Rancher, wolf battle escalates

When Laura Schneberger sent out an email over the weekend about her suspicions in regards to a wolf trap being tampered with, her frustration was clear. Schneberger is president of the Gila Livestock Growers Association and said the association, now at 95 members, once was 150 or so members strong. She blames this, in part, on wolves. Or rather on the wolf program as managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. “Its like dealing with the dang mafia,” Schneberger said in reference to Fish and Wildlife. She said GLGA does not believe the department is doing enough to protect the ranchers. Representing Fish and Wildlife, Tom Buckley said his department is doing what it can. He said there have been four confirmed wolf depredations since March. A single wolf, the alpha female of the Fox Mountain pack in Western Catron County, had been singled out by the service to be killed earlier this month, but because of public concern, Fish and Wildlife rescinded the kill order two days later, Aug. 10, and agreed to trap her instead. But to rancher Corwin Hulsey, it’s more than a sensitive subject, it’s his life. With his cattle endangered after several losses in the last 12 months, Hulsey felt he had to move them off of land he leases at a cost of $1,600 a month. “I moved all my cows in trailers with two pickups,” Hulsey said. And because he moved the animals to his own land, quickly overgrazed, he had to buy hay to feed them. “I fed them $8,500 worth of hay,” he said. “It took $800 in fuel just to move them back and forth.” “Last year we lost 25 out of 200 calves,” Hulsey said. “You could attribute maybe two or three of those to other predators.” Three days after Hulsey took his herd back to the leased land earlier this month, the wolves took another cow...more