By ELAINE BAUMGARTEL AND NATALIA JACQUEZ
The team of agencies managing the Mexican grey wolf recovery program has a new player, or rather, a returning one.
The New Mexico Game and Fish department was ordered this week by the state Game Commission to return to the negotiating table nearly two years after pulling out of discussions about proposed rule changes.
Michael Robinson with the Center for Biological Diversity said he’s concerned this means Game and Fish officials are going to try to actively thwart the program, which aims to reintroduce the endangered Mexican grey wolf in southern New Mexico and Arizona. “They have already shown they are hostile to wolves,” Robinson explained, “certainly under this administration. It bodes poorly for what that new rule would look like.”
The program is controversial largely because ranchers in the area say they lose too many cattle to hungry wolves.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service will host a public comment hearing next Friday, October 4th, in Albuquerque on several proposed rule changes including listing the Mexican grey wolf as an endangered subspecies.