Monthly Archives: November 2010

Learn how you can help our fish, wildlife and rivers at a special workshop in Phoenix, Tuesday, November 30 at 6:30 PM.  Learn more:

Society for Conservation Biology calls for the Secretary of the Interior to implement a six-step toward recovery effort for the highly endangered Mexican wolf in the American Southwest. Continue reading →

Just home from a camping trip within the territory of the Hawk’s Nest wolf pack in eastern Arizona, activist Jean Ossorio complains that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has released only one new wolf into the wild within the past four years. Worse, she says, the federal agency heading up the reintroduction and recovery effort of the Mexican gray wolf has delayed the planned release of a pack of wolves she calls the Engineer Springs Eight. Read more in the Santa Fe Reporter… Continue reading →

Perhaps the best control we have on the effects of hunting on predator-human conflicts is California. In 1991 California voters passed an initiative that outlawed hunting of cougars. Today California has more cougars (about 6000) than any other western state, yet has the lowest per capita rate of cougar attacks in the West. In other words, in states where cougars are hunted so they presumably “fear man” there are far more cougar attacks on people than in California—even though California has more people, and more cougars than any other state—thus should, statistically speaking, have much higher per capita cougar attacks.

California also has one of the lowest livestock losses in the West attributed to cougars as well suggesting that hunting is ineffective at reducing conflicts with ranchers—in fact the evidence suggests that hunting actually increases livestock losses in many instances. Read the full article. Continue reading →

Two conservation organizations have intervened in a lawsuit calling for the removal of some of the wolves in the Gila National Forest. Eva Sargent, Defenders of Wildlife’s Southwest program director, added: “ The Fish & Wildlife Service made the right … Continue reading →

The Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest has released its Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Travel Management Planning. All of us who cherish quiet recreations and the conservation of our public lands need to stand up and be heard. The ORV industry is large and vocal. These motorized vehicles disturb wildlife habitat and natural vegetation, and destroy national monuments, parks, forests, deserts, and even archaeological sites. Continue reading →