Thus far Mexican Wolf Revovery in New Mexico and Arizona has been similar to illegal alien control on our Southern border...............erratic, violent and without a plan of action that optimizes potential for success................before we release the additional 8 wolves mentioned in the article below, lets get all the stakeholders to finally agree on a plan that gives the wolves a fighting chance to jump their population to the 100 plus animals biolgists feel are necessary for long term persistance in Arizona and New Mexico

Feds delay Ariz. release of wolves

Debate about release site results in postponement until 2011

by Sue Major Holmes

ALBUQUERQUE - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is delaying the release of Mexican gray wolves in the Apache National Forest of Arizona until sometime next year.

The federal agency and the Arizona Game and Fish Department had expected to release eight wolves in the next few weeks under a program that began reintroducing the animals into the wild along the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1998.
But when it became clear there wasn't unanimous agreement on the release site, "we stepped back to re-evaluate where we were, what we knew, what had been accomplished, what hadn't been accomplished," Tom Buckley, a spokesman for the agency in Albuquerque, said Friday. "It just wasn't the right time for a successful release."
Fish and Wildlife Southwest Regional Director Benjamin Tuggle decided this week to postpone the release, Buckley said. The agency has not set a new date except to say it will be in 2011.
Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity called the delay a major setback. Biologists had predicted a self-sustaining wild population of 100 wolves by now, but the latest count early this year found 42 between the two states, down from 52 the year before.
There's "a clear call by scientists to get more wolves out there and more genetically valuable wolves out there," Robinson said.
At least three uncollared wolves have been reported in the area in the rugged area of southern Greenlee County, Ariz., where the new wolves would be released, said Arizona Game and Fish endangered species coordinator Terry Johnson.
In addition, he said, ranchers worry about more wolves killing their cattle.
The conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, which compensates ranchers when wolves kill livestock, announced in late summer it would phase out payments in Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Washington because the federal government had created its own compensation program.
Buckley said the reintroduction program needs to develop procedures for addressing compensation and anti-depredation measures such as range riders or supplemental feed to move herds around in areas with wolves.
Robinson said the new animals could be released in areas that don't already have packs"Biologically speaking, there's no obstacle to releasing these wolves in the wild and there is a lot at stake for the wolves," he said.Johnson said there's also broader concerns over changes in the recovery program."We've been doing the same old thing with the same negative results for 12 years now. ... We've got to try different approaches to management," he said