Political Trappings

 

The Ben Lessons

Political Trappings

 Spectator Sport

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

             The list of folks down here in the hinterlands of the Southwest that have a direct line of sight to the likes of the famous predator hunter, Ben Lilly, grows shorter each year.

            Mr. Lilly was long gone by the time I arrived on the scene, but firsthand stories remained. My grandfather told me of encountering him on Rice Ranch country off the Mogollon front in Grant County. Ben’s hearing had deteriorated to the point he couldn’t hear his dogs so he always kept a favored dog tied to his waste on a leash.

He’d follow that dog.

When he needed supplies (which consisted largely of corn meal), he’d stop off at the 916s and take what he needed from a makeshift commissary. Verbal history suggested he’d always pay his bill regularly.

When his mental and physical state deteriorated to the point of needing care, he was placed in Mrs. Heinz’ sanitorium on Dry Creek. Mrs. Sanders, who worked there, told the stories that described him in those last days. His end-of-life experiences became somewhat of a parallel to the life he lived.

Dying or killing in any form is never pleasant.

The Ben Lessons

With Texas’ literary laureate, Frank Dobie’s, book on Mr. Lilly notwithstanding, the most profound history of his life arguably came from his diaries.

He was unique in his singular pursuit of his trade. Indeed, he was a killer of predators, but he was also an astute and hugely insightful student of his surroundings. When his observations are studied, an emerging truth begins to take shape. He believed the historical explosion of predators in southwestern New Mexico took place not prior to but concurrent to written history and associated settlement. The stockmen, suffering livestock losses as high as 50%, had to do something to survive, and the outcome was control to a greater of lesser extent depending on predation.

It was also a time of the confluence of prey and food source expansion. That came from a combination of factors not the least of which was the degree of predator control and water development which affected wildlife populations, controlled cattle numbers, and uncontrolled and feral cattle populations alike.

The wonderland of prehistoric New Mexico did exist, but, at that time, civilization had a big hand in its form.

Political Trappings

So, that introduces the subject at hand. The resurrection of the next attempt to eliminate trapping in New Mexico is upon the political landscape.

The protagonists of the effort are writing the script, but everybody should recognize one point. Killing anything is never pleasant and it should never be undertaken without deep respect. As a rancher, part of my life deals with the dread of killing. It is never easy walking to any animal with the intent to end its life.

In fact, it only gets harder, and creating a script whereby there is an attempt to cast some form of spirituality onto sport hunting while relegating trapping or predator hunting to shades of evil is antagonistic to the truth of stewardship.

The soaring rhetoric doesn’t cut it and the approach is tedious.

The prelude always draws into the narrative the image and grandeur of the land, the backdrop to the hook which attacks the act of trapping. Then, the heritage of filling the hearth and the family larder is introduced as if it, together, grants a cardinal killing right as opposed to the cruelty and indiscretion of killing a predator.

No, this is a political act of division written with fundamental falsehoods.

There no longer is there a majority role of subsistence killing in New Mexico in any form. Sport hunting has long been a commercial enterprise where the object of the kill is simply that, an object, and if the sports hunters want this passion to exist in any robust form of continuation … trapping is necessary and essential.

Spectator Sport

The truth is New Mexico politics has long been on the wrong trail.

It is long past time to attach to its waist a leash in order to follow a standard rather than progressive moral compass bearing that is actually tied to fundamentals. This begins with a question.

Why on earth is this subject, the attempt to outlaw all trapping (don’t be led to believe this is simply public land), being discussed when the backtrail is so blatantly corrupted and littered with utter failure?

The sign is everywhere, and here is but a reminder of part of the glaring hypocrisy:

-          New Mexico ranks 34^th among all states in healthcare.

-          New Mexico ranks 47^th among all states in economy.

-          New Mexico ranks 47^th among all states in fiscal stability.

-          New Mexico ranks 48^th among all states in opportunity.

-          New Mexico ranks 49^th among all states in education.

-          New Mexico ranks 49^th among all states in crime/corrections.

-          New Mexico ranks number one among all states in direct payments from the US Treasury (American taxpayers) to its bleeding and dimensionally challenged coffers.

-          And, New Mexico ranks last among all states in the nation for the place to raise children.

There are things that have political merit and there are things that don’t.

The fact is New Mexico suffers greatly from an absence of something that

 perhaps each of us must be challenged to explain. That should probably start with being weaned off the public dole, but that is yet another subject and yet another time.

            This one is equally organic and pertinent.

            The true stewards should take care of this one. It is only in their obligated and responsible hands that ethical practices will be carried out consistently. That is a fact and not a figment of rhetoric. Ethical killing is personal.

            When it is relegated to a political spectator sport, all ethics are doomed.

 

                Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico.