Wolf kill permit criticized by rancher and wolf advocate

A recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife wolf kill permit is drawing criticism from both sides of the Mexican Wolf recovery debate.

“This permit is being issued to address chronic depredations within this area and assist the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in completing a control action,” said the order dated on Feb. 19.

Catron County Commissioner Audrey McQueen is listed as one of the permittees along with fellow Catron County rancher Steve Hooper. McQueen said she did not request the permit and would rather the USFW carry out the action.

“Every measure has been tried, everything, and they’re still on us killing and so they (USFW) decided to give us a kill order,” McQueen said. “I don’t want to kill a wolf. I’ve never wanted to kill a wolf because killing one wolf out of whatever’s up there, 30 or so, that’s not even going to help us anyway. So why do I have to live through that and then have my kids attacked, have me attacked (on social media)?”

She said she has faced harassment, including social media attacks against her and her family, because her name appeared on the permit, which was released to the public. According to McQueen, in the past the names were redacted from the permit.

Wolf advocate Greta Anderson said the permit, which allows the killing of “one Mexican wolf on private land or one Mexican wolf in the act of biting, killing, or wounding livestock on federal land,” doesn’t take the recovery program’s history into account.

“What we’ve left with is just a kill order for any wolf,” she said. “It looks like just kind of a blank check for retribution.”

Anderson, Deputy Director of Western Watersheds Project, said the permit doesn’t identify the history of conflict, non-lethal measures taken and leaves pregnant wolves essential to genetic diversity vulnerable. She said in her mind lethal removals are never justified, because it’s been proven time and time again that it does not reduce conflict.

According to the Fish and Wildlife website there is no policy requiring the use of non-lethal management techniques before issuing an order for removal or lethal take. However, the Service implements non-lethal management techniques to the maximum extent practicable prior to issuing a removal order for a Mexican wolf or wolves.

“In accordance with our regulations and recovery permit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a permit allowing for the lethal removal of one Mexican wolf to address chronic livestock depredations,” Fish and Wildlife said in a statement.

“It is only after we have implemented and/or considered other methods deemed ineffective to prevent depredations and the depredations are still occurring that we turn to removal orders,” states the website. “In some cases, removal of a wolf or wolves from a pack can reduce the amount of food requirements of the pack and thus limit future depredations. Removing wolves from the wild is an ultimate but effective tool in reducing wolf-livestock conflict.”

According to Anderson, she has put in a records request for more information about the permit from the U.S. Department of Interior; however some of her previous records requests are running nine to 12 months behind.

“We support conflict reduction to minimize the impacts of livestock grazing on wildlife and their habitat. In our perspective, the burden should be on the ranchers to get along with the native wildlife on public lands,” Andersen said. “In this case, the wildlife are paying with their lives for doing what comes naturally to them, and the burden should be on the human management side.”

McQueen, a fifth-generation rancher, said at her ranch they have done everything U.S. Fish and Wildlife has asked for conflict avoidance including flaggery, fox lights and range riders hazing the area without relief from depredations including the most recent wolf kill, her teen daughter’s horse.

“I don’t even know what to say anymore.” McQueen said, whose daughter lost a horse to wolves last year too. “I’m like, Why? Why do her horses get killed? Like, just kill mine.”

Anderson said she understands the real impact on the ranchers and feels sorry for the kids who are put in the middle of it. She remembered when the teen lost a horse last year named Pickles.

“For that young woman, this narrative is very real and painful, and I can imagine how upset she is.” Anderson said.

She said wolves have been on the landscape for thousands of years and humans need to remember and relearn how to get along with them.

“I also think that wolves are being scapegoated for a lot of other types of livestock mismanagement and agency incompetence,” Anderson said. “There’s real conflict out there on the landscape, but humans need to manage that conflict, and killing wolves or leading to their second extinction in the wild is not the answer.”

Anderson doesn’t believe livestock grazing was ever an appropriate or sustainable use of the arid lands of the West.

“I think the history shows that a lot of overgrazing happened and set in motion a lot of landscape level changes that have ultimately made our ecosystems less resilient, less fire resistant, less topsoil, all of these things and real recovery and restoration can happen by removing the land uses cause the ongoing degradation of our public lands,” Anderson said.

McQueen said without ranchers the wildlife would dwindle and the area would be prone to wildfires. She said she feels like she is being pushed off the land by environmentalists and because the depredations have continued to escalate many ranchers are leaving. McQueen is at the point where she is considering it too.

“I am ready to sell everything I have and move. I don’t know how much more of this that I can take,” McQueen said. “This is not gonna get better anytime soon.They want ranchers off the public lands. They don’t want cattle grazing and they’re doing a really good job.”

The kill permit issued to McQueen and Hooper allows shooting one wolf on private land on specified allotments or one attacking livestock on Federal land within those allotments. Baiting, traps or lures are not allowed and the USFWS Special Agent must be notified within 24 hours of taking a wolf, according to the permit.

If a wolf is taken on non-federal land, the permit states, an investigation will occur to prove whether the wolf was on private land. If taken on federal land, the permit states, there must be proof the wolf was attacking livestock (e.g., fresh wounds/kills), or face investigation.

The permit allows only named permittees and agents to shoot one wolf from the ground as quickly and humanely as possible and is non-transferable to others. If a wolf is killed, it remains as the property of USFW and the carcass or the area will not be disturbed.

The permit remains valid until April 4, 2026, or until one wolf is killed, the permit states, and covers Cow Springs and Red Hill North allotments south of US Hwy 60. That area is primarily BLM and State Trust Land with six private property parcels contained in it.

Annual population of Mexican Wolves released

Just days after the permit was issued, the Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team announced their annual population count of Mexican wolves. The team documented an increase with a 2025 minimum number of 319 wolves compared to 286 in 2024.

“This is a consistent growth pattern for more than a decade,” said the new release issued on Feb. 25 by the New Mexico Department of Wildlife. “The goal of every recovery program is to use the best scientific criteria to recover a species, so the species is no longer in need of protection under the ESA. The recovery criteria to support downlisting the Mexican wolf is an average of 320 wolves documented per year over a four-year period. Although that average has not been obtained, this number does trigger the timing where a downlisting would be justified.”

According to the release, the data advances the Mexican wolf recovery program toward downlisting and developing a 4(d) rule under the Endangered Species Act which would offer more flexible management actions to reduce conflict while continuing recovery toward delisting.

Anderson said she thinks more wolves in the wild is great and she looks forward to when they are fully recovered but noted that on average the wolves are still closely related as siblings.

“We need a real commitment to protecting the genetic diversity of lobos including the release of wolf families from captivity, the removal of the artificial northern boundary of I-40, and proactive conflict reduction measures required for public lands grazing permittees,” Anderson said.

For McQueen the numbers underrepresent the amount of wolves she believes are out there.

“If there were 286 wolves last year, 319 this year. If it grows another 50 wolves and they have 370 this next year and they’re just going to take out a wolf here and there, we’re in so much trouble,” McQueen said. “In 2025 we had a 49% increase in livestock depredations from 2024 this year. We’re not even at the end of February. We’ve already got 25 confirmed.”

Confirmed depredations in New Mexico according to a table provided by Jon Grant State Director USDA-APHIS-Wildlife Services, went from 77 to 134 between 2024 and 2025.