County requests more federal funding for Mexican wolf recovery efforts

The Cochise County Board of Supervisors has agreed to send a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke requesting more financial resources be committed to efforts to recover the Mexican wolf. At its regular meeting on June 12, the Board heard a presentation from Pascal Berlioux, Executive Director of the Eastern Arizona Counties Organization (EACO), regarding the inadequate compensation for communities and agencies involved in the project. The EACO members are Cochise, Apache, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, and Navajo Counties. “The Eastern Arizona Counties are uniquely affected by the Mexican Wolf Recovery program…due to the facts that a large part of the Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area is located within the Eastern Arizona Counties,” the letter states. “A large portion of the depredations on farm and domestic animals inflicted by Mexican wolves take place within the Eastern Arizona Counties and a large proportion of the negative economic impacts of the Mexican Wolf Recovery plan is borne by the rural ranching community.” Berlioux said the annual $200,000 funding for compensation to ranchers in both Arizona and New Mexico is around 10 percent of actual costs. As of 2017, it is estimated the program has cost $38 million, with the current Mexican wolf population thought to be 114...MORE