Update: 6/28/18 This story in the Santa Fe New Mexican last week about the death of mp1385 has quotes from the rancher who killed the wolf; the forest service supervisor; John Bradley, FWS spokesman; and several others on both sides of the Mexican wolf reintroduction debate.
Update: 6/18/18 I received a return call from Adam Mendonca, the Gila Forest Supervisor, who let me know that the USFS was working through its administrative process with regard to Mr.Thiessen’s conviction and the status of his grazing permits. They have not yet made a decision about what action they will take.
News broke on May 25, 2018 that a New Mexico man had been sentenced for the 2015 death of a Mexican wolf. It’s rare news. Illegal mortalities continue to stack up—67 at end of 2015 for the 18-year period the wolves had been back in the wild at that point. Convictions for those killings can be counted on one hand.
The wolf, it turned out, was a pup, not yet a year old—a member of the Willow Springs Pack that roamed the north central portion of the Gila National Forest. He was born in the spring of 2014, the pack’s second litter. In September of that year he was captured by the field team that monitors the wild population, collared and assigned a studbook number, male pup (mp)1385.
Willow Springs male pup (mp) 1385 Photo Credit: US Fish and Wildlife
Five months later in February 2015 he was found dead. Craig Thiessen, a Catron County rancher, pled guilty admitting, “[that] he intentionally captured a Mexican wolf in a trap on his grazing allotment in the Gila National Forest and hit the wolf with a shovel.” Thiessen was charged with taking of threatened wildlife, a federal misdemeanor wildlife violation. His sentence: one year of probation and a $2300 fine to be paid to the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program
Going back through monthly status updates and annual progress reports, I pieced together some of the history of the pack.
The Willow Springs Pack formed in 2011 when two wolves–M1185 of the Middle Fork Pack and an unidentified female–began traveling together. In 2012 the female was captured, collared, and assigned studbook number F1279. Genetic testing later confirmed that she came from the Luna Pack.
The pair had their first litter of pups in 2013.
Up until 2014, the pack had never had any reported interactions with livestock. But in March of that year, before mp1385 was born, collared members of the pack killed two cows. The field team provided a diversionary food cache (road-killed prey and carnivore logs) and there were no further depredations.
On August 11, 2014 the Willow Springs Pack was located, via radio telemetry, east of John Kerr Peak in Catron County. The family of wolves included the two adults, one or two juveniles (born the prior year) and an unidentified number of pups, about 12 to 16 weeks old. With a territory of approximately 140 square miles it was just a snapshot in time of the Willow Springs Pack, a family of wolves on the move, the adults trying to protect and feed their offspring and in the process teaching them how to hunt.
Two days later U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) held a public meeting in Truth or Consequences (about 100 miles southeast of the Willow Springs Pack’s most recently identified location) to present proposed changes to the rule governing management of the small wild population of Mexican wolves. It was one of several meetings held in 2013 and 2014, an opportunity for the public to weigh in on proposals which included increasing the number of wolves living back in their native habitat and increasing the area where they would be allowed to establish territories.
The meeting was attended by almost 200 people, a mix of local citizens, ranchers, hunters, and wildlife advocates. After a presentation by FWS, the public was invited to comment. Most speakers were in favor of giving the wolves more room to roam and increasing their numbers. They saw the return of the native predator as a positive.
Opposition was voiced in large part by ranchers, who are the ones most likely to have an interaction with a wolf and who sometimes suffer the loss of a cow or a dog. I checked the transcript of the meeting to see if Craig Thiessen might have attended and made a comment, but he did not.
One speaker who addressed issues that the ranching community faces was Joe Bill Nunn, president of the Southwestern New Mexico Grazing Association. In part, he said:
“We are the ones bearing the brunt of the wolf population and the depredation by the wolves.” He went on to ask that the program be ended and if not ended, ” . . . do not expand the initial recovery areas. The problem with depredation of privately owned livestock . . . is only going to get worse.”
In January 2015 FWS issued their final rule. The Mexican wolf population living in the wild would be allowed to grow to approximately 300 (up from the original top set of 100) and their territory was greatly expanded.
A month later mp1385 was found in a trap, beaten to death. Thiessen has been punished, but is that the end of the story?
Maybe not.
Last Friday (June 8, 2018) a group of 30 organizations and numerous individuals signed a letter addressed to the supervisor of Gila National Forest asking that Thiessen’s grazing permits be revoked immediately. The letter stated in part, “The public should not subsidize Mr. Thiessen’s private business after his brutal, violent and unconscionable crime.”
I left a message for Adam Mendonca, the forest supervisor, to find out the status of Theissen’s grazing permits, but so far have not heard back.
I’ll close with the words of another speaker at the August 13, 2014 public hearing, Danielle LaRock:
“I will never understand [why] it is so hard to give a small group of wolves back a mere fraction of what we have taken away from them, their land and their freedom.”