ABQjournal NM: Public Input Sought on Wolf Rules, By Arthur H. Rotstein, The Associated Press

TUCSON— Federal wildlife officials hope the public will suggest ways to revamp and improve the troubled program to recover and reintroduce Mexican gray wolves along the Arizona-New Mexico border.
The program has been under fire from both environmentalists and ranchers.
Conservationists and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson are angered because of the number of wolves that federal agents have killed or removed after preying on cattle.
Many ranchers within the recovery area, particularly in New Mexico’s Catron County, have fiercely opposed the recovery effort since its inception in 1998, calling the program a nightmare that won’t go away.
“There are a lot of things that we could change about it to make it better, and we’d like to hear from people about what they think should be changed to make it better,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown.
Fish and Wildlife on Tuesday published in the Federal Register a notice of intent to take steps to potentially modify the rule that established the wolf program.
It will hold a dozen public meetings in November and December in Arizona and New Mexico and take public comments until the end of the year.
Afterward, the agency will draft a proposed amended rule, a draft environmental impact statement and a socio-economic assessment.
In a release, Benjamin Tuggle, the agency’s Southwest regional director, said the process “will provide an incredible opportunity for the public to collaborate in the future of wolf recovery in Arizona and New Mexico.”
A section of the Endangered Species Act allows “more flexibility to work with communities in managing experimental populations such as the Mexican wolf,” Tuggle said. “We have learned many lessons through the adaptive management process since establishing the program and recognize it is time for adjustments to be considered.”
In 1998, Fish and Wildlife introduced seven captive-bred endangered Mexican gray wolves into their historic range within the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area.
It encompasses 4.4 million acres of the Apache-Sitgreaves and Gila national forests in Arizona and New Mexico, plus the 1.6 million-acre White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona.
The intent was to have about 100 wild wolves living in the recovery area by last year. But the latest annual count found 59 wolves in Arizona and New Mexico, “and it waxes and wanes” through the year, Slown said.
She said about 10 animals have died, been killed or removed so far this year, with about an equal number of pups born.
“Everything is on the table,” Slown said. “We really want for people to come with an open mind and tell us. We will take their input and put it into a proposal.”
She said the process could take two to three years to change the rule.
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/584541nm08-08-07.htm
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ABQjournal Opinion: Forget the Hysteria, Get Real on Wolves, By Gene Tatum, President, Albuquerque Wildlife Federation

Are you a lobo fan?
It’s hard to travel anywhere in New Mexico without seeing the University of New Mexico’s mascot— the lobo. Plastered on bumper stickers, store windows, hats and T-shirts, the image of a wolf paw or snarling “Louie Lobo” reminds everyone we’re proud of our unique state.
Since 1920 the lobo has been UNM’s official mascot. That was about the time our real-life lobo, also called the Mexican wolf, was purposely exterminated from the United States through a federal poisoning and trapping operation.
But in 1998 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sought to right this wrong-headed extermination by reintroducing 11 endangered lobos into the remote border region between southern New Mexico and Arizona.
It was hoped these 11 lobos would grow into a population of 100 by the end of 2006, after which the federal lobo restoration program would no longer be necessary. These animals would represent the world’s only known lobo population.
But today, nearly a decade later, only six mating pairs of endangered lobos live in the wild, and the program is plagued by political conflicts between the cattle industry and federal, state and county agencies.
To make matters even worse, someone in southern New Mexico has been illegally killing lobos. In fact, so far the number of illegally poached lobos is greater than those that have died from natural causes, vehicle accidents and unknown causes combined.
As an Albuquerque-based volunteer organization that works to improve wildlife habitat throughout New Mexico, the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation, is seriously concerned about the lack of progress in the lobo restoration program.
It is clear that unless this situation is turned around, New Mexico will be facing a second extinction of the lobo. This would be incredibly shameful.
As such, the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation proposes:
# An honest discussion about the economics of lobo recovery take place. To date the number of cattle killed by lobos represents a fraction of all cattle in New Mexico and Arizona, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Given that ranchers who can establish that wolves took their livestock are compensated for the full market value of their animals, the New Mexico livestock industry should document why this arrangement is unsatisfactory.

# An honest discussion about the threats lobos pose to people. There has never been a documented case of a wolf killing a human being in U.S. history. Yet in a recent session of U.S. Congress, Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., told colleagues that “blood will be on your hands” if they opposed his elimination of funding for lobo restoration. Furthermore, some residents of Catron County have claimed they suffer from “post-traumatic stress disorder” after seeing lobos. Is there any hard data backing up either of these claims?

# The benefits of lobos also be weighed. Lobos help prevent elk and other big game from overgrazing their habitat, which causes harm to water, other wildlife and cattle. Wolf-related tourism can also be an economic boon, as the appearance of wolves in Yellowstone National Park has generated $70 million for its surrounding communities.
Not surprisingly, our beautiful state was the birthplace for the pioneering conservation ideals of Aldo Leopold, who started his career in the early 1900s down in the Gila country. In fact, he helped found the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation in 1914.
Some of Leopold’s ideals were shaped by his experiences with lobos, as he writes in his story “Thinking Like a Mountain,” in which he describes his misguided shooting of a lobo:
“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes— something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”
We thank Gov. Bill Richardson for his recent actions supporting lobo recovery, and now call upon our other New Mexico representatives, wildlife agencies, and fellow citizens to push hysteria aside, use common sense, and keep the “fierce green fire” of lobos in our state.
http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/guest_columns/584440opinion08-08-07.htm
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Center for Biological Diversity – Press Release

Due to politically driven limits on the areas where wolves can freely roam, poor management of livestock on public lands, and overly liberal recapture and kill rules, the wild Mexican wolf population is 55 or fewer today — well short of the recovery program goal of 102 wolves by 2006. Federal agents have killed or permanently removed 53 wolves from the program since 1998. Government killing of wolves began in 2003, reached a peak of five wolves in 2006, and is already at three wolves in 2007.

Potential new rules identified by the Fish and Wildlife Service include 1) allowing wolves to roam outside the designated recovery area (also known as the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area), 2) allowing direct reintroduction of wolves into New Mexico, 3) changing the current definition of “problem” and “nuisance’ wolves’ to exclude those which scavenge on dead cattle, and 4) reviewing other recovery actions requested by the Center for Biological Diversity in a 2004 legal petition. …

On June 10th, 2007, almost 600 attendees of the annual meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists passed a resolution calling on the Fish and Wildlife Service “to suspend all predator control directed at Mexican gray wolves at least until the interim 100-wolf goal of the current reintroduction program has been achieved … to protect wolves from the consequences of scavenging on livestock carcasses, ensure the recovery and sustainability of populations of Mexican gray wolves, and allow wolves to roam freely throughout the Southwest.”

On June 28, 2007, nine scientists, including retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator David Parsons, wrote a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service complaining that the recovery program has missed its goal of 102 wolves by nearly 50 percent. They blamed the failure on the high level of killing and removal by federal agents: “For the past four years, growth of the wolf population has been limited by management-related killing or permanent removal of wolves.”
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/mexican-wolves-08-07-2007.html
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[from nmwild.org]

Wolf Public Meeting August 13, 2007
PLEASE COME TO CONGRESSMAN STEVE PEARCE’S “LISTENING SESSION” IN SILVER CITY

YOUR VOICE IS NEEDED TO SUPPORT THE MEXICAN WOLF RECOVERY EFFORTS

What: “Listening Session” on the Wolf Recovery Program
When: Monday, August 13th from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. (please arrive at 2:30 to ensure good seating)
Where: Grant County Council Chambers
1400 Highway 180
Silver City, NM 88061

Congressman Steve Pearce has had it out for Southwest wolves for years — aggressively campaigning against the recovery program and trying to manipulate his constituents and Congress with misinformation and sensationalism. Now he’s holding an in-district “listening session” on Southwest wolves next Monday in Silver City.

Tell him – and the Fish and Wildlife Service – that New Mexicans support wolf reintroduction.

Pearce expects his constituents to show up and tell the Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies what he wants them to hear: that New Mexicans hate wolves, that they’re afraid of them and that they want wolf recovery efforts to stop.

But when it comes to wolves, Pearce is dead wrong. All public polls in New Mexico and Arizona have shown that the majority of folks support wolf recovery. Attend Monday’s meeting and help set the record straight.

See it on a map.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&q=1400+Highway+180++Silver+City,+NM&ll=32.780492,-108.289962&spn=0.008118,0.014462&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1

Pearce recently introduced an amendment that would end the Southwest wolf program entirely, making the outrageous claim on the House floor that “the most provocative sound to a wolf is a crying baby or a laughing baby,” and warning that it’s just a matter of time until a wolf catches a child.

Thanks to the help of activists like you, Congress didn’t fall for these old myths and soundly defeated his anti-wolf amendment 258 to 172. But Pearce is back on the warpath with his latest political maneuver: to get New Mexicans to go on the record against wolf reintroduction.

Please, come out and attend Monday’s meeting to help counter the lies and to show the world that New Mexicans want wolves in our state.

http://ga1.org/nmwildaction/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=5840551

Catron County: Groups aim to overturn wolf law

The federal government has been reintroducing the wolves to the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area — 4.4 million acres of the Gila and Apache Sitgreaves national forests in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona plus Arizona’s 1.6 million-acre White Mountain Apache reservation, interspersed with private land and towns.

The program began March 29, 1998, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released 11 wolves that were bred in captivity.

The recovery area had 59 wolves as of January 2007 [mjh: That’s +48 wolves in 9 years.], and that number has fluctuated with wolf deaths and removals and the births of pups, said Elizabeth Slown, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman in Albuquerque.

The agency conducts one count of wild wolves annually.

By the end of June, only 26 wolves could be located [mjh: Is that -33 wolves in 6 months? Something doesn’t add up, but anyway you count it, this program is a miserable failure in large part because of local opposition.] through radio telemetry, the lawsuit said.
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/65651.html

ABQjournal NM: Bear Killed After Boy Bitten
The Associated Press

RATON— Game officers killed a small black bear believed to have bitten a 13-year-old boy camping at Sugarite Canyon State Park near Raton, a spokesman for the state Game and Fish Department said Tuesday.

The bear was killed with a shotgun blast about 4 p.m. Monday afternoon and its head was sent to the state laboratory in Albuquerque to be tested for rabies, Dan Williams said.

The boy, Matthew Ortiz from Raton, is undergoing rabies treatment as a precaution, Williams said. The teen was not seriously hurt.

State law requires rabies testing on any wild animal that bites or scratches a person and breaks the skin, Williams said.

He said the bear, which weighed about 100 pounds, was shot near the Soda Pocket Campground where the boy was bitten early Sunday.

“Judging from the size of the bear and the size of the tracks and other things at the scene like the tooth marks and their distance from the ground, they determined it was very, very, very likely it was the bear that bit the boy,” Williams said. [mjh: Is this the new standard for slaughter: very, very, very likely.]

The teen heard something brush against his tent about 2:20 a.m. Sunday and slapped the side, thinking a relative was playing a trick. He apparently slapped the bear, which bit his hand and ran away, state parks officials said.

They believe the bear was searching for food.”

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/577423nm07-11-07.htm

ABQjournal NM: Around New Mexico
Bear That Bit Boy Didn’t Have Rabies [mjh: oops!]

RATON— A small black bear believed to have bitten a 13-year-old boy camping at Sugarite Canyon State Park near Raton did not have rabies, a spokesman for the state Game and Fish Department said Wednesday.

The bear was killed with a shotgun blast Monday afternoon and its head was sent to the state laboratory in Albuquerque, where it was tested for rabies. The results were negative, Dan Williams said.

The boy, Matthew Ortiz from Raton, was not seriously hurt but underwent rabies treatment as a precaution.”

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/577659nm07-12-07.htm

The teen was more than 50% responsible for this: he provoked the bear. And the bear was brutally slaughtered with a SHOTGUN. Who are these wildlife killers? mjh

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.”

ABQjournal: Catron Commission Fires Shot at Wolf Protection By Michael J. Robinson, Center for Biological Diversity

The Catron County commission recently approved an ordinance authorizing a county contractor to kill endangered Mexican gray wolves, contrary to the federal Endangered Species Act and the 1998 regulations that delineate what is legal in the reintroduction program that began that year. The ordinance is the latest chapter in a century-long effort by the livestock industry to create private rights on America’s public lands. …

The Fish and Wildlife Service, which for decades poisoned and trapped wolves on behalf of the livestock industry, and is now charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act, similarly bends to the livestock industry. The agency authorizes trapping and shooting of endangered Mexican wolves today even as the population fails to meet initial thresholds for recovery. But Catron County’s ranchers want zero wolves. In 2005, at a now-defunct Governor’s Wolf Task Force meeting in Catron County, ranchers proffered a series of what they called “non-negotiable points,” including that all the wild wolves be rounded up and kept in a fenced enclosure. The ranchers also categorically rejected a New Mexico Department of Agriculture proposal that would have significantly increased their payments for wolf depredations while ending the current requirement that dead livestock be verified as wolf kills, or considered possible wolf kills, prior to payments. …

The refusal to compromise has been successful. …

The federal government has so far, since reintroduction began, shot 10 wild Mexican wolves, consigned 24 to life in captivity, killed 20 inadvertently incidental to capture, and released dozens of wolves it had captured— many of them traumatized and some of them injured— in areas far from their familiar home territories. Although the government originally projected 18 breeding pairs by the end of 2006, there are now only five breeding pairs left from last year.

Catron County’s threat to kill wolves on its own is an attempt to ratchet up the killing by either federal or private parties, or both. The goal is once again extermination, but it is also more ambitious than that. Livestock owners seek to ensure that they alone, and not the American public through their elected members of Congress, will determine what animals roam the public lands and how those lands are managed. So far, unfortunately, neither the Fish and Wildlife Service nor the Justice Department have indicated they will stand up for the wolves, the rule of law, and the American public.

ABQjournal: Payment Wanted For Wolf Damage

Grant County commissioners have approved a resolution requesting that the state and federal governments pay for livestock and pets killed by Mexican gray wolves, and compensate the county for lost hunting opportunities and emotional damage.

Meanwhile, The New Mexico Game Commission will conduct a two-hour “listening session” on the Mexican wolf reintroduction program today in Las Cruces.

The Grant County resolution, requested by the Grant County Area Cattle Growers and the Gila Fish and Gun Club, drew both support and opposition before the commission passed it last week.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began releasing the endangered wolves on the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1998 to re-establish the species in part of its historic range after the animals had been hunted to the brink of extinction in the early 1900s.

Supporters said that wolves preying on livestock are driving ranchers out of business and that ranchers weren’t being fairly compensated for wolf kills.

Opponents, however, complained that the cattle industry already is heavily subsidized. They also said ranchers weren’t doing their part by removing cattle carcasses to keep wolves from becoming accustomed to eating beef and by modifying practices during calving season to better protect their cows.

Last month, adjacent Catron County passed an ordinance that would allow a designated county officer to trap or remove Mexican gray wolves if federal authorities don’t act first. The ordinance conflicts with federal procedures, raising questions about its legality.