf genetics in as short as 20 years.
Folks these plans are dangerous. These plans do not protect wildlife. These plans do not protect livestock. These plans would violate well-established limitations on federal authority. These plans are based on a dramatic overreaching.
Please help us stop these plans from being forced on the good people of the Western United States.
Ryan Benson
http://biggameforever.org/

There are and always have been wolves in Texas...First hand..last
Timber Wolf I saw was in Weches Texas Midnight..while I was looking for some of my hounds...Red Wolf off hwf 69 between Atoy
Hwy and Rusk Texas..found den with cubs...DD

Doubt seriously that it was a TIMBER WOLF....most likely a Mexican Gray that had workded its way east; most logical scenario, it was a large coyote. Pure blood red wolves were/are extremely rare, especially in Texas, most of them are crossed with coyote or dog.

http://wildworldofwolves.tripod.com/id37.htm

It's gonna be interesting in west Texas if the Feds try to reintroduce the Mexican Gray again. The TPWD has just re-introduced the bighorn sheep out there, and did a depradation hunt on the elk, in order to make room for the bighorn sheep. Don't think the TPWD is gonna sit by and let the Grays get too far from there range, and will keep them from coming east!

Wow, sounds like another drama queen post. The sky is falling. Last time I checked, wolves were wildlife. The fact that you say these plans do not protect livestock is another classic. Which is it, you want to protect wildlife or livestock? Well established limitations on federal authority? The western states have huge tracts of federally managed land and the federal government can manage it the way it sees fit. Texas is a different story.
Relax and take a deep breath.

i think it would be awesome to get the wolf populations up in texas. They are such an awesome animal.

I don't think your deer, sheep, and goats would think it's awesome to get wolf populations up in Texas

wolves, mountain lions, bears, were all natural in texas and once at a much higher population than today and the deer managed to survive. Im not worried. Like any animal..they have to be managed though.

Aren't they having big problems with the wolves in Colorado or Wyoming? They're an endangered species, so there is no way to "manage" them. You can't touch them.

i believe they were delisted in some of the northern states and can now be hunted because the populations recovered enough to have a season for it. I read an article about it a while back

dont hold me to that though because i have not researched it recently..i just remember hearing that there was now a wolf season up there somewhere. I believe that the management of wolves was returned to the states.

Lol introduce them to west Texas and the ranchers will have them gone in 3 months.... If they get caught the probably get a slap on the wrist...those big landowners are extremely powerful

I just don't see the point. They were all killed for a reason

Can we train them to prey on hogs? Please?

With wildlife, livestock, and exotics can you say wolf buffet?

LOL imagine if a pack of wolves managed to get into one of those small high fenced places?

You DO NOT want wolves if at all possible. This is the kind of thinking that is creating havoc in the north woods of Wisconsin. The state DNR has a limit of 600 wolves and the last count there were over 1500 but no hunting season or no plan to reduce the population. With them on trail cam's almost to the Illinois border.

Some hunters in Wisconsin have developed their own methods, "shoot, shovel and shut up", so the DNR started putting tracking chips and collars on them to protect them from poachers.

Shoot them if you can, don't let them get a foot hold if you like deer hunting.

Wolves were a part of Texas wildlife historically. I think everyone agrees that is a fact. I agree that there is a problem in Wisconsin, if the numbers you cited are accurate, with too many wolves. You said that the sustainable limit was 600 wolves for that area but there are over 1500 now. You can blame that one on the state for improper management. If you allow wolves to breed unchecked they will have babies, I assure you. That is a management problem, you can't just make a blanket statement saying there should be no wolves because one state has decided not to implement a management plan. They have OK'd wolf hunts in other states to reduce the numbers so why can't they do that in this case.

Reintroduction of wolves will not result in the extinction of deer. It just adds another tool to keep the deer population in check. For people who have livestock, yeah that sucks, but I don't think it justifies taking an alarmist viewpoint on the subject.

Well I have zero tolerance for them to be re-introduced in TX. I have a good friend in Montana that has just about lost every thing he was to wolves

They haven't done a bad job on the game in Northern Idaho either. Wolves are a bad idea in Texas.

Reintroducing apex predators back int o the wild looks like a good idea and probably is IN SOME INSTANCES.
the problems arise in several forms

A THE FEEBS WHO START THIS ARE THE SAME FOOLS THAT MANAGE THE REST OF THE COUNTERY AND CANT BE TRUST TO MAKE GOOD DECISIONS.

B after the feebs let the animals increase to a "safe" pop level, they dump it on ethe states

C the states end up trying to "manage" a stituation where the population has a big travel territory all the while fighting lawsuit after lawsuit defending their managment plan.

wolves wont mean a eradication orextinction of whitetails but you might have a 60% reducion in your deer population as a pack travels thru and parks for a couple weeks. be funny till you lease is part of that.

pile in cost of lost livestock to ranchers

poor idea by people that dont really understand the total MODERN enviroment

You must work for the Wisconsin DNR, that sounds like an answer right from thier playbook. The wolf population was down for a reason, and that number of 600 was their number, not the hunters/land owners. That management plan is the same people that developed the plan for the deer, which is still down to 1/2 the numbers it was 6 years ago but up 5% from last year.

Only problem is that wolves eat livestock, game animals, AND people.

The problem with wolves is they are just like dogs they kill for the fun of or just because they can.These wolves up north are huge. males go anywhere from 150-175 lbs.The major problem is with the feds.The origin plan agreed to by the States involved was 1300 animals.The last i saw the estimates are around 3300.Idaho,Montanaa,and Wyoming have a season now but it has been stoped several times by lawsuites.The elk and moose herds have been decimated in these areas.Several hunts have been done away with for lack of enough animals.If you do some checking the anti hunting crowd is all in vavor of this.If you reduce the number of game to so that recrutement barely keeps up with predation thers no need for hunting.And so it goes.

I am all for restoring native animals to their former ranges. Once a sustainable population is established then I don't see any reason Texas couldn't set bag limits, or issue permits, or whatever method they choose to do to manage the species. Getting this population established with minimum conflict for land owners will be extremely difficult. I'm not sure I have faith in the governments competence for this to succeed.

There are going to be a lot of problems unique to Texas if Mexican Wolves are reintroduced though. There is not nearly as much federal land for the government to re-purpose into a wolf sanctuary. Big Bend would be promising, but almost all of our land is owned by individuals or companies, not the state or federal government. There would need to be much more work done than just dropping off 30 or so wolves in Big Bend and radio collaring them. And even if Big Bend is chosen I believe most of the surrounding land is ranch land.

I personally would not be upset at their predation on game animals. It would make hunting more difficult by reducing the amount of animals available, but wolves generally do not attack healthy adult animals. There would be loss of fawn crop, but I think having an additional "new-old" wildlife resource would be good for the state.

My

Some food for thought below:

The Wikipedia for Mexican wolves. Their weight ranges are listed at under 100lbs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_wolf

You can read more about wolf attacks at the Wikipedia link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_attacks_on_humans

I also found this e-publication on protecting livestock from wolf predation. I don't think these methods have been tested in large acreage ranches like we have in west Texas though. http://www.lordsofnature.org/documents/livestock_and_wolves.pdf

Amen, Great post!