Arizona commission backs request to remove wolves from endangered list - NM??

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission on Wednesday voted to back an effort by Western lawmakers to remove gray wolves from the endangered-species list. The commission unanimously supported a letter by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to drop federal protections for wolves nationwide. That would include Mexican gray wolves, which have struggled to find a foothold in the Southwest since reintroduction in 1998, though the commission reasserted its support for at least 100 “wolves on the ground.” That’s a number that wolf supporters find unacceptable, and they don’t trust the state to nurse the animals to a fully recovered population. But Hatch and Lummis, in their March 15 letter to Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe, said that wolves are not endangered and that states don’t need federal meddling on the predators’ behalf. “Unmanaged wolves are devastating to livestock and indigenous wildlife,” they wrote. “Currently, state wildlife officials have their hands tied any time wolves are involved.” Commission Chairman Jack Husted said wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains — reintroduced in the 1990s, just like Arizona’s — have thrived to the point that they are damaging prey populations such as elk. Idaho, Wyoming and Montana have hosted more than 1,000 wolves between them for years. “We’ve time and again voiced our support for wild wolves on the ground (in Arizona),” Husted said, “but not in unlimited numbers.”...more  

And the NM commission?