As hunt for Zulu continues, searchers parties run afoul of some ranchers

After nearly eight hours of hiking and searching for Zulu on Friday, no sign of the dog was found. "We did all the things we could," said Wendy Hoggard, Robert Sumrall's stepdaughter. "We did not find her." After seven days in the frigid mountains of west-central New Mexico, two ranchers found Sumrall on Dec. 4 with 3-year-old Zulu on the east side of the Mimbres Valley near San Lorenzo. Sumrall, an El Paso resident, was lying down semi-conscious with Zulu on top of him, but as the two people approached them, Zulu ran away and is still missing in the mountains. Sumrall continues to recuperate in El Paso. A group of six - three Mesilla Valley Search and Rescue volunteers and their search dog, plus Hoggard, and two more search and rescue volunteers on ATVs - spent from early morning until about 6:30 p.m. Friday night combing the area where Zulu, a black Labrador mix, and Sumrall were lost over a month ago. They searched the area where Zulu was picked up on a trail camera a little over two weeks ago. The story of Zulu and all the media attention it has attracted has fueled interest from people as far away as Iraq, the Netherlands, and Taiwan - and offers of help from Albuquerque to El Paso. But all that attention has been nothing but a headache for area ranchers who have had to deal with trespassers on their land, spinning out on their ATVs, cutting locks off their gates and breaking into their homes and cabins...read more