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Mexican Wolf Habitat Suitability Analysis in Historical 1 Mexican wolf habitat suitability analysis in historical 2 range in the Southwestern US and Mexico 3 4 Enrique Martínez-Meyer1,2*, Alejandro González-Bernal1, Julián A. 5 Velasco1, Tyson L. Swetnam3, Zaira Y. González-Saucedo1, Jorge 6 Servín4, Carlos A. López González5, Nalleli E. Lara Díaz5, Cristian 7 Aguilar Miguel5, Carmen Chávez García5 & John K. Oakleaf6 8 1 Instituto de Biología, Departamento de Zoología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma 9 de México, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City 04510 Mexico 10 2 Current address: Centro del Cambio Global y la Sustentabilidad en el Sureste, 11 A.C., Calle Centenario del Instituto Juárez S/N, Col. Reforma, Villahermosa 86080 12 Mexico *[email protected] 13 3 School of Natural Resources and Environment, The University of Arizona, 1064 14 East Lowell Street, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA 15 4 Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Unidad Xochimilco, Laboratorio de Ecología 16 y Conservación de Fauna Silvestre, Calzada del Hueso 1100, Mexico City 04960 17 Mexico 18 5 Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Cerro de las Campanas S/N, Col. Las 19 Campanas, Querétaro 76010 Mexico 20 6 United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Mexican Wolf Project, P.O. Box 856, 21 Alpine, AZ 85920, USA 22 April 2017 Final Report - Mexican Wolf Habitat Suitability Analysis April 2017 23 Table of Contents 24 Summary iii 25 Acknowledgments iv 26 Introduction 1 27 Previous habitat suitability analyses for the Mexican wolf 4 28 Methods 6 29 1. Reconstructing the historical distribution of the Mexican wolf 6 30 Occurrence records 8 31 Environmental layers 10 32 Ecological niche and distribution modeling 12 33 Model validation 13 34 Model assembling 15 35 Climatic suitability 17 36 2. Environmental and anthropogenic habitat variables 19 37 Land cover and vegetation types 20 38 Human population density 25 39 Road density 28 40 3. Ungulate density estimation 31 41 UBI modeling 34 i Final Report - Mexican Wolf Habitat Suitability Analysis April 2017 42 Rangewide UBI map 37 43 4. Habitat suitability modeling 40 44 5. Identification of suitable areas for future recovery actions 41 45 6. Estimation of Mexican wolf population size in suitable areas 42 46 Results and Discussion 45 47 Habitat suitability scenarios without the UBI map 45 48 Habitat suitability scenarios with the UBI map 53 49 Goal 1: Potential areas for undertaking recovery actions in Mexico 57 50 Goal 2: Estimates of Mexican wolf population sizes 65 51 Conclusions 70 52 Literature cited 71 53 ii Final Report - Mexican Wolf Habitat Suitability Analysis April 2017 54 Summary 55 In the last three decades, important efforts have been made to evaluate the habitat suitability 56 for the reintroduction and long-term persistence of the Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) 57 both in the US and Mexico. However, such efforts have used different methodological 58 approaches and have covered only some portions of the historical distribution range of this 59 subspecies, making it impossible to have a comprehensive understanding of where and how 60 much habitat is left for maintaining long-term, viable free-ranging populations of the Mexican 61 wolf. This project aims to fill this gap by carrying out a habitat suitability analysis across the 62 whole historical range of the Mexican wolf, from southern Arizona and New Mexico and 63 western Texas, in the US, to central Oaxaca, Mexico, using input information for both 64 countries and under a uniform methodological scheme. We implemented an additive model 65 integrating geographic information of critical environmental variables for the Mexican wolf, 66 including climatic-topographic suitability, land cover use based on frequency of occurrences, 67 ungulate biomass, road density, and human density. Data available for the ungulate biomass 68 index was not robust enough to generate reliable rangewide estimates, so we present a 69 series of maps representing different scenarios depending on the thresholds used in the 70 anthropogenic factors (road and human density) and also with and without the inclusion of 71 the ungulate biomass. We found concordant areas of high suitability irrespective of the 72 scenario, suggesting that such areas are the most favorable to explore for future 73 reintroductions. The largest suitable areas were found both in the US and Mexico, 74 particularly the higher elevation areas of east central Arizona and west central New Mexico 75 in the Mexican Wolf Experimental Populations Area Management (MWEPA) in the US, and 76 in northern Chihuahua-Sonora and Durango in the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico. Our 77 results suggest that there is still sufficient suitable habitat for the Mexican wolf both in the 78 US and Mexico, but specific sites for reintroductions in Mexico and estimations of the 79 potential number of wolves need to consider reliable field data of prey density, cattle density, 80 land tenure, natural protected areas, safety to the field team, and acceptability of wolves by 81 local people. 82 iii Final Report - Mexican Wolf Habitat Suitability Analysis April 2017 83 Acknowledgements 84 We deeply thank all the people involved in the development of this study. The 85 Arizona Game and Fish Department provided the financial support for the study, we 86 thank particularly to Jim Heffelfinger, Francisco “Paco” Abarca and Jim deVos for all 87 their help and support, also their knowledge and intellectual contribution during the 88 course of this study. Edward Davis and Jeff Dolphin from the AZGFD generously 89 took part of their time to provide data of the free-ranging wolves in the US wild 90 population that was used in the land cover use/availability analysis. Stewart Liley 91 from the New Mexico Fish and Game Department provided important data for the 92 ungulate modeling. Jim Heffelfinger, Mike Phillips, Adrian Wydeven, and Jeff Dolphin 93 provided a thorough review and valuable comments to a previous version of this 94 report. Lizardo Cruz and Roberto Wolf have always enriched our discussions and 95 knowledge on the ecology of the Mexican wolf. Finally, we thank all the experts who 96 attended the Wolf Recovery Workshops for their discussions and ideas that greatly 97 improved this analysis: Francisco Abarca, Sherry Barrett, José Bernal, Kevin 98 Bunnell, Martin Bushman, Florentino Chillopa, Ismael Cruz, Lizardo Cruz, Matt 99 Clement, Mónica de la Fuente, Jim deVos, Maggie Dwire, Sara Eno, Rich 100 Fredrickson, Jim Heffelfinger, Kim Hersey, Randy Larsen, Stewart Liley, Rurik List, 101 Craig McLaughlin, Tracy Melbihess, Phil Miller, Eric Odell, Mike Phillips, Eric 102 Rominger, Matthias Sayer, Peter Siminski, Doug Smith, Ernest W Taylor, John 103 Vucetich, Seth Willey, Roberto A. Wolf, and Adrian Wydeven. 104 iv Final Report - Mexican Wolf Habitat Suitability Analysis April 2017 105 Introduction 106 The Mexican wolf, Canis lupus baileyi, is currently one of the five recognized 107 subspecies of gray wolf (Canis lupus) in North America and has been described as 108 the smallest of all gray wolf subspecies in this continent. This subspecies lived in the 109 arid areas and temperate forests of southwestern US and northern and central 110 Mexico, in many different habitats at altitudes higher than 1300 meters above sea 111 level (msl), including areas of chaparral, desert, grasslands, forests and temperate 112 uplands (Gish 1977), but preferring those habitats with high ungulate biomass 113 (McBride 1980). 114 The history of the extermination of the Mexican gray wolf is inextricably linked 115 to the conquest of the West by the Euroamerican settlers. In the United States, the 116 expansion to the West started in 1804 with the Lewis & Clark expedition (Lavender 117 1998) and continued throughout the century. Followed by colonization, an ecological 118 catastrophe commenced and reached its climax with the railway construction, 119 between 1863 and 1869. With the railroad, the influx of people and settlements 120 increased all along those routes, and so did the need for goods and supplies. Along 121 with the increase in cattle ranching and settlement (Brown 1983), a depletion of wild 122 animal populations took place, in which the bison (Bison bison), white-tailed deer 123 (Odocoileus virginianus), mule deer (O. hemionus), and pronghorn (Antilocapra 124 americana) experienced an exceptional population decline. These species were 125 hunted for food, leather and fur. Some historians suggest that the amount of 126 carcasses left in this period probably benefited the local predators (coyotes, bears, 127 wolves) due to the increase of food in the form of carrion. As the abundance of wild 128 prey decreased, the increasing human population demanded more food, thus cattle 129 raising expanded and gradually replaced wild herds of bison and other ungulates 130 that comprised the natural prey of wolves, including the elk (Cervus elaphus), white- 131 tailed deer and mule deer (Brown 1983). After the short-term availability of meat as 132 carrion for predators in the region, wolf populations may have been elevated and 1 Final Report - Mexican Wolf Habitat Suitability Analysis April 2017 133 cattle predation increased, triggering the onset of human-predator intense 134 competition. 135 During the first half of the 20th century, several environmental and political 136 events happened that triggered direct actions against predators, particularly towards 137 the wolf. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a series of droughts (1880-1902) 138 ended with one of the harshest winters recorded (NOAA 2016). Thousands of cattle 139 were lost and hundreds of villages abandoned; surviving abandoned cattle became 140 feral. Cattle became part of a new source of food for opportunistic 141 predators/scavengers, like the wolf. In 1917, under the pressure from livestock 142 associations in different states incurring the loss of cattle, predator extermination 143 became a central goal and a government branch, the Predator and Rodent Control 144 (PARC), was created to control harmful species; therefore, persecution and 145 extermination of predators took on renewed force and trappers were hired across 146 the United States for a substantial pay, driving the gray wolf to near extinction.
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