Officials Weigh Next Steps In Wolf Program
	Compliments of December 1999

By JANIS MARSTON

For The Daily Press

The wolf pack that killed a Glenwood rancher's pregnant cow last weekend is getting a reputation for preferring domestic cattle to wildlife. One wolf-management specialist says it needs to be moved.

Alan Armistead of Eagar, Ariz., is a 27-year veteran of Wildlife Services, the federal program once called Animal Damage Control. In a telephone interview Wednesday, the wildlife biologist agreed with area ranchers that this pack has become a problem and needs to be moved farther from domestic cattle.

"We don't need those kind of wolves out there," Armistead said of the problem wolves. "It's not good for the livestock. It's not good for the wolves."

Known as the Gavilan Pack, the eight Mexican gray wolves in it were moved farther north in the Apache National Forest this fall after they killed three cows near Clifton, Ariz., in August and September. The cattle were found dead in an area the U.S. Forest Service reportedly had told the rancher not to use for grazing.

Now, the pack, made up of two adults, a yearling and five pups, has chalked up another cattle kill, this time in the Gila National Forest about 15 miles northwest of Glenwood near the Arizona border. A pregnant cow owned by rancher Bud Collins was killed Sunday afternoon near the border.

"They have been in trouble before," Armistead said of the Gavilan Pack. "We've been trying to get them off of cattle, but apparently it hasn't worked."

He will wait for orders from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program on the next step for managing these wolves. A Fish and Wildlife Service representative said members of the recovery program are expected to meet Monday on this issue.

Two options are available right now, said Tom Bauer, assistant regional director: moving the wolves again or returning them to captivity.

Recovery program biologists want to relocate the pack to the Gila National Forest in February, but have met opposition from ranch organizations and Catron County commissioners.

It is Armistead's job to investigate predations of any kind. Sometimes he determines a lion killed a wolf; sometimes he rules on whether a wolf killed a cow. He works with people representing both sides of the issue of returning wolves to the Southwest.

"You've got the environmentalists who want wolves out there at any cost and you've got the cattlemen who don't want them, period. We need to find a middle ground," he said, but admitted that's a tough assignment.

"We also need to find wolves that can live on their own without killing cattle," he said, noting that of the 20 wolves still remaining in the wilds, there are packs hunting wild prey on their own and leaving cattle alone.

Commenting on remarks made by the hunter who came upon the Gavilan Pack at the line camp outside of Glenwood, Armistead said people often have a misconception on how wolves should behave. "They expect wolves to react to people like coyotes do, and run, but that's not the way wolves are."

Wolves are self-confident and curious, Armistead said. "They have no natural fear of people, or anything else." Wolves raised in captivity don't react completely the way wild ones would, he said, but the pups born in the wild should.

The Gila Wilderness would be ideal habitat for wolves, he said, with its "vast expanses and peripheral ranching on its fringes." But, he doesn't expect wolves getting there anytime soon.

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