ABQjournal: Wolf Supporters Speak Out By Tania Soussan, Journal Staff Writer
Wolves have a place in the wild, and ranchers must find ways to live with them, supporters of the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program said at a public meeting Saturday in Albuquerque.
“If you’re going to graze on public lands, you’re going to do it at your own risk,” said Oscar Simpson, New Mexico Wildlife Federation president.
He and Dave Foreman, an Albuquerque resident and director of The Rewilding Institute, said the government should buy out the grazing leases of ranchers who don’t want to continue running livestock on public lands where there are wolves.
“This comes down to a philosophical debate that’s not resolvable between those of us who love the wolf and those who hate the wolf,” Foreman said.
The tone of the meeting was far different from that in Reserve on Wednesday night when dozens of ranchers blasted the wolf reintroduction program. On Saturday, many in the audience were sporting wolf T-shirts and “More Wolves, Less Politics” buttons.
About 60 people turned out for the 21/2-hour meeting, the last of four held around New Mexico last week to discuss proposed new rules and a recent review of the wolf reintroduction effort.
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alibi . june 30 – july 6, 2005
The Joys of Wolf Music
Hearings provide great free entertainment
By Jim Scarantino
Then there’s the “true fact” that wolves kill the high number of cattle that ranchers claim at these hearings.
Defenders of Wildlife has long had a program that compensates ranchers at generous rates for any cattle lost to “depredation,” meaning wolves mixed a little hamburger into their diet of deer, elk and rabbits. It’s easy money, with one catch: The cow must actually have been killed by a wolf. Losing a cow in a million acres of wilderness to a mountain lion, poacher, broken leg, disease, starvation or dehydration doesn’t count. That little snag explains why the stories about steak-loving wolves are always impressive at the hearings, where excitement counts more than truth.
Though ranchers have set the anti-wolf agenda for Catron County and other rural areas, ranching makes only a small, perhaps even an insignificant, contribution to New Mexico’s overall economic picture. Most of the jobs in Catron County, like the rest of the state, are in the growing service sector. The county’s greatest employer is government–schools and highway workers, and the feds at the Forest Service and National Park Service.
You won’t find a beef packing plant in Catron County, but you can find enterprises producing New Age health and beauty products and increasingly more artists and retirees. You can also find new bed and breakfasts, outfitters and restaurants catering to the thousands of visitors coming to Catron County to enjoy the beauty of the federally protected Gila Wilderness. Some of those people actually come looking for–gasp–wolves.
There will probably be more wolf hearings in the future. With no disrespect to the New Mexico Legislature, it’s some of the best free entertainment in New Mexico.
So if you hanker for tall tales, manly lingo and a taste of disappearing cowboy culture, check one out. Be sure to press your jeans and wear a cowboy hat. But best leave that UNM Lobos T-shirt at home. And then sneak out at night in hopes of something far better: the hair-raising wolf music that even ranchers will admit is worth hearing at least once in a lifetime.
Merri and I had that experience of a lifetime in central Idaho on the edge of the Frank Church Wilderness. Awesome. (But I love the more common collective cacophony of coyotes, too.)
Just this week, a friend wrote to say she was lucky enough to hear the wolves in the San Mateos before they were captured. The wolves want to be there.
Let freedom howl. mjh