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Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com

Greenlee ranchers oppose wolf project

Greenlee ranchers oppose wolf project

By John Kamin, assistant editor

Greenlee County ranchers voiced their displeasure with the Mexican Gray Wolf Reintroduction Program’s proposed Moonshine Park release during a public meeting in Morenci.

The April 23 meeting was held to collect public opinion on the project, and at least 10 ranchers showed up to voice their opinions. The Greenlee ranchers opposing the project included the Staceys, the Cathcarts and the Cannons.

The Moonshine Park release is only a proposed release, and Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) Nongame Wildlife Coordinator Terry Johnson reminded the audience that project heads would take public opinion into account.

The meeting sharply contrasted with a recent meeting held in Silver City, in which wolf conservationists outnumbered opponents.

Greenlee County Supervisor Hector Ruedas summed up the opinions of some of his constituents when he read seven letters opposing the release of wolves in an area known as Moonshine Park. Moonshine Park, located in the Blue Primitive Range, is near the northern tip of Greenlee County and is east of Highway 191. The letters highlighted how the release would put wolves within five miles of the Moonshine Park Post Office. They said the wolves will threaten the safety of children, adults and clientele.

Charlie Gold, the author of one of the letters, requested permission to explain why he opposes the release. Gold’s family owns and runs a guide service and has lived in the area since the 1800s.

“I would be very adverse to wolves being on that ground,” he said. “Clients won’t be involved in any place where there are wolves. That is a direct impact on my day-to-day income, which I do not find acceptable.”

Gold added that his wife, parents and children would all feel threatened by the presence of the wolves.

He said the wolves would threaten a stabilizing mule deer population.

“You’re going to overload one of the few stable populations of mule deer that are in the area,” Gold said. “If you dump those wolves in there, I promise you you’re going to overload the population of mule deer.”

At this point in the conversation, AZGFD wolf biologist Paul Overy said there is a much larger number of elk in the area that are feeding on Aspen trees.

“I’ve been in consultation with the Forest Service,” he said. “They’re finding that 80 percent of the aspen population is being fed on by elk.”

Forest Service officials want the aspen to regenerate and a smaller presence of elk would help that, Overy said.

Another letter mentioned that the elderly and the young would “have no chance.” The sixth letter Ruedas read requested that the funding go to forest thinning projects and questioned whether the project responsibly uses taxpayer dollars.

All seven of the letters showed opposition not only to the release, but to the entire reintroduction project, as well.

The first letter Ruedas read said, “They (wolves) were hunted out of existence for very good reasons. The entire wolf release project has been a miserable failure at a large cost to the public.”

Shortly after the reading of the letters, interagency field team coordinator John Oakleaf presented statistics of documented wolf attacks (on humans) in comparison to attacks from other large predators.

He said the statistics took into account documented attacks since the 1800s until now. There have been 25 documented wolf attacks from this time period, he said.

Wild wolves have an average of .14 attacks per year, while captive wolves average .27 attacks on humans per year. Wolf hybrids average about 2.1 attacks per year, he said.

The statistics, which Oakleaf said were taken from a research paper, showed that domestic dogs average 1 million documented attacks per year. About 29,000 motorists will collide with a deer during an average year, and 8,000 snakes will bite humans a year.

Black bears average 25 attacks per year, brown bears average four, and cougars average .65 attacks a year. An average of 750 skunk attacks, 27,000 rodent attacks, and 500 fox attacks will also occur during an average year.

Oakleaf also noted that wolves that have been removed from the wild for cattle depredations are more likely (by five percent) to be removed again for depredations in the future. A depredation is an attack on a cow by a wolf.

Wolves that have been in captivity less than one year have had a zero percent removal rate from the wild. When the canines are held in captivity for more than a year, they are more likely to be removed, Oakleaf said.

Seventy-four percent of the wolves’ diet is elk, according to a scatalogical study, Oakleaf said. The same study showed the wolves ate ungulates 11 percent of the time, livestock four percent of the time, small mammals five percent of the time and deer five percent of the time.

Center for Biological Diversity representative and wolf advocate Michael Robinson asked what an ungulate was defined as in relation to the survey.

Oakleaf responded that it means an elk or a deer.

He then showed statistics from two winter aerial surveys supporting this trend.

The wolf reintroduction project in the Southwest has a much higher number of depredations per 100 wolves. Southwestern wolves have more than three times the number of depredations per 100 wolves than wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains. The Southwestern wolves are also seven times more likely to attack a cow than Midwestern wolves.

“Another thing to consider in this slide is that grazing schemes in the Southwest are different,” Oakleaf said.

One rancher noted that the prey density is also different. This led into a discussion in which ranchers recalled releases in areas they thought had insufficient prey bases.

Oakleaf agreed that those areas did have depredations in the past. He also said that Moonshine Park is on an open grazing allotment, causing a rancher to add that it is grazed during portions of the year.

Robinson noted a change in policy during the meeting.

“The service began a concerted effort to release the wolves before birth,” he said. Later, he asked, “Is this the first time that wolves being born into captivity are released into New Mexico?”

Fish and Wildlife Service Assistant Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator Colleen Buchanan answered, “Yes,” to his question. Robinson said he disapproves of this change.

Robinson also corrected a rancher who said the Center for Biological Diversity was suing the Fish and Wildlife Service for three proposed rule changes. He said no lawsuit has been filed.

Robinson said the group filed a formal petition for rule-making with Interior Secretary Gale Norton and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Steve Williams under the Administrative Procedures Act. He added that if no action is taken towards implementing the proposed changes after one year, the Center could use its right to sue to make the changes.

The next public meeting for the project will be on July 9 in Silver City.

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