On June 12, The Society for Conservation Biology North America submitted a joint comment letter with the American Society of Mammologists (ASM) to the US Fish and Wildlife Service as that agency prepares court-ordered revisions to its rule governing management of the endangered Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi), which occurs in northern Mexico and the southwestern US. In the comments, SCBNA and ASM explained why the rule revision must take a fresh look at best available science regarding what steps are necessary for recovery of the Mexican wolf, rather than relying on a flawed 2017 recovery plan whose conclusions were distorted due to political pressure from some southwestern states.

The major issues that SCBNA and ASM identified in the recovery plan include 1) arbitrarily high thresholds for acceptable extinction risk, 2) lack of objective and measurable recovery criteria regarding threats from illegal killing and other anthropogenic mortality, 3) lack of objective and measurable recovery criteria regarding genetic threats, and 4) arbitrary limits on the geographic extent of recovery.

Read the full comment letter here.