Reintroduction of Native Species

Sources: United States Geological Survey Biological Resources Division and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Most Colorado Plateau ecosystems have been reduced functionally and ecologically by the loss of native species. Today, several reintroduction programs are underway:

The Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program

Mule Pack pup m580 released May 23, 1999. Photo by Janet Reed, USFWS.

The Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) is the southernmost occurring, rarest, and most genetically distinct subspecies of gray wolf in North America. Mexican gray wolves, or lobos, were once common along the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. They roamed the ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests of the Mogollon Rim and White Mountains and extended south and eastward to central New Mexico, western Texas, and northern Mexico. By the early 1900's, however, growing numbers of livestock in the region and fewer and fewer natural prey species resulted in increasing numbers of livestock losses to wolves. Intensive efforts by the federal government were largely successful in eradicating Mexican wolves by the middle of this century. Since then a few wolves have been caught and killed; the last confirmed wild Mexican wolf was reported in the United States in 1970 and in Mexico in 1980.

Mexican wolves were listed as endangered in 1976, the same year a joint recovery effort with Mexico began. Using animals captured in Mexico, a captive breeding population was established. These animals are the foundation of the recovery effort headed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service currently underway in the Blue Range area of the White Mountains. In the fall of 1998, 11 Mexican wolves were transferred to remote sites in Apache National Forest, the first in the wild in almost three decades. After undergoing acclimation in large enclosures for several weeks, the wolves were released to disperse in a 7,000-square-mile recovery area, comprised of the Apache and Gila National Forests in eastern Arizona and west-central New Mexico.

The recovery goal for Mexican wolves is to maintain the captive breeding program while establishing a self-sustaining wild population of at least 100 animals in the species' historic range.

Reintroduction of the California Condor

Young California condor in flight. Photo by David Clendenen, USFWS.

The California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) was once common on the Colorado Plateau and throughout much of the western United States. This large vulture was noted by early explorers and settlers from British Columbia south to Baja California. The condor is one of the largest flying birds in the world, and can have a wingspan of more than nine feet. A competent glider, condors search for dead animals, such as deer or, more recently, cattle, from the air and feed only on this carrion. The birds can live for 40 years or more, much longer than most birds.

As Euro-Americans began to extensively settle the West they often shot, poisoned, captured, and disturbed the native condors. Settlers also intensively hunted antelope, elk, and other large wild animals, significantly reducing the bird's food supply. Eventually condors could no longer survive in much of their former range, and by the 1970s just a few remaining wild individuals were left, confined to the mountainous areas of southern California.

The California condor has been protected as an endangered species by federal law since 1967. Most of the condors living today are in captivity but there are efforts underway to restore the bird to parts of its former range. Captive-bred condors were first released to the wild in southern California in 1992, and since that time reintroduction efforts have been expanded. On the Colorado Plateau, condors are currently being reintroduced just north of the Grand Canyon in the Vermillion Cliffs region of southern Utah and northern Arizona. For more on the paleohistory of the California Condor and the reintroduction effort in Arizona, click here.

Reintroduction of the Black-Footed Ferret

Reintroduced black-footed ferret. Courtesy Arizona Game and Fish Department.

The black-footed ferret was once considered the most endangered mammal in the United States, but recently progress has been made toward its recovery. Black-footed ferrets are weasels, a family (Mustelidae) which includes martens, fishers, otters, minks, wolverines, and skunks. Larger than most weasels, black-footed ferrets are long, slender-bodied animals similar in size to a mink.

Black-footed ferrets were once found throughout the Great Plains; their range extended from the Rocky Mountains eastward through the Dakotas and south through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Ferrets eat prairie dogs and live in prairie dog burrows. Where prairie dogs were found, so were ferrets.

As the prairies were settled, prairie dogs competed with livestock for the available forage. This resulted in intensive efforts by ranchers and government agencies to eliminate these "pest rodents." Without the prairie dog, the black-footed ferret had no source of food, and populations quickly and seriously declined. The ferret was listed as an endangered species in 1967 under a law that preceded the Endangered Species Act of 1973. By 1972, the black-footed ferret was believed to be extinct.

From 1972 through 1981, ferret sightings were reported, but no black-footed ferrets were found. Then in 1981, a dog killed an unusual animal on a ranch in Wyoming. The rancher took it to a taxidermist, who recognized it as a black-footed ferret. This led to the discovery of a small ferret population near Meeteetse, Wyoming. This population was protected and its numbers increased from 1981 through 1984, when nearly 130 ferrets were counted.

In October 1985, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, in cooperation with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, captured six black-footed ferrets to start a captive breeding population. This captive population has increased today to more than 500 captive black-footed ferrets. Black-footed ferrets are currently being reintroduced onto the grasslands of the far southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau near Seligman, Arizona.

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Brown, D. E. 1983. The wolf in the southwest: The making of an endangered species. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 195 pp.

Burbank, J. C. 1990. Vanishing Lobo: The Mexican wolf and the Southwest. Johnson Books, Boulder, CO.

Ganey, J. L. and Balda, R. P. 1989. Distribution and habitat use of Mexican spotted owls in Arizona. Condor 91: 355-361.

Johnson, J. E. 1987. Reintroducing the natives: Colorado squawfish and woundfin. Pp. 118-124 In: Proceedings of the Desert Fishes Council. XVI-XVIII. Desert Fishes Council, Bishop, CA.

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Miller, B., Wemmer, C., Biggins, D. and Reading, R. 1990. A proposal to conserve black-footed ferrets and the prairie dog ecosystem. Environmental Management 14: 763-769.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1996. California Condor Recovery Plan, Third Revision., Portland, OR, 62 pp.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program. <http://mexicanwolf.fws.gov/> 9/1/2000.

Vargas, A., Lockhart, M., Marinari, P. and Gober, P. 1996. The reintroduction process: Black-footed ferrets as a case study. Pp. 829-834 In: American Zoo and Aquarium Association Western Regional Conference, Denver, CO.