Perhaps it is time to bring in professional mediators or negotiators to help resolve this situation. It is untenable for us to rage at each other while animals die — we need to get over this divide and there are people who help resolve worse situations. We need help and we’re not going to get it until we have the sense to say so. mjh

ABQjournal: Divide Widening Over Gray Wolf Program By Rene Romo, Journal Southern Bureau

LAS CRUCES— State Game Commission members on Wednesday got an earful of the sharp differences between supporters and opponents of the endangered Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program.
Many views expressed during a two-hour listening session were not new. But nine years into the controversial program, which spans national forests in southwest New Mexico and southeast Arizona, feelings on both sides appear to be growing in intensity.
Christopher Todd Jones, the new deputy regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the divide in public opinion is daunting.
“There are clearly legitimate concerns people have regarding (livestock and pet) depredation and life safety concerns,” he said. “The answer is somewhere in the middle. I feel we are losing the ability to have constructive dialogue.” …

But two teenagers from Silver City who frequently hike in the Gila area said they don’t fear wolves. “The uniqueness of the Gila is it is still wild,” said 17-year-old Cody Goss of Silver City.

“This is something that cannot be replaced,” Goss said. “And the Mexican gray wolf is part of that wildness.”