Wolf Trapper Is No Stranger To Controversy
	From the February 2000

By JANIS MARSTON

For The Daily Press

GLENWOOD -- When Alan Armistead first stepped out of his big, white, government pickup truck last month, one half-eaten Angus bull and 30 restless ranchers -- some with pistols on their hips -- awaited him.

A trapper for 30 years, Armistead is used to controversy. He's spent the last 27 years with Wildlife Services, the federal agency once known as Animal Damage Control. Over the years, he's worked with coyotes, mountain lions and eagles. Wolves, he says, are "just another wrinkle" to him.

As the Wolf Recovery Team's main trapper, he's spent the last two years helping to reintroduce Mexican gray wolves into the wild. He's faced angry ranchers, fearful residents and curious schoolchildren, spending hundreds of hours answering questions about the controversial program.

But, even with that experience, Armistead says he wasn't prepared for the crowd of ranchers, neighbors and reporters that converged upon him when he stepped onto Smoothing Iron Mesa the morning of Jan. 12. "It was definitely more public than I'm used to." He usually works alone or accompanied by one ranch hand when examining a dead animal. "But I encourage people to get involved and ask questions."

Armistead's job here was to perform a necropsy on the bull and officially determine whether local rancher Bud Collins had lost another one of his herd to the eight Mexican gray wolves in the Gavilan Pack.

The ruling was made. Questions were answered. Collins would get paid for his loss and, over several weeks' time, Armistead trapped six wolves west of here and returned them to captivity. The wolf program's current plan is to return them to the Gila Wilderness.

His work done, it was time for the government trapper and Max, his sidekick mutt, to head home for Eagar, Ariz. The campsite was empty and, last week, Armistead drove off the mesa west of here without notice.

Most boys learn the finer points of tracking and trapping from their fathers or grandfathers. Not Armistead. His dad was an optometrist, so he had to wait until his college days at Sul Ross University in West Texas to find his calling.

Thirty years later, his enthusiasm for matching wits with nature's best predators abounds. "There's nothing better I'd like to do than trapping," Armistead said. "I've tracked everything from moose to mice."

According to his own tally, the only predator he hasn't trapped is the grizzly bear. "Not yet, anyway," he said.

He steered his ATV over a rocky trail, scrutinizing the terrain for wolf signs. He pointed to a wolf scat several weeks old. It was puddled and black from eating fresh meat. The bull's carcass lay nearby, its bones stripped clean.

The black scat was everywhere. So were tracks of scavengers, including birds. "There's a coyote track," he said. The ATV lurched ahead. "There's a skunk track. Skunk ... skunk. Look, there's a wolf track."

He stopped the ATV, got off and hunted for a nearby coyote print to show how different they are. Satisfied with the lesson, he swung one long leg over the seat and drove on. "There's a fox track. Did you see it?"

This area and trails leading to it were inspected every day for a month. A hide was dragged over it daily to erase the old tracks and make new ones easier to see.

"I love trapping," he said. "I like the fact that you're matching wits with (the animals), one on one." The ATV bounced along. Armistead still looked for tracks. Wedged behind him, Max the dog skillfully balanced himself.

"The Mexican gray wolf is one of the rarest species of wolves on Earth," he said. It is rare because of man and the government's wolf-extermination program in the early 1900s.

This program to reintroduce Mexican gray wolves began in the 1970s when Roy McBride, the man who taught Armistead how to trap, brought seven wolves from Mexico to the Tucson Desert Museum. They were farmed out to captive breeding facilities and zoos until their numbers and genetics were strong enough for 11 to be released into Arizona's Blue Range in October 1998.

Five of those wolves were shot and more wolves were released last year. Twelve are still in the wild today.

Armistead joined the program in January 1998, leaving a supervisory position in Oregon. He said he was ready to get out of that desk job and, like the wolves that he manages, he needed to get back into the wilds.

He's had an interest in predators, especially wolves, most of his life and his respect for them is apparent. When a wolf is trapped, beeps from the battery-operated monitor attached to the trap increase in frequency and pitch. "We usually take the wolves out (of the traps) in the middle of the night so they don't have to remain in the traps any longer than they have to," he said.

One trap's monitor failed to work in Arizona and the Mule Pack female lost its front leg to frostbite. Armistead is bothered by the injury -- he would like a clean record -- but notes that the wolf can adjust to a three-legged life.

Since the first wolves were released, he's trapped 27 of them, some two or three times, to move them or check their radio collars. "One injury out of 27 is not bad," he said.

Armistead doesn't shy away from difficult questions or situations. He speaks with authority and clarity, and appears to know he's one part biologist, one part trapper and one part public relations man. "Ranchers have to have confidence in me," said the native Texan who looks like he could be one of their own. "The public does too."

Armistead accepts that ranchers will never embrace wolf recovery. But he thinks that ultimately the wolf reintroduction program will work. "I think we can live with wolves out there, sure."

This was a longer-than-usual assignment for Armistead. For one thing, the wolves didn't take the bait at first. He ruled the bull was killed Jan. 9. The first wolves were caught Jan. 25 -- 23 days after he set out the first of up to 15 traps.

So many people had gathered around the kill site the morning of the necropsy that the strong scent of humans kept the wolves away. They weren't hungry for a while, either, having gorged themselves on most of the 1,500-pound bull just days before the traps were set.

"You've heard of 'wolfing down your food,'" Armistead said. "Well, that's exactly what they do."

For the most part, biologists knew where the Gavilan Pack was by tracking radio-collar signals and paw prints. They lost track of the 2-year-old male for about a month, but later found No. 555 in the Gila National Forest to the east of here. The wolf had left the pack in November and was living on its own.

As for the others in the pack, Armistead said they never traveled farther than a quarter-mile from the rancher's corral.

Normally an assignment like this would take him a week to 10 days. Armistead stayed here longer to look for the last of the pack's five pups, which has been declared dead, and to check out reports of a cat-eating wolf in Alma.

The sightings made national news and stirred up heated anti-wolf sentiment among some, but, so far, the reports are unfounded. No tracks other than dog or coyote have been found.

"If a wolf was out there, I'd know it," Armistead said.

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