Critics - NM Game commission puts predators in 'bull's eye' like never before

Jan Hayes, founder of the 2-decade-old nonprofit Sandia Bear Watch, said for years she had a decent working relationship with the state Department of Game and Fish, even when she didn’t agree with the agency or its commissioners. Then Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration arrived and everything changed, she said. “They don’t listen to any common sense, or reason or anything else now,” Hayes said from her home in Tijeras. The opposite viewpoint comes from Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association. She says the Game Commission is finally doing something to protect livestock and agricultural interests, especially from cougars. “We know there are too many and we need to find a way to reduce them,” Cowan said. “We don’t want to get rid of all of them.” In the last five years, the seven-member State Game Commission appointed by Martinez has made decisions that some sportsmen and animal rights groups say have put predators in the bull’s-eye like never before, even as ranchers and other sportsmen cheered those changes. The makeup of the commission is once again in the spotlight as it considers the department’s controversial recommendation to increase kill limits on bears and cougars, a move opponents say is shortsighted and lacking in updated science...The commission’s reversal on the wolf program has been stark. In 2011, under new Game and Fish Department Director Jim Lane, the state pulled out of the multiagency team working together on New Mexico’s wolf recovery program. In September 2013, one month before Lane quit, the Game Commission voted to rejoin the team. This year, the Game Commission declined to renew a wolf facility permit for billionaire Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch in Southern New Mexico. The commission also refused to give the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a permit to release wolves into the wild on U.S. Forest Service land. Four dozen conservation groups and wolf facilities in 13 states have asked Martinez to overturn the commission’s decision. The federal government and Turner are appealing the denials...more

Hayes, Smith, VeneKlassen and Lewellen are critical, poor Caren Cowan is the only positive.  She must feel awful lonely on the pages of the Santa Fe New Mexican.  

Changes "loom" and are "stark".  Cowan gets 170 words of coverage, the critics get the title and over 2600 words.  Yes, she's one lonesome lady.  You all give her a thumbs up the next time you see her.