http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/536559nm02-08-07.htm
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Catron Gets Tough on Wolves
By Rene Romo
Copyright © 2007 Albuquerque Journal; Journal Southern Bureau
RESERVE— The Catron County Commission on Wednesday passed its own wolf-management ordinance that would permit a designated county officer, if federal authorities don't act, to trap or remove endangered wolves.
Commission Chairman Ed Wehrheim said the ordinance, as a last resort, "gives us the right to kill a wolf if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't do something first, to take a wolf that is dangerous."
The ordinance unanimously adopted by the commission would allow wolves that have become accustomed to humans or wolves that have made residents anxious to be trapped or removed. The ordinance went into effect immediately.
Wehrheim said passage of such an ordinance, which is less tolerant of wolf-human interactions than federal protocols, could lead to clashes between Catron County and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency running the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program.
But Wehrheim said the three-member board had to take action because of increasing numbers of wolf encounters, rising public anxiety and growing frustration with federal authorities.
"This ordinance comes only as a last resort and only after all other avenues have been pursued to no avail," he said in a statement read during Wednesday's meeting in Reserve.
Mexican wolf recovery coordinator John Morgart of Albuquerque said in an e-mail to the Journal that the Fish and Wildlife Service would wait for the county to send it a formal notice of the ordinance before responding.
The ordinance sets out procedures for the "immediate removal of habituated wolves that have caused or have a high probability of causing physical and/or psychological damage to children or other defenseless persons."
It also establishes steps for removing habituated wolves— wolves that repeatedly visit human settlements and show no fear of humans— "whether or not they have threatened persons."
According to the ordinance, complaints about wolves would lead to a "dispatch order" from the County Commission. Federal authorities would be informed of the dispatch order and would have 24 hours to remove the problem wolf.
If authorities with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service do not remove the targeted wolf, the dispatch order is to be carried out by the county's "wolf interaction investigator," who would try to harass the wolf away and, if that does not work, trap the animal.
While the ordinance does not specifically mention killing wolves, Wehrheim said that option is a last resort available to the county wolf investigator.
County Attorney Ron Shortes said people should not assume that 24 hours after federal authorities are asked to remove a wolf, the wolf would be killed.
But Wehrheim added: "As a very last resort, if that wolf is a threat to people, it will be lethally taken."
Conflicts between federal and county officials are likely to arise, Wehrheim said, over whether particular wolves actually pose threats to people as well as over the legality of the ordinance.
"We'd rather they (federal authorities) handle it," he said.
Commissioner Allen Lambert said, "We've got to do something to force their hand."
In February 2006, Catron County commissioners declared an economic and agricultural state of emergency blamed on the introduction of the Mexican gray wolf, a program begun in 1998 in national forests in southeastern Arizona and later southwestern New Mexico.
The county subsequently hired a "wolf interaction investigator," whose job is to analyze complaints about wolves and instances of possible wolf predation on livestock or pets.
A report by the county's wolf investigator says that, since last April, there have been 13 confirmed wolf kills of livestock, with eight others considered possible instances of wolf predation. There have also been three confirmed kills of pets by wolves.
A wolf impact study produced by Alex Thal of Western New Mexico University's Southwest Center for Resource Analysis estimates livestock losses from 2000-2006 in Catron County due to wolves at about 1,000 and costing nearly $500,000.
Under existing federal rules, it is legal to kill or injure a wolf in the act of wounding or killing livestock on private property or in defense of human life. But, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Web site, federal rules bar injuring or killing a wolf "just because it is near you or your property," or because it is attacking a pet, or because it is attacking livestock on public land.
"We were told wild wolves would be put out here and wild wolves would stay away from humans," said County Commissioner Hugh McKeen. "These are not wild wolves."
The neighbor (and I use the term as a locator, not a personal pronoun) across the road from us, is one of them.......born and lived here till he was about 6, then parents moved out there, but he's retired, divorced, and back, to shove CA down our throats. :roll: 
