Federal wildlife officials shot and killed a 3-month-old Mexican gray wolf pup from a helicopter last week in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, according to newly released government records and conservation groups.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to kill the female pup on Aug. 12, according to internal emails obtained by conservation organizations. The wolf was part of the Dillon Mountain pack.
“Gunning down a wolf pup from the air whose precious genes could have helped save her entire subspecies was cruel and will further stall recovery of these animals,” Michael Robinson, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release.
The killing is part of what conservationists describe as an escalation in wolf removals since President Donald Trump returned to office in January. Wildlife Services personnel used a firearm from a contracted aircraft to kill the wolf on Forest Service lands, according to an Aug. 13 email from USDA-APHIS-Wildlife Services.
Mexican wolves are among the most endangered mammals in North America, with only about 250 individuals in the wild. The subspecies was nearly extinct by the 1970s after decades of government-sponsored killing campaigns that began in 1915.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has also authorized the killing of a second wolf — a young adult male from the Bear Canyon pack in Arizona’s Apache National Forest whose mother was shot from a helicopter in April while believed to be pregnant, according to the conservation groups.
These orders are usually given when wolves interfere with livestock, but the exact reason this wolf was targeted isn’t mentioned in the records.
“The responsibility for preventing livestock conflict with native carnivores on public lands rests with the livestock operators,” said Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds Project, in a press release. “Wolves shouldn’t have to pay with their lives for taking advantage of the easy prey left unattended in wolf habitat.”
The Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation organizations have requested that federal and state agencies call off the remaining kill order for the Bear Canyon pack male.
Trump, the feral demagogue, is a chickenhearted bully. These people are pathetic. And killers.
Fraud, waste, and abuse! How could a three months old pup pose a danger to anyone or anything? The person who authorized the waste of thousands of dollars of helicopter and federal agent time should be fired.
Trump is a trash can. Of course he is behind this.
whats up next ? shooting of immigrants from helicopters? what’s happening in this country ordered by a felon who is completely off the rails is way past any tolerable level.