There is a fundamental rule of hunting, which is supposed to be followed by all responsible hunters, “never pull the trigger unless you are 100% sure of the target.” Unfortunately, many hunters will claim to have mistaken an animal for a different species of animal when they kill it “accidentally,” and those hunters almost never suffer any penalties or ramifications as a result of their actions. The Endangered Species Act is specific in it’s language, that once an animal is considered endangered, it is illegal in all respects to hunt and kill it. Unfortunately, the Department Of Justice systematically fails to enforce this law and rarely brings forth any criminal proceedings against hunters who “mistakenly” kill endangered species. Even though wolves are an endangered species in Utah, the system has failed once again to protect those under it’s protection, and “Echo” the world-famous Grand Canyon grey wolf, is now dead as a result of a careless hunter who claims he thought Echo was a coyote.
Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity stated recently that in Beaver UT, on the north end rim of the Grand Canyon, a female grey wolf was “mistakenly” shot and killed by a hunter. A radio collar fitted to the deceased animal will determine if it is Echo in the coming days, however speculation is overwhelming that this is in fact the famous wolf due to the fact that they are so rare in the area. Echo had become world known as she had traveled over 450 miles from her origin in the Rocky Mountains to the Grand Canyon, and had been named in a children’s contest spanning the globe earlier in the month.
“It’s heartbreaking that another far-wandering wolf has been cut down with a fatal gunshot,” said Robinson in the release. “This female wolf could have helped wolves naturally recover in remote regions of Utah and neighboring states. Federal authorities need to conduct a full investigation into this latest killing, which is part of a disturbing pattern. Wolves in Utah deserve real, on-the-ground protection. That means, first, keeping them on the endangered species list; second, spreading the word about their presence as an endangered species; third, prosecuting those who kill them; and finally, developing a science-based recovery plan so that instead of one or two lone and vulnerable wolves, Utah and the West will eventually boast hundreds more wolves to stave off extinction and help keep ecosystems in healthy balance.”
Wolf dispersing efforts have documented 56 instances in the last 30 years of wolves being dispersed from recovery habitats into areas that they once maintained a population within, in which the wolves have yet to gain targeted recovery numbers due to numbers being reduced by hunting. The most famous dispersing wolf, OR-7, traveled hundreds of miles from northeast Oregon to California and has started a family along the border of the two states, however the repopulation of the Grand Canyon spaces has yet to show any significant improvement as of the death of the presumed “Echo.”
Over-hunting of the wolves across nearly every area that was once considered as territory within the United States where wolves were considered indigenous over the course of the last 100 years has caused populations to be so significantly reduced that they needed to be considered as protected. Numbers within areas like the Grand Canyon where wolves were once significant have been reduced in some circumstances to zero, which is why the migration of “Echo” was so important. Now, due to the careless actions of a single person with a gun and a case of mistaken identity, that population is once again at zero. Tours of the Grand Canyon will once again have little hopes of seeing the area in the grandeur that it once had.