Az/NM Coalition of Counties requests Congressional field hearings on Mexican Wolf & Jaguar

   
 July 27, 2013


Chairman Doc Hastings
1203 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

RE: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Management of Mexican Wolf Reintroduction and Proposed Critical Habitat for the Jaguar.

Dear Chairman Hastings,

The Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties (Coalition) is requesting that you consider conducting hearings on how the Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is managing the Mexican wolf reintroduction program and their proposed rule for critical habitat for the jaguar.  The Coalition represents the Arizona Counties, Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee and Navajo and the New Mexico Counties, Catron, Chaves, Eddy, Harding, Hidalgo, Lincoln, McKinley, Rio Arriba, and Sierra as well as timber, farming, livestock, mining, small business, sportsman and outfitter industries.  Our representation currently exceeds 606,564 in combined county populations.

The wolf reintroduction program has been a study in fraud, waste and abuse. The "Mexican wolf" recovery program is a miserable failure because the animals being bred and turned out, both in the U.S. and Mexico, are not Mexican wolves but are, instead, highly inbred, wolf/dog hybrids that should have never been eligible for protection under the endangered species act (ESA).

Millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on a program doom to failure.  Due to the hybrid wolves being inbred several times over they are now producing four pups to a litter and pup survival is dubious.  Even if the Service is successful in expanding the wild population they will still be hybrids.  This is coupled with the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars that have been awarded to environmental litigants in sue and settle court actions.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent by the Coalition and our partners trying to defend what the Service has refused to defend in these suits.

More than the dollars lost to this program has been the abuse foisted upon rural residents.  Ranchers have been forced to watch their livestock depredation increase multifold.  Mothers have had to increase their vigilance over their children at play and doing their choirs.  Family pets and working dogs have been severely wounded and killed.  The Service has ignored complaints and even had the audacity to claim these impacts are nothing more then contrived hysteria.  These impacts have created severe social, cultural and economic impacts without proper NEPA analysis and failure to properly involve state, tribal and local governments.

The proposed jaguar critical habitat is the result of a multi-year legal war conducted by environmental activists.  Many of the same elements of fraud, waste and abuse are present in the listing of this species and now the proposed critical habitat.  The result will be an overlapping of the Mexican wolf protections that will add to the cumulative impacts the Service has foisted upon this region through multiple species listings and designations of critical habitat.  These actions evidence a concerted action to remove human presence and production from our counties and states.

The Coalition respectfully requests that hearings take place to expose the fraud waste and abuse these two species are causing to the states of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.  We feel that a field hearing in west Texas should be held to raise the awareness of the people who are about to have the “Mexican wolf” jammed down their throats and to allow for those who have been affected already have the opportunity to participate.

We feel that a field hearing on the jaguar in southwestern New Mexico or southeastern Arizona needs to be conducted for the same reasons stated for the wolf.  We have multiple expert witnesses who would provide the evidence to back up the charges levied above.

The Coalition understands the heavy workload you and the Natural Resources Committee are under at this time.  We would not make our requests unless these actions by an out of control agency were not devastating our communities and citizens.  Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,