New Mexico ranchers' use of technology to track wolves debated

Should ranchers have access to the technology that allows humans to track endangered Mexican gray wolves? One advocacy group says no, given that the number of Mexican wolves living in the wild in the Southwest has dropped from 42 to 39 in recent weeks. Radio-telemetry receivers used by ranchers to track Mexican wolves in New Mexico and Arizona should be returned to federal wildlife authorities, according to the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which is worried about illegal killings of the vanishing predator. Ranchers, though, say they use the equipment to locate dead cattle, not to hunt wolves. Finding the location of a collared wolf with the receiver is not an exact science, said Laura Schneberger, who has a ranch on the north edge of New Mexico's Gila National Forest, where Mexican wolves are trying to establish packs. Schneberger, president of the Gila Livestock Growers, said the receivers have been used on her ranch. "If you are on a ranch with 42 square miles, you're going to need that monitor," Schneberger said. "It will get you in that general area, then you look for buzzards. You use it to make sure the wolves are out of the cows. They (wolves) know you're coming way before you get there and find what they've been eating." A rancher can legally kill a wolf caught attacking livestock on private property, Buckley said. On public land, which includes the Gila National Forest grazing allotments, they must have a permit. It is not legal to shoot a wolf walking through or near cattle, he said. Schneberger said no permits have been issued in Arizona or New Mexico, even in cases where ranchers had confirmed wolf kills...more