Dear Guardian,
Great news: it
looks like the beautiful animal roaming the Kaibab plateau on the north rim of
the Grand Canyon is a gray wolf.
The bad news is
that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not plan to let him roam
undisturbed and wants to strip him of Endangered Species Act Protections (ESA).
Help us ensure wandering wolves have the freedom to roam!
If the animal is
indeed a gray wolf, it likely traveled all the way from the Northern Rockies
and is the first wolf to be making a home in the Grand Canyon ecoregion since
the 1940s.
The Service is telling
the media it plans to capture the wolf to test his genetics. Non-invasive hair
or scat samples can prove where the wolf came from without risking his injury
or death. Government agencies have killed nineteen critically endangered Mexican
wolves in botched live-capture operations. Tell the Service: hands off the
Grand Canyon wolf and back off stripping all wandering wolves of ESA
protections.
The return of a
wild wolf to the Grand Canyon is reason to celebrate; a healthy population of
these magnificent animals in their historic home will restore balance to
wounded landscapes. But wolves cannot return for good if we lose pioneering
wanderers like this one.
This wolf is
currently protected by the Endangered Species Act, but if the Service has its
way, he and his brethren, including the intrepid OR-7, the wandering wolf who
traveled over 1,000 miles through Oregon and northern California before finding
a mate and establishing the first wolf pack in southern Oregon in ninety years,
will be stripped of federal protections and be at the mercy of guns and traps
once more.
Tell the Fish
and Wildlife Service: hands off the Grand Canyon wolf and back off stripping
all wandering wolves of ESA protections.
For the wild,
Bethany Cotton
Wildlife Program Director
WildEarth Guardians
bcotton@wildearthguardians.org
Photo credits: Grand Canyon wolf—Arizona Department Game and Fish. Howing mad wolf—Retron, public domain.