Arizona Daily Star
July 17, 2010

Another endangered Mexican gray wolf was found shot to death this week in Arizona - and one of the possibilities authorities are looking into is that ranchers or others may have used radios to track and target radio-collared wolves.

Environmentalists are pushing the feds - "as a precaution" - to take back the radios loaned to ranchers and others in Arizona and New Mexico that allow the wolves to be tracked.

Ranching groups deny the "ridiculous" suggestion that any ranchers would use the radios to target wolves for shootings. They say they only monitor the wolves to try to keep them from attacking their cattle or getting too close to homes.

Agents for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have drawn no conclusions as to whether the receivers are being used to target wolves, said Nicholas Chavez, the service's Southwest law enforcement chief.

"We put everything into the realm of possibility. We always look into that but we have not confirmed that at all," said Chavez, whose agents have investigated more than 30 Mexican wolf shootings.

The radios are loaned to two groups of people: those wishing to protect livestock against wolf attacks and those wishing to protect their property against nuisance wolves, says a document written by officials with the federal wolf reintroduction project.

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