UNM Wilderness Alliance to Lead 2nd Annual Spring Break Wolf Tracking Expedition

On March 15th – 20th, 2008, UNM Wilderness Alliance will be leading the 2nd Annual Spring Break Wolf Tracking Expedition. The event—which will include 16 UNM students, 7 activists, and a documentary filmmaker—will be located in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area in the Gila National Forest.

“2008 is an important year in the federal Mexican wolf reintroduction program for a couple of reasons,” said Phil Carter, President of UNM Wilderness Alliance. “March 29th is the 10th anniversary of the first wolf releases but 2008 also represents the third year of wolf population decline since 2004. The purpose of this year’s wolf tracking expedition is to call attention to both of these facts, as well as demonstrate the UNM community’s admiration for and support of its mascot.”

Every student participating is required to help document the expedition using some sort of media, with the purpose of compiling the media after the event into a master narrative. With this media, the event participants intend to relate the current conditions of the wolf recovery area and, luck willing, to document some wild wolves.

Regarding the event, Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, said: “It’s great to see young people enjoying the Southwest’s wildest landscape and tracking North America’s most imperiled mammal. The Bush Administration acts as if these public lands belong exclusively to the livestock industry, but a new generation of nature lovers at the University of New Mexico will explore their Gila National Forest and hopefully see or hear the Mexican gray wolves who call the Gila home.”

In January 2008, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service released its annual population totals for wild Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico and Arizona. The agency documented 52 wolves in the Southwestern U.S. and only 23 wolves currently residing in New Mexico.

UNM Wilderness Alliance (www.unm.edu/~unmwild) is UNM’s only conservation student group. The organization has long been engaged in wolf advocacy, including organizing Wolf Awareness Day on the UNM campus on Oct 17th, 2007, issuing the UNM Wolf Recovery Resolution in September 2007 (available on the group’s website), and creating a special “Save the Lobo” t-shirt for sale at the UNM Bookstore.

The March 2007 expedition included 15 participants and focused on tracking the Saddle Pack. At the time of the event, an U.S. Wildlife & Service SOP13 removal order was being enforced on the alpha male of the pack and federal aerial reconnaissance airplanes were viewed by the expedition. The male wolf was exterminated a few days after the event on March 17, and the alpha female of the pack was removed from the wild later in the year. The Saddle Pack no longer exists in the wild.

“It is UNM Wilderness Alliance’s belief that all of the university has an obligation to defend and support its mascot, the lobo,” said Carter. “This year’s wolf tracking expedition is an exciting opportunity to showcase this support to New Mexico and the Southwest at large.”