I was out of town when this article appeared on 6/12. It has some very important FACTS about the reintroduction of wolves to the southwest. mjh

ABQjournal: Ranchers, Environmentalists Agree It’s Time for a Change for Grey Wolf By Tania Soussan, Journal Staff Writer

State and federal biologists who worked on the five-year review said wolves should be allowed to set up territories outside the current program boundaries, something they can’t do today.

As part of an earlier program review in 2001, an independent team of scientists also recommended scrapping the boundary rule. It also recommended that ranchers take some responsibility for cattle carcasses that can attract wolves, and that wolves be released directly into the Gila Wilderness.

Current rules allow only wolves that have been released in Arizona and then been recaptured to be let loose in New Mexico.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has not moved forward on any of the significant changes recommended by the scientists, but it has proposed some restrictions on wolf releases at the request of ranchers. …

Ranchers say slowing down releases would give the program time to get a better handle on the number of wolves in the wild.

Ranchers believe there are 100 or more wolves in the wild, while the program estimates the population at 51-56, plus an unknown number of pups born this spring. …

The Industrial Economics study for the first time compiles numbers on livestock depredations from the government and from the ranchers. The researchers concluded that anywhere from 37 to 245 cattle, sheep, horses and dogs were killed by wolves in New Mexico and Arizona from 1998 to 2004.

Based on those numbers, the economic impact to ranchers was $38,650 to $206,290, including the market value of the animals killed, the costs of injuries from wolf attacks and the value of the 10 hours or so it takes to prepare each claim for compensation, according to the report.

Pay close attention to the figures in the previous two paragraphs. Over a period of 7 years, *all* animals killed by wolves average in a range from just over 5 animals / $5,500 per year to 35 animals / $29,470 per year (somewhere between one animal every other month to 3 per month — these are *all* animals, not just cattle). Below, you will note that (1) up to 34,800 cows have grazed in that time and (2) Defenders of Wildlife has paid ranchers $33,000 in that same period.

The FACTS show the ranchers are greatly misrepresenting the impact of the wolf. mjh

But the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, which pays the compensation for lost animals, said all ranchers must do is send in a report prepared by the government and sometimes make a call to report the death.

“They have to put an envelope in the mail,” said Craig Miller of Defenders of Wildlife in Tucson.

Defenders of Wildlife has paid Southwest ranchers more than $33,000 in compensation since 1998.

Even using the high estimate of losses provided by ranchers, wolves killed only about a quarter of 1 percent of the 34,800 cattle in the area in 2002? the year with the most depredations.

But Schneberger said there are a lot fewer than 34,800 cattle in the area now, so the percentage killed by wolves is larger.

An average of 4 percent of the cattle in the area died from causes other than slaughter in 1997, the year before the wolf program began, according to the report. …

Defenders of Wildlife helps ranchers pay for extra riders, fencing and other measures. …

The fund has helped pay for six projects this year. … Still, Miller said the fund is underused. …

The wolf program also has benefits, researchers say. There is a public “non-use value” or intrinsic value in preserving the Mexican wolf that is hard to measure, according to the socioeconomic study.

Federal and state government spending on the wolf program totals about $1.5 million a year, with a benefit of 31 jobs, according to the study. Although not all that money nor all the jobs are in the recovery area itself, there is spending and staff based among the wolves.

The chance to see wolves has attracted some tourists to the area, a trend that is expected to increase as the wolf population grows.

There also are ecological benefits, as demonstrated by wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park. Wolves there reduced elk populations that had been overgrazing riparian vegetation. That change, in turn, benefited beavers, bears, foxes and birds.

No similar ecological research has been done in the Southwest, but Robinson said it’s reasonable to assume wolves have started “sharpening the wits of prey species.”

ABQjournal: Mexican Gray’s Presence in Wild Challenged By Tania Soussan, Journal Staff Writer

Mexican gray wolf reintroduction in the Southwest is required by the federal Endangered Species Act.

There are close to 300 of the endangered wolves at 47 captive facilities in the United States and Mexico. But the only Mexican gray wolves in the wild in the United States are part of the Southwestern reintroduction effort. [mjh: about 55 in the wild]

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.

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