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Where goes the wolf?
By Michael White President, N.M. Farm and Livestock Bureau In the more than two decades of the ill-fated "Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program" I cannot remember even one printed or broadcast sentence of good publicity about this boondoggle. That should tell you something. So let's face facts and declare the program a monumental failure that is continuing to cascade out-of-control. Even through the fluctuating drama of daily events, some things have remained constant during the course of this government-mandated fiasco. One is the fact that the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau has continuously had a grassroots policy against this program from day one. Through the years the hand-wringers have called on us to compromise and to capitulate. We haven't and we won't. Another constant is the solid opposition to this program in the agricultural community and in the cities, towns and rural areas where these predators are being perpetuated. I'm guessing the reason some high-dollar, politically correct pollster has not done an opinion survey in western New Mexico and eastern Arizona is that they know what the results would be. The individuals and groups supporting this mess are a small band of folks who would not make a demographic dent in such a poll. Residents, business people, ranchers, outfitters and tourism-related industries in most cases would give a resounding thumbs down to this program that brings nothing but negative publicity, maulings and death to the area in question. Certainly one of the tactics of the pro-wolf people has simply been to wear us down. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain if the politicians look the other way, if ranch families go out of business and if the state and federal government continue to cater to their radical agenda which is always anti-agriculture. We must resist their efforts in every way. We must continue to pressure the people who can put a stop to this insanity including state legislators, our congressional delegation, the U.S. Department of Interior and the current administration in the White House. Unfortunately, failure is not a criterion for stopping a government program. In fact, in the twisted world of these fanatics, within and outside the government, failure is every reason to expand within the scurrilous vacuum of in-accountability that is their dark badge of dishonor. Remember when the government bureaucrats and their apologists in the so-called environmental movement were standing on boxes and telling us the depredation (their word for killing) of cattle would be minimal. We knew that was bovine scatology then and it's an unwelcome, daily fact of life now out in the Gila Forest and the Apache-Sitgrave on the Arizona side. These, pen-raised, human-habituated wolves have been killing cattle, calves and bulls (in the 1,200 pound range) since the first day the feds sicked them on their own citizens. They kill deer, elk, turkey, cats and prized ranch dogs. Recently, wolves killed one of Mark and Mary Miller's horses in its corral. It was the horse their eight year old daughter learned to ride on and now she has trouble sleeping at night. It was a good thing she wasn't on the animal at the time. And now they want to expand the program in boundary and scope. The Farm Bureau and its members will oppose this at every turn. The hunting, hiking and fishing community had better get on board big time or their pursuits of happiness will be another victim out in the killing country. We now have to ask then, what is the cynical end to this deadly game? Where do the wolf lovers want this wreck to end up? In ten years... 200 wolves? In 20 years... 1,000? Such a result will be tragic by any measure especially for the one thing the pro-wolf groups never mention and that is the people who live in the affected areas. The children that now must watch their backs at school bus stops, the businesses and ranches that will fail. We therefore have established that the wolf lovers don't care what happens to the citizens of New Mexico or Arizona. So if the wolf camp wants their program at any cost we must conclude that the deadly, unthinkable equation at work here is that all risk is acceptable including the killing of men, women and children. Do the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the N.M. Department of Game and Fish agree with that conclusion? They must since they continue to perpetuate this morally bankrupt program. Based on all we know, and the experiences we have had to date with these mega-predators, the day will come when a child or another person is maimed or killed by government-sponsored wolves. Will that stop this madness? If the answer is "no" then our nation, and our state are upside down. And to what end? To appease a small minority of environmentalists who will stop at nothing to take down their own country and return it to a pre Columbus environment? In the community of Reserve, New Mexico, concerned citizens are right now making plans to build enclosures for students waiting at school bus stops. We have come to the point where we are putting our children in cages to protect them from government wolves. When these sad structures are built, I doubt we will see bureaucrats from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the N.M. Dept. of Game and Fish show up for this photo-opportunity. However they know, as we know, they have an unsavory rendezvous with destiny from which they cannot run nor hide.
0 None None Date: 8/2/07
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