And now:Sonja Keohane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
I hate to sound "anti-rancher" but haven't heard anything that
ranchers are "for" if it's an animal other than a cow. They don't like
wolves and they don't like bison.
<http://www.abqjournal.com/news/3news12-18.htm>
Friday, December 18, 1998
Ranchers Again Attempt To Stop Wolf Program
Coalition Files Motion Against Reintroduction
By Mike Taugher
Journal Staff Writer
A coalition of New Mexico rancher organizations filed new court papers this
week to halt the reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves to the mountains of the
Southwest.
The coalition, led by the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, argues that
the wolves are mixed breeds, with the genes of dogs or coyotes. The association
also argues that wolves already exist in the wild in the Southwest.
Scientists dispute both assertions. No hearing has been set on the ranchers'
request for a preliminary injunction in an ongoing lawsuit against the U.S.
Fish
and Wildlife Service's wolf reintroduction program in the Apache-Sitgreaves
National Forest along the New Mexico-Arizona border.
Until wolves were released earlier this year, the extremely rare subspecies of
gray wolf was living only in captivity, scientists say. They base that
belief on the
fact that it has been decades since the last confirmed siting of a wolf in
the wild.
Peter Siminiski, who keeps track of the wolves' genetics at the Arizona-Sonora
Desert Museum in Tucson, has told the Journal there is nothing to indicate
there
are dog or coyote genes in the Mexican wolves -- and that they are, in fact,
wolves.
But Caren Cowan, executive secretary of the New Mexico Cattle Growers,
said Thursday that her group has obtained statements from people who claim to
have seen wolves in the wild. And, Cowan said, her group plans to get a
statement from Roy McBride, the Texas wolf trapper who caught three of the last
wolves left in the wild nearly 30 years ago in Mexico. McBride is expected
to say
those wolves -- forebears of the wolves now being reintroduced along the New
Mexico-Arizona border -- were hybrids, Cowan said.
"We don't want them to turn out any more wolves," said Cowan, whose
Albuquerque offices were recently tagged with pro-wolf graffiti. Someone
spray-painted "N.M. needs wolves" and "wolves" in red on the offices' facade.
On Monday, the rancher organizations filed court papers asking U.S. District
Judge Howard C. Bratton in Las Cruces to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service from releasing more wolves.
With four wolves now in the mountains, the agency plans to release 10 to 15
wolves next year, according to agency spokesman Tom Bauer.
Bratton recently allowed environmental groups to intervene in the lawsuit by
the ranchers.
Kieran Suckling, director of the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity in
Tucson, said he was confident the ranch organizations would lose.
"Hopefully, their members will start asking hard questions about why are these
groups paying lawyers to make ridiculous arguments," he said.
----end of article----
