ABQjournal: Wolves Aren’t So Big Or Bad By Tania Soussan, Journal Staff Writer
In the past 100 years, there have been fewer than 30 documented attacks by wild wolves on humans in North America. Only two people died? Inuits in Alaska who contracted rabies from wolf bites in the 1940s, according to reports compiled by scientists.
By comparison, domestic dogs bite 1 million people and kill 16 to 18 people every year in the United States.
Other wild animals pose a greater danger than wolves. There are an estimated 25 black bear attacks a year in North America, with one fatal attack every three years. Between 1981 and 2000, there were 43 attacks by mountain lions, eight of them fatal. Venomous snakes bite 8,000 Americans a year.
Those numbers come from “The fear of wolves: A review of wolf attacks on humans,” a 2002 scientific report published by the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe, a network of groups and experts working toward wild carnivore populations that coexist with people.
“It is now widely accepted by biologists that healthy, wild wolves present little threat to people,” Mark McNay wrote in his 2002 report, “A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and Canada.” …
There are approximately 50 wild wolves in southwest New Mexico and southeast Arizona as part of a government reintroduction program to restore the endangered Mexican gray wolf.
Minnesota has 3,000 wild wolves, half of them in areas where people live but has had only two wolf attacks in memory or documented, said L. David Mech, a noted wolf biologist and founder of the International Wolf Center in Minnesota.
Neither of those people was injured, and there were extenuating circumstances in each case? in one, a hunter was wearing a jacket covered in buck scent in 1982 and in the other, a wolf jumped at a dog that was held in a logger’s arms in 1970. …
In the seven years since they were released in the Southwest, no Mexican gray wolves have attacked people, Morgart added.
“It’s just a matter of time,” said Fred Galley, an Albuquerque resident who owns the Rainy Mesa Ranch east of Reserve. …
Craig Miller of Defenders of Wildlife, which compensates ranchers for losses and works with them to minimize wolf-livestock conflicts, said the recent animosity is inhibiting the potential for cooperation.
“There is a coordinated exaggeration to try to capture the political attention because some of the cowboys think they’ll be able to kill the program,” Miller added.
If that’s the case, it’s working. Gov. Bill Richardson has appointed a task force to look into several concerns rural residents have about wolves, including public safety. It will meet for the first time Wednesday in Reserve. …
“The danger has to be put in perspective,” added Michael Robinson, a resident of Pinos Altos and representative of the Center for Biological Diversity. “There’s no reason to be more paranoid about wolves than any other wild animals.”
The abqjournal published 12 letters today, 6 for and 6 against wolves. I hope you noted that 4 of the 6 opposed came from outside New Mexico, while all 6 “pro” came from inside the state. mjh
ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
Why is it that public land ranchers — who only exist because of the welfare prices we charge them to use our lands — don’t have to get insurance like any other business to cover such losses? Should it really be up to the taxpayers to make our public lands safe for their profits? They are even being paid for their losses, but that is not enough. They want every last wolf dead and at our expense. Shame on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for using public money to kill public wildlife for them.
MICHAEL SAUBER
Silver City
THERE ARE RANCHERS with a predilection for exaggeration, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. One recently remarked she thought there could be as many as 100 wolves in the wild. That defies common sense considering the number of alpha wolves that have been killed and the number of litters that did not survive due to stressed-out parents.
Others have accused wolves of “stalking.” There is no evidence of malicious intent on the part of the wolves, like domestic canines they are intelligent and curious.
Cattle were designed for grasslands not for navigating rocky, mountainous environs. At least 96 percent of deaths are due to natural causes, not predators. Cattle die of inclement weather, lightning strikes, birthing complications, falls and toxic plants.
It is the wolves that are disadvantaged when ranchers leave carcasses to bait them so they can then cry “wolf!” It is difficult to remain tolerant and respectful of an industry that has been so coddled, that has enjoyed the privilege of grazing non-native animals on public land, often to its detriment. …
SHARON MORGAN
Silver City
The last wolves in this area were killed in the 1880s. When the wolf comes again, it will hit the cattlemen. The wolf is simply another tool used by the eco-preservationists to drive people off their land, into the arms of the Nature Conservancy and other willing buyers actively courting the willing sellers. …
If wolf supporters and others of their philosophical bent have their way, private property will be an anachronism and we will all be living on the globalist eco-plantation. Everything we had or have in America has been or is being “outsourced” to Red China including the philosophy of those who rule.
L.M. SCHWARTZ
McDowell, Va.
The wolf is the species of choice to foster the expansion of wilderness and the Wildlands Project which is counter-productive to a healthy America that must clothe and feed itself as well as many other counties of the world.
The project is dependent on programs? such as the Mexican wolf reintroduction? that operate under the radar screen from the American public. This agenda is further shielded by the liberal media. It’s time to expose the stupidity of these wasteful and extreme environmentalist dreams and put them to rest.
JIM ARBOGAST
Anaheim, Calif.