Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) has protested what he calls a Republican mythology about management of endangered wolves. He says he wants to change the focus of the conversation. Maya Springhawk Robnett of the Arizona Science Desk reports.
Congressman Grijalva has been outspoken about his frustration with what he calls Congressional Republicans’ “same old debunked claims” about wolf management.
The Mexican Gray Wolf was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1976. At the most recent hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, Representative Steve Pearce from New Mexico questioned the validity of the Mexican Gray Wolf as a subspecies. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has called it the most genetically distinct subspecies of gray wolf in North America.
Grijalva explained what he believes the dialogue about wolf management should be focused on.
“I would hope that as part of an endangered species strategy that we don’t de-list something too quickly,” he explains, “And second of all, that the introduction has to have some permanency to it and that the habitat has to have some protections to it, as well.”
"There's a pathos that this is a predator that needs to be eliminated..."
The Mexican Gray Wolf was reintroduced in Arizona and New Mexico in the late 1990s. Since then, the Mexican Gray Wolf Reintroduction Program has been the subject of contentious debate between conservationists and business interests, specifically western ranchers who see the wolf as a threat to their livelihood.
An extended clip of Grijalva discussing wolf management can be found below: