Wolf-Plan Foes Blame Outsiders
	From the March 2000

By Rene Romo Journal Southern Bureau
    RESERVE -- Environmentalists and ranchers engaged in an emotional tug-of-war Wednesday night over where to relocate more wolves.
    A standing-room-only crowd at a public hearing here listened and reacted to a federal plan to relocate endangered Mexican gray wolves deep in the Gila National Forest in southwest New Mexico.
    A second public hearing Thursday night drew more than 400 people to the fine arts building on the Western New Mexico University campus in Silver City. Many of the participants brought placards to that meeting, which began at 7 p.m.
    Much of the opposition Wednesday night in the Reserve community center boiled down to locals and rancher supporters saying they resented outsider environmentalists, especially from the state's big cities, pressuring the government to release wolves in what they consider their rural back yard.
    "We would ask you not to put those wolves in our back yard. Put them in Albuquerque's back yard," said Pima, Ariz., resident George Lemen to shouts of approval. "Put them where people want them. We do not want them here."
    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says federal rules allow the agency to transplant previously released wolves into the Gila, which is part of a "wolf recovery area" that includes the adjacent Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in southeast Arizona.
    In the initial stages of the recovery effort, federal biologists in 1998 were only allowed to release captive wolves into the Arizona portion of the habitat, though it was understood that wolves could migrate into New Mexico.
    But new plans to relocate several packs of wolves into four potential sites in the Gila have sparked bitter opposition from ranchers, who said they feared attacks on humans, losses of livestock and damage to the hunting industry.
    A crowd of about 250 people attended the hearing Wednesday night in front of Fish and Wildlife Service representatives in the tiny community of Reserve in Catron County.
    "We may not have been to a great school of minds and been educated way beyond our intelligence, but we know what's going on," said Reserve gun shop owner Jess Carey, who, like other plan opponents, said he feared wolf attacks on people.
    The Mexican wolves, Carey asserted, have lost their fear of humans because they have been fed by biologists in captivity prior to release.
    "What value does the government place on our children?" Carey asked.
    Glenwood resident Hugh McKeen said federal officials were just "catering to a bunch of groups that hate ranchers. That's what these environmentalists are -- they're a hate group."
    But environmentalists, such as Garrick Delzell of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, said the Gila was the ideal place to relocate some wolves to establish viable packs.
    The wilderness area has about 700,000 acres of cattle-free, roadless wilderness, ample prey populations of elk and minimal human activity, Delzell said.
    Albuquerque resident Brad Lagorio called the relocation plan a "no-brainer."
    "This is clearly the place to put them," Lagorio said.
    Fish and Wildlife has said the relocation plan will benefit people and wolves by limiting conflicts with people and livestock, avoiding wolf losses and aiding the dispersal of wolves into suitable locations deep in the Gila while helping the wolves avoid contact with roads and people along the way.
    Of the 13 wolves released in three family groups in 1998, five were shot. Of 22 wolves released in 1999, one was killed by a car. Eight wolves remain in the wild after several were recaptured, prompted in some cases by wolves preying on livestock.
    Wolves have been responsible for eight confirmed livestock kills through January.
    Ecologist Bruce Palmer of the Mexican wolf recovery program said 11 wolves are considered prime candidates for relocation. Palmer said that if no additional issues raised during public hearings need to be addressed by Fish and Wildlife, the wolves will be released.
    U.S. Rep. Joe Skeen, R-N.M., opposes the wolf relocation plan and has called for a more extensive environmental study on the proposal, a move the Fish and Wildlife Service to date has said is unnecessary.
    Grant County resident John Davis said wolf opponents refuse to accept a balanced approach to the issue, since ranching interests led to the virtual extermination of the Mexican gray wolf in New Mexico by the 1970s.
    "These guys didn't complain at all when the federal Office of Animal Damage Control came in and used our tax dollars to kill all the wolves. Now they are complaining about government interference," Davis said. "It's a bunch of cow cookies, folks."

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