Dear colleagues and friends:

It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that our good friend and activist, Kimberly Riggs, passed away on Sunday after a 3-year long battle with cancer.  For those of us who worked with Kim at Sinapu, I can tell you that she will be sorely missed.  She had a heart as big as the West—and an intellect and will to match.  Even after launching into her battle against this tenacious disease, Kim played an instrumental role in helping Sinapu and Forest Guardians make the transition to become WildEarth Guardians.

In the coming days, Kim’s small circle of friends and family will slowly find solid ground.  At the same time, somewhere out there, her energy continues to exalt all that is Wild, raging against the machine.

If you’d like to leave a message or your thoughts/good wishes, please use the comment section, below.

For those of you who didn’t get the original notice, as of January 28, 2008 Sinapu, Forest Guardians and the Sagebrush Sea Campaign have joined forces to become WildEarth Guardians. With offices in Boulder, Denver, Phoenix and Santa Fe, WildEarth Guardians protects and restores wildlife, wild places, and wild rivers in the American West.

So, we have a new blog, also hosted free by WordPress, at: http://wildearthguardians.wordpress.com/

Also, see our website at: http://www.wildearthguardians.org/

Two federal agencies charged with failing to ensure recovery of rare wolves

Today, WildEarth Guardians and The Rewilding Institute filed a lawsuit in Phoenix, AZ regarding the federal government’s failed stewardship of the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program. The groups name the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service as defendants in the case. At issue is:

1. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s adoption and implementation of a controversial management protocol, dubbed SOP 13, which has brought the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program-and the species-to the brink of failure. The policy mandates the permanent removal of wolves known or thought to have been involved in three conflicts with livestock in any 365 day period; and
2. The Forest Service’s failure to carry out a conservation program for the Mexican gray wolf within its own recovery zone-a heavily grazed area made up almost entirely of National Forest lands.

In February of 2008, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced that the Mexican wolf population in New Mexico and Arizona had declined by 12 percent in a single year, leaving only 52 Mexican wolves in the wild. Although not highlighted in the government’s announcement, the primary cause of the decline is the implementation of SOP 13.

“The government is putting wolves on the ground with one hand, and then killing or removing those same wolves with the other,” said Rob Edward of WildEarth Guardians. “It is high time to give the lobo higher priority than livestock production,” said Edward.

From 1998 to 2004, FWS removed only 25 wolves from the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area (BRWRA) for conflicts with livestock. Since 2005, FWS has removed 45 Mexican wolves from the BRWRA, under SOP 13, for conflicts with livestock.

Dave Foreman of The Rewilding Institute argues that “In effect, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is conducting the second extermination of the lobo in the wild,” referring to the fact that Mexican wolves were effectively extinct in the wild.

The handful of remaining wild Mexican wolves were captured and placed in captivity in the mid-1970s, with the aim of rekindling the species from captive stock. All Mexican wolves presently in the BRWRA are descended from those rescued few.

The lawsuit also ties the impacts of SOP 13 to the actions of the U.S. Forest Service, which manages 95 percent of the land comprising the wolf recovery area. The Mexican Wolf Recovery Program is floundering not only because of FWS’s over-zealous killing and removal of wolves in response to conflicts between wolves and livestock, but also because of the Forest Service’s refusal to prevent such conflicts through livestock management and policy reforms.

“The Forest Service is obligated to promote the well-being of imperiled species that reside on lands managed by the agency,” said Edward. “Yet the agency acts as if Mexican wolves don’t even exist, let alone need stewardship.”

Foreman takes the argument one step further, stating that, “these agencies are washing their hands of responsibility because they find that restoration of the lobo causes them problems. They seem to think that maintaining a handful of Mexican wolves in captivity fulfills their legal and ethical obligations to one of the most endangered mammals in the world. Thank goodness that wildlife managers in Africa and India have a greater commitment to wildlife or else there would be no lions or tigers in the wild.”

In sum, the lawsuit asks the court to:

• Order the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to immediately suspend implementation of SOP 13; and
• Order the U.S. Forest Service to develop and implement a conservation program for Mexican wolves within the recovery area.

A PDF copy of the lawsuit can be downloaded at http://www.wildearthguardians.org/htm/support_docs/complaint_el-lobo_sop13_4-30-08.pdf.

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Longtime Denver Post writer, Ric Soulen, opines in his Colorado Journal that the recent decision to relax restrictions on killing wolves in the Northern Rockies is, “completely insane and without any scientific reasoning or humane sense at all and is being perpetrated for obvious political gain.”

We’d like to commend Ric for one of the most succinct summaries of wolf politics we’ve seen in ages. Click here to read his post.

Group Expands to Westwide Scope, Retains Fierce Approach

Santa Fe, NM –- Sinapu and Forest Guardians, two regional conservation groups have joined forces to create a stronger organization to protect and restore the wild places, wildlife and wild rivers in the American West. The new organization, WildEarth Guardians, creates a conservation force that will pressure policy-makers and government agencies to better protect and restore the lands, wildlife and waters from the Great Plains and Desert Southwest across the Rockies and through the Intermountain West.

For nearly two decades Sinapu, based in Boulder, Colorado, has worked to defend and restore large carnivores across the Southern Rockies while Forest Guardians has worked to protect and restore national forests, endangered species and rivers in the Greater Southwest. Integrating and expanding upon the two groups’ specialties, WildEarth Guardians has four core programs: Wildlife, Wild Rivers, Wild Places and Climate & Energy.

““We’’ve created a bigger, bolder and better organization to achieve our goals to restore wolves across the West, protect iconic western rivers such as the Rio Grande and keep wild places like the Sagebrush Sea intact,”” said John Horning, Executive Director of WildEarth Guardians. “”With the merger and other staff additions we’’ve assembled a powerful team of incredibly talented, passionate and hard-working advocates for wild nature,”” Horning added.

Both organizations collaborated closely over the last two years, and agreed to merge a year ago. WildEarth Guardians will continue to do much of the same work, but has also amplified its strategic focus in several critical respects.

“”The work of restoring and protecting wild carnivores will be enhanced considerably as a result of this merger,”” said Wendy Keefover-Ring, formerly of Sinapu, and now the Carnivore Protection Director for WildEarth Guardians. “”We will have more resources to defend habitats and key corridors for large carnivores,”” she added.

Among WildEarth Guardians priorities are: restoring wolves to the American West, including protecting Mexican wolves in the Gila bioregion, and reintroducing wolves to the Southern Rockies; protecting the Rio Grande from its headwaters in Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico; restoring keystone species such as prairie dogs across the American West; restoring wildfire as a natural and restorative process in healthy western forest ecosystems; abolishing the USDA’’s Wildlife Services wildlife-killing program; and inspiring residents of the West’s urban and rural communities to become a cohesive and powerful voice for the protection of wild nature.

Two other new developments at WildEarth Guardians that parallel the merger announcement and name change include the creation of a new Climate & Energy program, and the formal integration of the Sagebrush Sea Campaign into WildEarth Guardians.

The Sagebrush Sea Campaign, which had been a sponsored project of Forest Guardians until recently, focuses on protecting and restoring the vast sagebrush-steppe landscape in the Interior West. To protect native wildlife and ecosystems of the Sagebrush Sea, the Campaign Director, Mark Salvo, will lead WildEarth Guardians’ efforts to obtain Endangered Species Act protection for the Greater sage-grouse, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse and Gunnison sage-grouse. These three iconic grouse species have dwindled precipitously in the recent past because of habitat destruction due to livestock grazing, energy exploitation, and urban development.

“The Climate & Energy program will fight fossil fuel extraction including coal and oil and gas while promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency. “Unless we do more to bring about a shift away from dirty energy and towards clean, renewable energy and efficiency, the climate crisis is going to have a devastating effect on the wild places, wildlife and wild rivers of the American West,”” said Robert Ukeiley, the Climate & Energy Program Director for WildEarth Guardians.

WildEarth Guardians also has its own legal department. The organization has hired four staff attorneys over the last year to provide the legal muscle necessary to enforce environmental law and ensure that government agencies are protecting wildlands, imperiled species, biodiversity and clean air and water. In the past, the organizations have relied exclusively on outside law firms.

“”The law is one of our most powerful tools to protect our public lands and endangered species,”” said Jay Tutchton, WildEarth Guardians’ general counsel, who has successfully brought about the protection of more than 100 endangered species. “”By having experienced litigators on our team, we can move quickly and make sure that endangered species have a fighting chance.””

WildEarth Guardians has 18 staff members—15 full-time and 3 part-time—and a budget of nearly $1.5 million in 2008. The group has offices in Denver, Boulder, Santa Fe and Phoenix as well as more than 10,000 members and e-activists from all across the country, the majority of whom live in the Four Corners states.

While the merger, name change and staff additions are each new and different, much will remain the same about the organization’s work according to Horning. “”A WildEarth Guardian is a staunch guardian for wild nature, with legal and ethical duties in the same way that guardians are appointed by the courts to represent the interests of children. That core value has always been with us, and it will always be at the heart of our work,”” continued Horning.

“”Our mission is to protect the wild and we will use the law and mobilize the public to make sure wild nature in the West is defended and restored,”” said Horning. ““This is an exciting time to be a Guardian—, both new and old.””

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