MEXICAN WOLF

Biologist Reports Threat at Wolf Shooting

A former state Game and Fish Department biologist says a federal employee leveled a rifle at her and told her she had "no business" being around when she tried to halt the recent shooting of a problem wolf in Catron County. Angela Dassow, who encountered three Wildlife Service employees and a ranch hand at the scene, said in an interview with the Journal that Game and Fish "sent me out to let them know that the lethal removal order was not valid and there was a problem with it, and they weren't supposed to kill her that day." She arrived after the female Mexican gray wolf had been killed. Ranch hand Mike Miller disputed Dassow's claim that she was threatened. He is a cowboy who works on the Adobe Ranch where the wolf was killed on July 5 and was present during the encounter. "Nobody pointed a gun at her," Miller told the Journal on Wednesday. Miller said Dassow was "off in la-la land" after she saw the already-dead female wolf on the ground. Dassow, a 26-year-old biologist who left her job after the incident, talked about the incident as she drove home to Wisconsin on Wednesday. One of the Wildlife Service employees "walked up to the front of his truck and picked up his rifle and pointed it at me and said I had no business being there," Dassow said in the telephone interview. "If he just simply wanted to tell me I didn't have the right to be there, he could have just told me. He didn't need to pick up a gun. It wasn't like I had a gun." Miller said, "Nobody did nothing to her ... The rifles were laying against a fence."....