Gila Wolf Analysis Requested
	From the February 2000

By Mike Taugher Journal Staff Writer
    Rep. Joe Skeen called again Wednesday for delaying the move of more wolves to the Gila Wilderness.
    Skeen accused government biologists of failing to respond to citizen questions and allowing what he called "racial profiling" in a poll to corrupt the process.
    The Republican congressman's insistence that a lengthy environmental analysis be done before Mexican gray wolves are repatriated to the Gila comes at the same time opposition to wolf reintroduction is growing more vehement.
    The resentment is building chiefly in New Mexico's southwestern corner, where wolves and cattle ranchers have historic conflicts.
    An anti-wolf rally is scheduled Saturday in Glenwood, and opponents of the government's wolf-reintroduction effort say they expect between 1,000 and 2,000 to show up.
    Public hearings on wolf reintroduction, sponsored by the government, are scheduled next week in Reserve and Silver City.
    Skeen on Wednesday released a copy of a letter he sent last week to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Jamie Rappaport Clark. He said he has received "numerous complaints from citizens and local government officials" that the service is failing to provide them information about wolf plans. He also questioned the agency's use of an opinion poll, sponsored by the League of Women Voters in New Mexico, to measure public opinion about wolf reintroduction.
    The poll showed widespread support for wolves in New Mexico. But, since the poll was conducted only in English, Spanish speakers were excluded, Skeen said.
    He charged that the exclusion of New Mexico citizens who speak only Spanish was "racial profiling."
    Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Tom Bauer said the poll had no bearing on the agency's decision to release wolves and was cited in the federal study only in response to comments and questions about wolf reintroduction plans.
    One environmentalist called Skeen's attack desperate.
    "If these are the kind of arguments Joe Skeen is making, it really shows the lack of good arguments against wolves," said Michael Robinson, of the Silver City office of the Center for Biological Diversity. "To compare that (the poll's language) to actions whereby people are discriminated against based on their race is really an insult to people who are standing up for civil rights, I would think."
    After two years of releasing wolves into Southwestern forests, biologists say their progress has not been as fast as envisioned. In the first year, at least five wolves were shot to death. In the second year, wolves were removed from the wild because they were killing livestock.
    Today, only one free-roaming pack lives in a national forest in the Southwest -- the Hawks Nest pack has two adults and two or three pups in the Apache-Sitgreaves forest in Arizona. Two lone males are in the wild, and biologists recently moved a female adult and two pups into a holding pen. The biologists hope to group those wolves with one of the lone males.
    Now, biologists want to move additional wolves into the Gila Wilderness, a huge, roadless expanse in southwestern New Mexico that is almost entirely devoid of cows. Biologists say it also has enough elk to support wolves.
    They hope to move some wolves into the area in the spring.
    "That is where we would like the wolves to be," said Colleen Buchanan, a federal biologist working on the project. "We're trying to get the wolves where there is less chance of interaction (between wolves and livestock and people)."
    The Fish and Wildlife Service has scheduled two hearings on plans to move wolves into the Gila Wilderness. The first is Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the community center in Reserve; the second is March 2 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Western New Mexico University, Light Hall, 1000 College St.

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