I urge you to oppose Rep. Paul Gosar's "Enhancing Safety for Animals" bill, which the House Natural Resources Committee approved on January 22. This legislation would strip Endangered Species Act protection from Mexican wolves, the smallest, shyest, and most endangered wolf subspecies, virtually guaranteeing their extinction.
Mexican wolves were trapped, shot, and poisoned to functional extinction before the ESA's enactment in 1973. Only seven individuals were found alive creating a severe genetic bottleneck and resulting in wolves with syndactyly, conjoined toe pads. Today's entire population of 331 wild and 380 captive Mexican wolves descends from those seven animals, totaling just 711 individuals.
The current recovery plan already leaves Mexican wolves at risk of extinction. It calls for only 320 wolves in one U.S. subpopulation south of Interstate 40 and 200 in Mexico. David Parsons, the carnivore biologist who led Mexican wolf recovery for USFWS from 1990 to 1999, calls Mexico "a death trap" due to scarce public land and ongoing poisoning, estimating it can support only about a dozen wolves. His 2010 draft recovery plan prescribed three subpopulations of at least 200 wolves each, but political pressure from then-Senator Orrin Hatch resulted in the inadequate current plan.
Claims that Mexican wolves threaten human safety are baseless. There is no record of a Mexican wolf attacking or threatening a human, despite Catron County Commissioner Audrey McQueen's 2025 statements about fear and deputies posted at schools. The 162 wolves spread across New Mexico's 78 million acres do not constitute the "natural disaster" local officials claim.
Removing ESA protection would eliminate the only safeguard preventing this subspecies from disappearing forever. I ask you to oppose this bill and instead support strengthening Mexican wolf recovery efforts.
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