Editorial: Game board unfairly takes aim at gray wolf protector

Playing tit for tat with an endangered species is not only unproductive; it’s petty. Yet that appears to be what the New Mexico Game Commission did last week when it declined to renew a permit that had been in place for 17 years allowing Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch in the Gila mountains to assist the federal Mexican gray wolf recovery program. 

Ever since the program began in 1998, the Turner ranch has worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to provide pen space for holding endangered wolves being taken from the wild or being reintroduced into the wilderness. Turner raises bison commercially on the 156,000-acre ranch in Sierra County and maintains it as a habitat for endangered and threatened species and for ecotourism.

Currently, there are just over 100 Mexican gray wolves in the wild – a species that once numbered in the thousands. 

In the past, the Game and Fish director routinely signed off on the Turner permit. However, in November, the commission adopted a rule requiring commission approval for permits to keep wolves and other carnivores on private land for purposes of recovery or reintroduction. It appears to target the wolf program, and last week’s action is likely to hamper its success. 

...That may relate to a new Fish and Wildlife Service rule that greatly expanded the wolves’ range south to the Mexican border and north to Interstate 40 and broadened areas where wolves bred in captivity could be released. It also gave ranchers, who generally oppose the program, more authority to shoot wolves dead if they prey on livestock or domestic animals.  

READ ENTIRE EDITORIAL

The Journal's attempt to dismiss the legitimate concerns of our state and those most affected by calling the Game Commission's action "tit for tat" and "petty" is unfortunate.

This is the second tit for about a thousand tats as the USFWS has continually ignored the many concerns of the state and local citizens.  It's hardly petty for the Governor and Commission to stand up for the health and safety of our folks whereas you seem more interested in the health and safety of the mexican wolf.

Most galling is your attempt to use property rights to oppose the Commission's action:

Landowner rights should not become as endangered as the wolf. Turner should be allowed to use his property as he wishes in cooperation with the federal government, and the commission shouldn’t flex its self-granted power to punish a private landowner to make a statement.

Turner should be free to use his property as he wishes. But the moment he chooses to participate in a taxpayer-funded program the public also has a right to try and influence that participation. Would the Journal deny the public that opportunity? There are also private landowners who oppose the program, and until the Martinez administration came along, their voices were silenced. Turner chooses to participate and you defend him, while other land owners are "punished" by being forced to participate, and you ignore them. Thank goodness the Game Commission is not.