Those who continue to peddle scary stories and post signs urging people to “beware” of endangered Mexican gray wolves haven’t looked at the numbers.
Since 1998, when wolves were reintroduced to the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, 46 of the rare animals have been illegally shot, 17 died of natural causes, 14 died in vehicle collisions, 12 were killed by government agents and four died in capture-related incidents or legal public shootings. The fate of nine is unknown, and two dead animals are awaiting necropsy.
Only 75 were left at the end of 2012.
Beware the people. Not the wolves. A few people.
Environmentalists who track such things say ranchers who support or tolerate the reintroduction process exist. But they don’t grab the microphones.
Public-land ranchers with an entitlement mentality are big wolf opponents. Their position is out of sync with reality.
After all, most Western ranchers rely on public-land leases to graze their cattle. As anybody who has ever rented an apartment can tell you, a lease is not a deed of ownership.
The public owns the public lands. Those lands are meant to support a variety of uses. Grazing is one use.
Here’s another: Federal law makes preserving and restoring endangered species a national value.
If achieving a healthy population of wolves proves inconvenient for public-land ranchers, it might be time to rethink those grazing leases.
1 comment:
Here’s another: Federal law makes preserving and restoring endangered species a national value. Yep! just like "diversity" is a national value. Trouble is, this diversity is not something that was on a ballot and only the PC bunch have decided what is a national value. Remember they are NOT elected! They stamp on our freedom of speech,privacy and freedom of religion. Let them eat Dirt!
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