Mexican wolf encounters on the increase

Earlier today I posted Crystal Diamond's account and pictures of her wolf encounter.

Laura Schneberger at Wolf Crossing has an excellent piece on this and other wolf encounters.  Here are some excerpts:

With the onset of the 2012 breeding season sightings, close encounters and home encounters have created a difficult situation for managers of the Mexican wolf program and they are not getting much slack from local governments and citizens. In December the program issued it’s first lethal control order after a female wolf with a long track record of livestock depredations and human habitation was found circling a private home at regular intervals where small children were exposed to her close presence. The same wolf had birthed a litter of hybrid pups the prior spring and FWS are still on the lookout for the one Mexican wolf hybrid that got away. They haven’t found it presumably it will add to the genetic mix that is the rare Mexican wolf. The remarkable thing about this control action is the fact that despite dozens of human safety encounters since the beginning of the program many of which involved their attraction to children, this was the first time the agency admitted lethal control was warranted for human safety reasons...

Crystal Diamond has suffered an unbelievable amount of slander in the local news media simply because she is in proximity of the expanding Mexican wolf population. The activists who have repeatedly attempted to destroy her credibility and reputation have deliberately avoided the factual reports on the situation that are available to them. Instead they choose to blame and attack a mom over the death of a problem habituated aggressive wolf.  The message is that this wolf was special, this wolf was presumably more special than Crystal’s small children and their safety and their freedom to exercise their rights on their own land at at their own home. This wolf is not special. Genetically this wolf was redundant to the population of Mexican wolves, which include over 400 in captivity...