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Now you can read sections of International Wolf exactly as they appear in our printed magazine. Click on the featured links below to view PDF files of the stories.

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Welcome Letter

Why Wolves in the Southwest?
by Dale Hall
The primordial howl of the Mexican lobo once again echoes across the canyons and mountains of the American Southwest. Universally feared and reviled at the turn of the last century, the Mexican wolf is staging a miraculous resurrection in a tiny corner of Arizona and New Mexico, a comeback that even the most ardent wolf proponents dismissed as unlikely as recently as 10 to 15 years ago. The Mexican wolf was the focus of an intensive elimination campaign by numerous governmental and private entities in the late 1800s to mid-1900s. Now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and various private, county, state, tribal and federal partners are cooperatively working to return this keystone subspecies to ecological relevance.

An Overview of the Southwest La Tierra del Lobo
By Terry B. Johnson
Wolves in the Southwest once occupied a land of unsurpassed diversity. At the southern end of the range, in north-central Mexico, rolling oakstudded hills and pine-oak forested mountains separated by grasscovered valleys characterized wolf habitat. The topography of Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental and its environs was as rugged as the Mexican wolf was wild. From Durango north through Chihuahua and Sonora, El Lobo roamed at will from elevations of a few hundred feet to several thousand feet, although the middle elevations, perhaps 3,000 to 6,000 feet, were its stronghold. Water, cover and prey were plentiful, and the wolf ruled supreme.

Wolf Recovery Planning in the Southwest
by Tracy Scheffler
Recovery Efforts for the Wolf The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has initiated three landmark recovery efforts to return the gray wolf to portions of its historic range. Wolves once again roam the western Great Lakes region, the Northern Rockies and the southwestern United States. Prior to concentrated wolf extirpation campaigns in the 1800s and 1900s, wolves ranged across most of North America from Canada to Mexico.

Voices of the Southwest
How does the presence of wolves affect your life?
Wolf. Savage and treacherous. Evil incarnate. Hated and feared.
Wolf. Noble and majestic. Symbol of wild nature. Revered and adored.
Wolf. Fascinating and intelligent. Remarkable predator. Respected and valued.
Different wolves for different people. Our personal perceptions depend to some degree on our age, where we live and what kind of work we do.

Sacred Cows, Public Lands
by Steve Grooms
Federal Lands Grazing Allotments Are Vital to Western Ranches
by Bonnie Kline
The Case Against Public Lands Livestock Production
by George Wuerthner
Unlike other regions, where cattle are raised exclusively on private lands, in the West it has become traditional for ranches to run cattle on public land. This is managed through a permit process involving remarkably low fees. Permits are granted to ranches adjacent to public lands. Not surprisingly, those ranches have come to think of public grasslands as a normal part of their operation. Nobody questioned this arrangement for ages, but that consensus has been lost. There is now a sharp controversy about the tradition of running cattle on public lands.

Personal Encounters

The Reality of Living with Wolves
by Barbara Marks
My husband, Bill, and I raise good old American beef on the Marks WY Bar Ranch in the Blue Range of eastern Arizona. The Blue is rough but beautiful country. The ranch has been in the family since 1891, and we're proud of how we care for the land and our animals. Our married children want nothing more than to come back someday to this ranch to live. Whether they can is another story.

We protested the plan to reintroduce wolves in this ranching community, but we lost, and the Aspen pack-two adults and three pups-were released nearby in July 2004. After the pups started attacking cattle and dogs in September, U.S. Fish and Wildlife wolf project officials captured them. But the two radiocollared adults remained free, making passes through the Blue area, antagonizing dogs and messing with the cattle. The culmination came in early April 2005.

Learning to Live with Predators: A Rancher's Story
by Will Holder
I was blessed to be born into a ranching family. A ranch is so expensive, you pretty much have to be born into it-sort of like being a prince. So a lot of who I am comes directly from that piece of land. It's where I fought off frostbite and puked when I got sunstroke. It's where I developed a sixth sense about where rattlesnakes might be. It's where my dad broke his hip and had to crawl two miles for help. It's where my grandmother helped an Apache mother give birth. And it's where my great-grandfather killed one of the last native wolves in Arizona. It's also the place that taught me about the role of predators in our ecosystem. Like Aldo Leopold in his essay "Thinking Like a Mountain," I too had one of those "moments."

Education

Education about Wolves in the Southwest
by Andrea Lorek Strauss,National Information and Education Director, and Jim Williams, Assistant Director for Education, International Wolf Center
Nowhere is the need for education about wolves greater than in the American Southwest. In a region where environmental politics commonly breeds bitter conflict and widespread confusion, it is not surprising that reintroducing such a controversial carnivore as the wolf has caused the lines between fact and fiction to blur. The eventual update of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's wolf recovery plan for the Southwest is likely to amplify the corrosive rancor. All who have a stake in wolf recovery have an interest in a well-informed public dialogue in which respectful, solution-oriented discussion leads to better recovery plans that have broad public support. The key to transforming the public discussion is education. An informal survey of experienced wolf educators in the Southwest revealed increasing frequency and quality of wolf education opportunities in the region.

A Look Beyond

What Constitutes Wolf Recovery?
by Mike Phillips
Significant progress has been achieved on behalf of the gray wolf since the species was listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) late in the 1960s. Starting with about 1,000 wolves in Minnesota, ESA-based activities have led to the establishment of several populations in several states that include nearly 4,500 animals.