Feds' Wolves Continue To Kick
Off, But Livestock Kills Mount

TUCSON, Ariz. — The federal government's wolves keep biting the dust.

The Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based environmental activist group, says two pups from a reintroduced Mexican gray wolf pack that had been relocated from the wild to the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge have died.

In August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recaptured the Pipestem wolf pack in eastern Arizona because they killed two cows in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. The pack was relocated to the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, N.M., where the two pups were reported dead in September.

Another pup was found dead in a holding pen in mid-September. Its body was shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., for a diagnostic necropsy or autopsy. Authorities say it had parvovirus, a highly contagious and deadly disease that can infect both domestic and wild dogs.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials say the two pups that died at the wildlife refuge may also have had parvo.

In the almost two years since the first release of wolves in Arizona, the death of the three pups brings the number of wolves that have died to 11. Five were shot, two are missing and presumed dead, and one was struck by a car.

In a related matter, an eastern Arizona rancher will not be reimbursed for three of his cows killed by the government's reintroduced wolves.

Carl Cathcart, who runs a 40,000 acre ranch in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, has been ordered by the Forest Service to cut the size of his herd and rest an overgrazed pasture.

Officials claim the three cows were killed in a pasture that was supposed to be off-limits to his livestock.

Defenders of Wildlife, a group which says it will reimburse ranchers for cattle killed by wolves in the reintroduction efforts, will not pay in this case.

"We have a policy to not pay directly to ranchers that are grazing illegally," says Craig Miller with the Defenders of Wildlife.

In addition to losing three cows out of the 225 that were reported in the pasture, Cathcart faces legal problems with the Forest Service.

"We're going to pursue administrative action, no question about it," says Clifton District Ranger Frank Hayes. "We're on the verge of litigation."

Cathcart, according to the Forest Service, was ordered with remove his cattle from the Roan Pasture for a year. He appealed but was denied a stay of the order until the appeal can be heard.

C.B. "Doc" Lane with the Arizona Cattle Growers Association says Cathcart was not to blame for the loss of his cattle.

"The problem with that is you don't know where the cows were when the wolves started chasing them," Lane says. "When they introduced that pack of wolves, they went in on the assumption that there was an adequate prey base for the wolves. That turned out to be wrong."

Adequate prey base or not, more than 20 wolves are now roaming the mountains of eastern Arizona since the USFWS began reintroducing them to the area last year.

Livestock losses are mounting in the Northwest, where an earlier wolf reintroduction scheme has led to mushrooming numbers.

Predation has become so routine there that one grazing allotment has become a test bed for researchers studying the problem.

One such study has researchers monitoring a pack of wolves known as the Jureano Pack to see if the shooting of one cattle-killing female will change the other 11 pack members' behavior.

Cattle on the Diamond Moose grazing allotment near Salmon, Idaho are the guinea pigs.

``With the study going on it's going to be interesting to watch what happens with the wolves,'' Rick Williamson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said recently.

``We're going to find out if lethal control keeps the rest of the pack from killing calves.''

The Diamond Moose permittees have tagged a third of their calves with transmitter-bearing eartags that allow researchers to keep tabs on them daily.

If a calf is inactive for more than a few hours, the tags emit a ``mortality'' signal.

Trackers then scour the landscape until they find the missing calf. So far, three study calves have been killed by wolves, three have died of pneumonia, and one was killed by coyotes. In the nonstudy group, wolves killed one calf and likely killed another two. One died from pneumonia.

Authorities do not kill wolves that kill study animals, but they do compensate ranchers for confirmed wolf kills. The rules are different for the calves that are not wearing tags.

Authorities treat those livestock depredations just as they would with any other group of cattle. That means chronic calf-killers are shot.

At least, that's the theory. So far, officials have killed only two such wolves in Idaho since the reintroductions began in 1995; both "lethal control" actions came this year. On the Diamond Moose allotment alone, the ratio of dead cattle to dead wolves is six to one ... so far.