Call for Comments
May 25, 2005
Since 1998, the Arizona Game and Fish Department and five other state and federal agencies have been involved in reintroducing the Mexican wolf to areas of Arizona and New Mexico where the species once thrived. The cooperating agencies use an adaptive management approach to manage the project, operating as a core team called the Mexican Wolf Blue Range Reintroduction Project Adaptive Management Oversight Committee (AMOC).
AMOC has modified the public comment period for three subjects pertaining to the project to provide additional opportunity for the public to review material pertaining to those subjects. The new deadline is now July 31, 2005, to receive written comments on the Five-Year Review of the Blue Range Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Project; Five Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the Reintroduction Project; and a Proposed One-Year Moratorium on New Releases of Captive Mexican Wolves.
The group has drafted five new standard operating procedures (SOPs) to guide wolf management activities and related decisions regarding the reintroduction project. The new SOPs address a variety of management topics, such as supplemental feeding, road kill salvage, wolf control, helicopter capture and aerial monitoring flights. The SOPs are accompanied by a proposed one-year moratorium, developed by the AMOC, on new releases of captive-bred Mexican wolves that have never been in the wild.
Copies of the three documents, as well as the newly developed Socioeconomic Report, a component of the Five-Year Review, are available electronically in downloadable form at http://azgfd.gov/wolf and http://mexicanwolf.fws.gov. Individual copies of the documents are also available by telephone request at (602) 789-3500 or (505) 346-2525.
Background of the project and activities so far
How the project is being managed
Social and economic impacts of the project
Public comment on any of the documents must be submitted in writing, and
can be submitted at one of the eight public meetings being conducted by the
Mexican Wolf Adaptive Management Work Group in June, or as follows:
To comment on the Five-Year Review, send written comment through the U.S.
Postal Service (postmarked by July 31, 2005) to: U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, New Mexico Ecological Services Office, 2105 Osuna NE, Albuquerque,
New Mexico, 87113.
To comment on the SOPs and/or Proposed Moratorium, send written comment via
email or through the U.S. Postal Service (postmarked by July 31, 2005).
Submit email comment to:
mexwolf@azgfd.gov. Submit postal-mailed comment to: Mexican Wolf
Reintroduction Project, c/o Arizona Game and Fish Department, Attention:
Terry B. Johnson, 2221 West Greenway Road, Phoenix, Arizona, 85023-4399.
The agencies cooperating in the Mexican wolf reintroduction project are the Arizona Game and Fish Department, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services and White Mountain Apache Tribe.
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