Saturday, August 18, 2007

Sevilleta Refuge conducts wolf pup round-up

Evelyn Cronce El Defensor Chieftain Reporter

ECRONCE ecronce@dchieftain.com

The seven wolf pups belonging to the Saddle Pack are 14 weeks old, and it was time for their veterinary examinations and shots.

The pups were born in the wild on May 7.

The adults were removed from the wild because of livestock depredations later in May.

The pack has been housed in the compound on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge since June 1.

On Wednesday (Aug. 15), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officers invited members of the media along to observe the event and to help out capturing the puppies.

This El Defensor Chieftain reporter, as well as a reporter and a photographer from the Albuquerque Journal, were there.

The reporter from KUNM-FM had car trouble and was unable to attend.

At 6 a.m., we met with FWS officers and biologists, New Mexico Department of Game & Fish biologists, biologists from the University of New Mexico, biologists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the veterinarian, and caravanned to the eastern side of the refuge.

On the way, we stopped at the trailer that serves as a base location to pick up equipment and got our instructions from service biologist Melissa Kreutzian.

The pen we would be entering would be about an acre in size.

We would form a line across the pen at one end and walk slowly forward.

We were instructed to let the adult wolves thorough the line to separate them from the pups.

We would then corral the pups at the other end of the pen.

Kuretzian instructed the group to be on the lookout for rattlesnakes since some had been observed in the pen on previous occasions.

Some of the biologists were equipped with snake poles and bags to catch the snakes and temporarily remove them from the pen if any were seen.

This proved to be an unnecessary precaution because no one saw a snake.

Kuretzian also told the group that the wolves would be agitated.

Although they would be afraid of the humans, they could be expected to bite at the air.

"Let the adults go by," Kuretzian said. "Don't stick out your leg or arm to stop them because they do bite at the air and it's not my fault if you stick your leg in its mouth and get bit."

Everyone was given a catchpole or a net and we entered the pen.

The capture went off smoothly. The adult wolves were more than happy to stay as far away from the humans as possible and there were no incidents.

The pups were put into a large animal carrier and brought one by one to a makeshift table in the shade within the pen, where they were examined by Albuquerque veterinarian Susan Dicks.

At the table, the vet checked each pup, rated its general condition and gave it a thorough examination.

The vet explained the rating system, which rates the overall condition of canines from 1 to 5.

"Five is a big, fat, spoiled pet Labrador while 1 is, oh, some stray dog that was found after Hurricane Katrina," she said.

Blood samples were taken from each of the wolf pups.

The samples were taken by University of New Mexico biology students for DNA testing and cataloging.

The resulting database is used to pair wolves for mating to insure the widest genetic pool possible.

Each pup received a parvo vaccination, the same as if it were a domestic animal.

Then, each pup was photographed with its number for future identification purposes.

After each pup was weighed, it was released.

All of the pups were healthy, rated between a 3 and 3.5, and weighed between 13 and 19 pounds.

When the pups reach adulthood, they will be eligible for release in the wild when a suitable location is identified.

The adults will not be released into the wild, but will spend their lives in a wildlife refuge where they will be allowed to run and will have limited contact with humans.

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