Residents Keeping Tabs On Wolves
	From the

By Lisa Parker
Sun-News

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had no new information Wednesday regarding the movements of three members of the Mule Pack of wolves, but the Cliff area was buzzing with information about their activities.

Tom Bauer, assistant supervisor for the Service's southern region, said Wednesday that no reports had come in from field personnel who are in the Cliff/Gila area attempting to locate the wolves.

Service spokeswoman Vicki Fox said Tuesday evening that the Service believes the wolves' southwest-trending movements may have changed direction, and they may be heading back toward the Wilderness. Bauer repeated that information Wednesday, but still had no details to offer.

Two of the wolves were sighted Tuesday morning about a mile north of Riverside. And according to Wayne Dickerson, who lives about a mile northwest of Cliff along Highway 180, the wolves were west of the highway near his home at sundown Tuesday. He heard the wolves howling Tuesday night, he said, and when three people called to talk about the wolves, he held out the phone so they could listen in. He characterized the sound as "like a coyote," but "deeper."

Had he ever heard a wolf howl before? "No, I sure haven't,"he said. "Don't want to hear one."

Following the Tuesday morning sighting near Riverside, the wolves moved to about a mile north of the Cliff Post Office, according to Debbie Williams. That's where she lives, and she sighted two of the wolves Tuesday morning while drinking coffee. "The dogs started raising cain," she said. The Williams' butchered a pig Sunday, and had taken the entrails, head and hide to a hillside behind their home Sunday afternoon. Williams saw what she at first thought was a dog near the entrails, but "I looked again and it shocked the crap out of me."

She said the animal was joined by a smaller wolf, both of whom went over the top of the hill where the entrails were located. Williams said the wolves cleaned up everything but the pig's head and hide.

Williams' sister-in-law, Wanda Wood, lives just over another hill from Williams. She and her father, Chester Williams, drove to the highway to see the animals. "We were on the highway and they were in the pasture up here by (Debbie Williams') house." Wood said the animals were about 50 yards away, but she did not see collars.

Although this was the "First time I've ever seen a wolf," Wood said, "These are very different --you know what they are when you see them." She said they were "big, like a deer -- real different."

Wood said Alan Armistead of Wildlife Services, who has set traps for the wolves in the area, visited the family Wednesday afternoon to get information on the sighting. The wolves are the male members of the Mule Pack, which was released into a pen in the Chicken Coop-Creel Canyon area of the Gila Wilderness on March 24. They chewed out of the pen within 24 hours, and the three males were located in the Cliff/Gila area a week ago. The alpha female of the pack is denned near the release site and the Service believes she may have given birth to pups, which could be up to two weeks old.

She is being supplementally fed by the Service. Armistead said Monday that if the males go back into the Wilderness on their own, the Service will probably not intervene.

During the past week they have been active enough that trapping them is difficult, Service officials have said. If they linger in the area and are trapped, they will be returned to Sevilleta until a decision is made on what next to do with them.

Although the wolves have been in an area populated by many cattle in the midst of calving season, there have been no reports of the wolves bothering the cattle.

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