Ranchers Protest Wolf Return
	From the March 2000

By Fritz Thompson Journal Staff Writer
    GLENWOOD -- Some 450 residents of southwestern New Mexico and eastern Arizona, many of them cattle ranchers in boots and hats, rallied here Saturday to protest the reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves into their midst.
    Sam Luce, a physician who ranches and doctors on the Blue River in Arizona, came to tell people about one of his best friends -- and how that friend was killed by a wolf.

JIM THOMPSON/JOURNAL TAKING A STAND: Robert P. Anderson of Silver City, one of hundreds of people attending a rally Saturday in Glenwood, N.M., shows where he stands.

    Luce said he still mourns the loss of his cowdog, Pepe. He said she was doing her job and protecting a couple of his cows when she was killed by a marauding, transplanted wolf.
    Pepe had fended off plenty of coyotes over the years, Luce said, but she had never seen wolf. Pepe, black and white and rangy, didn't stand a chance, Luce said.
    "Pepe was a good friend and heck of a good camp dog," Luce said. "He kept the coyotes off my cattle for nine years."
    "The government people said, 'Oh, well, it's just a dog','' Luce said.
    Judy Cummings, a Catron County rancher who has lost a cow and bull to wolves in the last several months, said, "I just wanted to have a nice peaceful life. But because of what they have forced on us, it didn't turn out that way. Somehow, things have gone awry in this country because the government is stepping all over us."
    The reports of Luce and Cummings were among more than a dozen stories told to the crowd in a sunlit Catron County park, where people sat on metal folding chairs and picnic benches. But it was a remarkably sedate gathering, given the much-documented anger underlying rancher and resident sentiments in this part of the state about bringing back wolves.
    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began releasing Mexican gray wolves into southeastern Arizona in 1998 as part of a federal effort to reintroduce the endangered species. Some have drifted into southwestern New Mexico.
    The Fish and Wildlife Service has scheduled two public hearings this week, in Reserve on Wednesday and Silver City on Thursday, on its plan to move wolves into the Gila Wilderness on the New Mexico side of the border.
    The rally here was sponsored by the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association. People attending clearly perceived themselves as put upon, and they said no one has bothered to take the measure of their alarm.
    At one point, early on, there was a call for a show of hands by all those who could remember being warned about the wolves before the animals were turned loose and drifted into people's back yards. Not a hand was raised.
    If there was a central message at the meeting Saturday, it came from rural mothers and grandmothers, who arose one after another to voice fear that the wolves -- emboldened by temporary captivity and already held guilty in some cow deaths in New Mexico and Arizona -- might someday attack their children.
    "Are we willing to take the same chance with our children as the ranchers are being asked to take with their cattle?" asked Jennifer Faust, a mother of three who lives in the Catron County settlement of Alma, in the heart of wolf-reintroduction country.
    "I have two good reasons for not wanting the wolves here," said Joyce Laney of Luna. "Both of them call me, 'Mom'.''
    Georgia Klumker, who lives a quarter of a mile east of Alma, said she has seen a wolf all too close.
    Klumker, 81, watched a wolf come onto her property and snatch one of her cats. Not long after, she said, the wolf sat on a nearby hill and howled.
    She said she was sorry about the cat, but now she is mostly worried about her grandchildren and great granchildren, who like to play outside when they come to her home.
    "They were trying to tell us it was coyotes or dogs," Klumker said of the Fish and Wildlife agents who came to identify the animal who took her cat.
    Seven more of her cats have disappeared and Klumker said she doesn't think coyotes are responsible. "I know what a coyote looks like," she said. "I've lived all my life on a ranch, and I saw my first coyote when I was 3. I've seen a lot since then. The one I saw was no coyote."
    There were repeated warnings during the meeting that ranchers have not been forceful enough in advocating a stop to the wolf re-introduction.
    The Cattle Growers Association supplied a "No Wolves" bumper sticker and a questionnaire seeking opinions on the danger, the wisdom, the cost and the benefits of wolf reintroduction.
    Jake Blake, a legislator from eastern Arizona, called on the game departments of New Mexico and Arizona to face down the Fish and Wildlife Service. He predicted dire consequences if they don't.
    "About a year ago, the cattlemen in Arizona had a meeting in Arizona and one of these environmentalists came and told us that the wolves wouldn't be the end of it."
    After they get the wolves established, "They're going to work on bringing in grizzly bears and jaguars," he said.
    "Does that scare you a little bit?" Blake asked.

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