EPA Puts ‘Environmental Justice’ Front and Center in Its Rulemaking Process

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a 55-page “guidance” to help its employees “advance environmental justice” for low-income and minority communities. “Achieving environmental justice is an Agency priority and should be factored into every decision,” the document says. The move comes 16 years after President William Clinton signed an executive order directing every federal agency to "make achieving environmental justice part of its mission." And Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to make "environmental justice policies a priority within the EPA." The EPA says its new guidelines will help its rule-writers identify potential environmental justice concerns, and it instructs them to analyze the impact of their rules on low-income and minority populations...more

EPA to Crack Down on Farm Dust

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so senators have signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations. The letter dated July 23 to the EPA states, "If approved, would establish the most stringent and unparalleled regulation of dust in our nation's history." It further states, "We respect efforts for a clean and healthy environment, but not at the expense of common sense. These identified levels will be extremely burdensome for farmers and livestock producers to attain. Whether its livestock kicking up dust, soybeans being combined on a dry day in the fall, or driving a car down the gravel road, dust is a naturally occurring event."...more

The letter was signed by 21 senators and you can read it by going here. Neither of NM's senators signed the letter.

Cattle industry conflict threatens checkoff and leadership

USDA has also given closer examination to the expenditures of the beef checkoff and the relationship between NCBA, Cattlemen's Beef Board and state beef councils. The audit just released by CBB has identified infractions that may have been overlooked by friendlier administrations but are now getting public recognition through the Office of the Secretary; this is threatening the keepers of the checkoff funds. Now we fray another strand of this rope. I quote from Ron Hays' Oklahoma Farm Report from July 26: "The Cattlemen's Beef Board has just released a Compliance Review of their major contractor for beef checkoff programs--the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The audit comes just ahead of the Summer Conference of the Cattle Industry that will be held in Denver this week--and the CPA firm that conducted the audit for CBB, Clifton Gunderson, appeared to detect a pattern of problems with adequate documentation to prove many expenses were properly allocated to the checkoff overhead that NCBA is allowed to claim as a contractor." The allegations include lack of documentation of expenses and unallowable spouse travel to New Zealand for a cattle conference. NCBA has surely figured out that it has lost its clout with USDA and has always had to endure R-CALF USA, but now the source of the thirst-quenching waters of the checkoff fund is questioning consumption by NCBA, the largest contractor. NCBA executives have to know that when people are out to get you, they head for the money. Following the money by auditing expenses tells a story of the actions and attitudes of the players and undermines confidence within the industry...more

Catalonia bullfighting ban: Cornered by the cape crusaders?

Last week, Catalonia became the first Spanish region on the mainland to ban bullfighting. Cue much jubilation among celebrities such as Ricky The Office Gervais and Pamela Baywatch Anderson, who, along with assorted animal rights groups, want it prohibited everywhere. Yet on closer examination, the ban looks more like a spot of fancy capework, performed by the troublesome Catalan legislature in pursuit of its separatist agenda. “What we are really saying,” explained a commentator in Barcelona’s largest newspaper, El Periodica, “is that Spain is the home of bullfighting, and if we don’t have bullfights, it stands to reason that we can’t be Spanish.” Ole! Elsewhere in the country, the reaction to the ban was restrained. Catalonia’s allegiance to the corrida has long been considered suspect. During the Spanish Civil War, the Catalan republican forces made a particular point of attacking the ranchers who raised fighting bulls. “One less torero, one less fascist,” went the cry. In bullfighting’s southern heartlands, last week’s ban was seen less as a vote of conscience than as a sucking-up to the Leftist euro-establishment, which the legislature hopes will back its campaign for independence. In this sense, bullfighting is an intensely political issue. In another sense, it always has been. The first serious attempt to ban it was made in the 16th century by Pope Pius V, who issued – appropriately – a papal bull, stating that the practice imperilled the souls of all who participated in it. Two hundred years later, King Philip V of Spain, a passionate opponent of the corrida, prohibited the aristocracy from fighting bulls, a measure that paved the way for the professional matador class that emerged from Andalucia in the late 18th century. In 2007, more than 200 MEPs voted to withdraw European Union subsidies for the breeders of fighting bulls...more

Cattle dogs round 'em up during trial circuit finals at fair

Dogs have been working cattle for hundreds of years while, out in the field, their handlers have praised their efforts. Now entire audiences can applaud some of the best cattle dogs and their handlers from the grandstands at the Wyoming State Fair, Sunday, Aug. 15. The Wyoming Cattle Dog Trial Circuit will start its sixth season in August. During the month, four trials will be held across the state during a tight two-week period. Those trials will be followed the finals at the Wyoming State Fair. “Jim Chant of Baggs, Wyo., had a vision several years ago of starting a cattle dog competition,” said Juan Reyes, who has worked with Chant to get the series up and running. Many people are familiar with sheep dog trials. Cattle dog trials have a similar purpose, to display a working dog's ability to effectively gather, move and hold cattle. “That is really important to the producer who is out there working his cattle,” said Reyes. “We want to show how dogs can work in real situations. We are mimicking what we do with cattle and these dogs out on the ranch,” he said. The competition consists of four parts: the outrun and lift, a fetch, a drive, and the finish. To start, the handler and dog begin at the base of the course with the cattle at the opposite end. The handler sends the dog out and around the cattle. This is called the outrun and the lift. Then the dog brings the cattle down the coarse back to the handler, trying to keep them in a straight line. Next comes the fetch...more

Pat Garrett's family plan showdown over plans to finally pardon Billy The Kid

Billy The Kid was famously gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in a Wild West showdown nearly 130 years ago. But it appears the notorious gunslinger still can’t escape the clutches of his nemesis. Garrett’s descendants are enraged over a plan by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to grant a posthumous pardon to the outlaw - who was said to have killed 21 men, one for each year of his life. The feud has opened up a lingering resentment at McCarty’s status as an Old West folklore hero, fuelled by countless books, films and songs. By contrast, Garrett has been accused of glorifying his part in the story. The dogged sheriff claimed he tracked down McCarty after he escaped from Lincoln County jail and shot him down on July 14, 1881, in a famous gun battle that left two deputies dead. Ironically, McCarty was virtually unknown during his lifetime, only catapulted into legend the year after his death when Garrett and co-author M.A. 'Ash' Upson published a sensational biography called The Authentic Life Of Billy, The Kid. The issue resurfaced earlier this year because Mr Richardson asked state historians whether there was sufficient support to grant a pardon. The governor now plans to meet the Garrett family next week to hear their objections. The pardon dispute is the latest in a long-running fight over whether Garrett shot the real McCarty or someone else and then lied about it...

It's all Trew: Branding is an old tradition

One thing cannot be argued, a healed brand is still the most visible, positive identifying process yet found. As examples of marking livestock, both legal and illegal, here are a few true stories with a bit of Trew flavor. Just how old are livestock brands? No one is sure but murals have been found in Egyptian tombs showing the branding of livestock. Early settlements dating from Moorish times required that in order to plant, raise and harvest crops, a practice called "transhumance" had to be carried out. This called for periodic removal of all livestock and large poultry from the cropping areas during the growing and harvesting seasons. The laws of the time, in order to prevent theft or mysterious loss of livestock, dictated all animals must be branded before being moved. Brands or painted markings were the only options available at the time to identify domestic stock or flocks. John Chisum, the famous rancher of the Pecos River Country, once caught and convicted a group of cattle rustlers who were changing one of the many brands he adopted when he bought and sold vast herds of cattle across Texas and New Mexico. The group had been acquitted by court once for theft because of "reasonable doubt." Evidently they were extremely clever in the alterations. Mr. Chisum set a trap by roping a number of odd marked steers and having his cowboys cut a small slit in the lower folds of the brisket and insert a silver coin into the slot which quickly healed over. Later, they caught the gang of thieves with some of the identifiable steers. With the law present as witnesses, the cowboys roped the steers and removed the coins as evidence. The thieves were sent to prison for long terms. Interestingly, I give a program about brands and have learned I can take the bare letter J without the top bar on the letter, and make every letter in the alphabet and numbers from 0 to 9. With patience, holding the iron at different angles, slants and touch-up, it can be done. Try it if you don't believe me...more

Song Of The Day #371

It's Swingin' Monday on Ranch Radio, where we bring you uptempo tunes to get your heart pumpin' for the rest of the week.

Today's selection is Nothin' by Moot Davis, from his Moot Davis CD.

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Reasons for old age happiness

by Julie Carter

Someone found it necessary to make and share a list of the advantages of living past the age of 50, or 60 and climbing to 70.

I tend to believe that every day above ground is a good day, but there are other perks to hanging on to life in the second half of your century of living. I'm also an optimist.

1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you. I find that to be absolutely true. I have never been kidnapped nor even threatened with abduction. In fact, the only reference to it that was ever made in my lifetime was by my dad. His comment was something about having pity for the kidnappers. Age doesn't seem to be the real factor in this one.

2. In a hostage situation, you are likely to be released first. See No.1 for references.

3. No one expects you to run, anywhere. Speed takes on a more relative definition with each passing decade.

4. People call at 9 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?" I have yet to be able to answer, "yes" to this query because I have a teenager in the house.

5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac. Instead, one has to learn the polite art of not monopolizing the conversation with long, detailed renditions of aches, pains and remedies.

6. There is nothing left to learn the hard way. However, I keep testing that theory daily.

7. Things you buy now won't wear out. The Maytag man never considered that he might never see you again when he promised that the new washing machine he just delivered would last you 25 years.

8. You can eat supper at 4 p.m. or breakfast at noon. This holds true if you are unemployed, single and living alone.

9. You can live without sex but not without your glasses. Enough said, except to note, well ... never mind.

10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans. That may have changed with the recent political black cloud that came over people's plans for retirement. There is no edgy humor here.

11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge. In fact, you no longer think of them at all. That may indicate more habit than age.

12. You quit trying to hold your stomach in no matter who walks into the room. Bulkier sweaters, "big" shirts, and jackets allow breathing. Oxygen is so much better for your health than holding your breath.

13. You sing along with elevator music and the designated "oldies" radio station is your "home station" while driving anywhere. There is comfort in knowing the words to the songs if you don't dwell on the fact that they were on 45s when they were first popular.

14. Your eyes won't get much worse. Refer to No. 9 and buy reader glasses in bulk at Sam's or Costco.

15. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off. The medical industry keeps inventing more tests to run on us to make sure that happens.

16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service. While that's not actually saying much, it's true. The "weather knee" is a valuable indicator and every old timer has a good story to go with it.

17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either. It takes several friends to keep a good rumor going.

18. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to manageable size, if I could just remember what to do with what I have.

19. You notice that you are drawn more and more to things written in big print and you have learned the keystrokes on the computer keyboard to make the font on websites bigger.

20. You can't remember where you saw this list before and why you thought it was funny at the time.

Enjoy today, whatever the age. Tomorrow is not promised. Now, where are my glasses?

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net.

The Reid Energy Bill: Another Government Land Grab

by Robert Gordon

The all-too-familiar idea “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” has reared its head in Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D–NV) Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act of 2010. In addition to proposing hurdles high enough to trip efforts to develop energy resources in the Gulf of Mexico, the proposal would gift to the greens one of their long sought desires: a full pot of money in the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LCWF). It would be a big pot of cash that can be spent “without further appropriation” to, among other things, gobble up more private property.

Similar provisions are contained in the House’s Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act of 2009 (CLEAR Act). Structuring such a perpetual funding machine is one of the many recommendations the green community made to the Obama Administration in “Transition to Green: Leading the Way to a Healthy Environment, a Green Economy and a Sustainable Future.”

The LCWF was created decades ago and authorized for $900 million annually to come predominately from receipts from the government’s offshore oil and gas leases. As it is, Congress has had to authorize expenditures from the fund, and the greens have been frustrated by a history of it not being fully funded. Still, according to CRS, between 1965 and 2002, $8.7 billon in LCWF funds enabled the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management to acquire about 4.5 million acres, an area slightly smaller than New Jersey. In the same period, CRS found that the LCWF also funded 37,000 state and local projects totaling approximately $3.5 billion to conserve another 2.3 million acres.

Reid’s bill would fill the fund with a minimum of just under $5 billion through fiscal year 2016. Spending these funds would no longer require congressional approval. Between fiscal year (FY) 2017 and FY 2020, all LWCF funding—without fiscal year limitation—would be subject to appropriations. For FY 2021 and beyond, the LWCF pot would be filled with a minimum of a half billon annually and, again, evade congressional approval.

When this concept was floated during the 107th Congress as the Conservation and Reinvestment Act Fund (CARA), CRS noted that “support for the CARA legislation seems less intense in this Congress, possibly because of growing concern about a likely federal budget deficit in future years.”

Well, it’s the future, and the budget deficits are beyond what anyone could have imagined during the 107th. However, even if we were not saddled with enormous budget deficits, at some point one has to ask just how much more government ownership and control over land we need. Currently the federal government owns in the neighborhood of 653,299,090 acres. That’s an area larger than Mexico and Afghanistan combined, and it does not include lands owned by state, county, or municipal governments.

Beyond the simple fact that the federal government does not need to be spending even more money it does not have, there are numerous other reasons this is a bad idea. For one, the federal government can’t manage what it already has. In 2003 the Government Accounting Office (GAO) reported, “Over the years, the [National Park Service’s] estimates of the cost of its deferred maintenance have varied widely—sometimes by billions of dollars. Currently, the agency estimates that its deferred maintenance backlog will cost over $5 billion.” By 2007, GAO reported, “Last year, the [Interior] department spent $1.6 billion on annual maintenance and construction but had a $9.6 billion backlog of deferred maintenance projects.”

Along the same lines, the Government Services Administration reported in 2004 that the federal government owned some 5,104,608 acres classified as “vacant.” That’s an area larger than Massachusetts. Do we really need to increase the maintenance burden for federal agencies when they can’t handle what they already have?

But also gobbling up more private property is a bad idea for the economy in general and for communities across the country. Federal policy already recognizes that federal land ownership can erode local tax bases by having provisions for payments in lieu of taxes (PILT). According to the Department of the Interior, the amount authorized for PILT in FY 2010 under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was $358.5 million. Do we really need to take more land off local tax roles?

Further, once part of the federal estate, land is more subject to the whims of government regulators and of Congress. Using the regulatory machine, plans are floating around the Obama Administration to lock up millions of acres of the federal estate, which would likely thwart job-creating activities like ranching, mining, and forestry.

For its part, Congress already crushed any hope of significant economic use of millions of acres of federal land by jamming through the 1,248-page Omnibus Lands Act of 2008. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that monstrosity at more than $6.4 billion, and that does not include royalties and resulting tax revenues that might have been generated from forgone economic uses. Do we really need to constrict economic use of more land?

The greens shill for an ever larger federal estate, peddling the idea of an ecotourism economic boom. Senator Reid’s home state is already 84.48 percent owned by the federal government, and that does include any foreclosed housing (FNE, FME, FHA) now in government hands. While there are quite a few unemployed in Nevada with enough time on their hands to go backpacking, more government land is not what they need, nor does the nation need a special entitlement nestled within the federal government to please the insatiable greens.

Song Of The Day #370

Ranch Radio's Gospel tune this morning is Show Me The Light by the Bladerunners.

White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation. The administration wants to add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user's browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the "content" of e-mail or other Internet communication. But what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters. These missives, which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret. They are the mechanism the government would use to obtain the electronic records...more

FBI director: Agents may have cheated on test

The Justice Department is investigating whether hundreds of FBI agents violated rules in taking a 2009 exam meant to ensure that they could follow aggressive new guidelines for terrorism investigations without intruding on Americans' privacy, FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged Wednesday. Glenn Fine, the department's inspector general, is looking into whether agents across the country improperly took the training test in groups, shared answers or completed it in unusually short periods. Investigations into the alleged cheating surfaced publicly in the bureau's Washington Field Office, where it was linked to the retirement of one of the FBI's most-senior managers. Joseph Persichini stepped down as head of the Washington office in December after he came under scrutiny for allegedly completing the open-book exam in less than 20 minutes; some test-takers required more than two hours. Disclosure of the review swiftly revived questions about the FBI's ability to apply guidelines, adopted in 2008, that for the first time allowed agents to conduct surveillance and counterterrorism and espionage investigations within the U.S. without evidence that a target has ties to a terrorist group...more

Wal-Mart plan to use smart tags raises privacy concerns

Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) is putting electronic identification tags on men's clothing like jeans starting Aug. 1 as the world's largest retailer tries to gain more control of its inventory. But the move is raising eyebrows among privacy experts. The individual garments, which also includes underwear and socks, will have removable smart tags that can be read from a distance by Wal-Mart workers with scanners. In seconds, the worker will be able to know what sizes are missing and will also be able tell what it has on hand in the stock room. Such instant knowledge will allow store clerks to have the right sizes on hand when shoppers need them. Wal-Mart's goal is to eventually expand the tags to other types of merchandise but company officials say it's too early to give estimates on how long that will take. "This is a first piece of a very large and very frightening tracking system," said Katherine Albrecht, director of a group called Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering. Albrecht worries that Wal-Mart and others would be able to track movements of customers who in some border states like Michigan and Washington are carrying new driver's licenses that contain RFID tags to make it easier for them to cross borders. Albrecht fears that retailers could scan data from such licenses and their purchases and combine that data with other personal information. She also says that even though the smart tags can be removed from clothing, they can't be turned off and can be tracked even after you throw them in the garbage, for example...more

Packing heat in AZ to become easier soon

The Wild West is about to get wilder - on Thursday, Arizona will join Alaska and Vermont as one of the states with the country's most liberal gun laws. Senate Bill 1108 removes the requirement that gun owners must be trained and licensed to carry a concealed weapon. Arizona already allows for "open carry" - anyone not legally prohibited from possessing a firearm, such as convicted felons or those adjudicated mentally incompetent, can carry firearms in public as long as they are clearly visible. After Thursday, the requirement that weapons be displayed openly will be dropped, and anyone who is not a "prohibited possessor" will be able to carry concealed weapons...more

As Many as 6,600 Arlington Graves Mixed Up

Estimates of the number of graves that might be affected by mix-ups at Arlington National Cemetery grew from hundreds to as many as 6,600 on Thursday, as the cemetery's former superintendent blamed his staff and a lack of resources for the scandal that forced his ouster...more

But please don't worry, they'll run our health care system just fine.

You see killin' us they can do, it's just the buryin' where they have problems.

Grizzly bear who killed Grand Rapids man euthanized, will be study for ailments

The 300-pound female grizzly bear that fatally mauled a Grand Rapids man this week and bit two other campers at Soda Butte Campground was euthanized Friday after DNA tests showed the sow was responsible for the attacks, said Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks spokesman Andrea Jones. Jones said tests on bear hair, saliva and tissue samples linked the bear to the fatal attack on Kevin Kammer, 48, of the Northeast Side, and two other people Wednesday in the Gallatin National Forest, near Yellowstone National Park. Kammer, a father of four, was on a fly-fishing vacation when he was killed. Authorities say the bear dragged him 25 feet from his tent in the nighttime attack. Officials will perform an autopsy on the mother bear to determine if any physical ailments or conditions caused her to attack the campers, Servheen said. Grizzly bears that display unprovoked aggressive behavior toward humans, or cause death or substantial human injury, should be removed from the population under an agreement among eight state and federal agencies, state wildlife officials said...more

Woman recounts bear attack

One of the survivors of a deadly grizzly bear attack said Thursday she realized her only hope was to play dead after feeling the bear's jaw clamp onto her arm in the middle of the night. "Something woke me up, and a split second later, I felt teeth grinding into my arm," Deb Freele of London, Ontario, said from a Wyoming hospital. "I realized, at that split second, I was being attacked by a bear, but I couldn't see it. "It was behind me and I screamed. I couldn't help it — it's kind of like somebody else was screaming," she told The Associated Press. "And then it bit me harder, and more. It got very aggressive and started to shake me." She kept screaming but then realized that if she didn't do something, she was going to die. "I decided at that point, the only other thing I knew to do was to play dead, and I just went totally limp, got very quiet, didn't make a sound. And a few seconds later, the bear dropped me and walked away," she said. Freele said she couldn't understand why the bear attacked her, because she posed no threat. "If it was something that I had done — if I had walked into a female with cubs, and startled her, and she attacked me — I can understand that," she said. "She was hunting us, with the intention of killing us and eating us." Officials have said the bear will be killed if DNA evidence confirms it was the same one that attacked the victims. Aasheim said the test results were expected by Friday...more

Grizzly captured at site of fatal attack

A mother grizzly and two of her three cubs have been captured after killing a Michigan man and injuring two other people during an overnight rampage through a campground near Yellowstone National Park. The sow, estimated to weigh 300 to 400 pounds, was lured into a trap fashioned from culvert pipe covered by the dead victim's tent Wednesday evening. The bear tore down the tent again and was caught in the trap, said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim. Thursday morning, two of the year-old bears had been caught and the third could be heard nearby, calling out to its mother. Montana wildlife officials on Thursday identified the man killed in the mauling as Kevin Kammer, 48, of Grand Rapids, Mich. The bear pulled Kammer out of his tent and dragged him 25 feet, Aasheim said. The other victims, Deb Freele of London, Ontario, and an unidentified male, have been hospitalized in Cody, Wyo...more

NM governor suspends trapping in wolf area

Gov. Bill Richardson on Wednesday ordered a temporary ban on trapping on the New Mexico side of an area where Mexican gray wolves have been reintroduced into the wild along the New Mexico-Arizona border. Richardson ordered the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to prohibit trapping for six months while it studies what risk traps and snares pose to wolves...more

















EXECUTIVE ORDER 2010-029

TEMPORARY BAN OF TRAPPING IN THE
BLUE RANGE WOLF RECOVERY AREA

WHEREAS, the Mexican Gray Wolf is the smallest, rarest, and most genetically distinct subspecies of the Gray Wolf;

WHEREAS, the Mexican Gray Wolves that once widely roamed New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and the Republic of Mexico are now nearly extinct, suffering from the results of human development, reduction in habitat, and hunting;

WHEREAS, the Mexican Gray Wolf was listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1976, and all known wild Mexican Gray Wolves were caught and put into a captive breeding program;

WHEREAS, the Gray Wolf species, of which the Mexican Gray Wolf is a subspecies, was listed as endangered under the New Mexico Wildlife Conservation Act in 1976;

WHEREAS, in 1998, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced the Mexican Gray Wolf to a portion of its historic range in New Mexico and Arizona within the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area (“Recovery Area”), which is comprised of the Gila and Apache National Forests;

WHEREAS, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s goal was to restore at least 100 free-roaming Mexican Gray Wolves in the Recovery Area by 2005, but as of 2010, only 39 individual Mexican Gray Wolves are surviving in the wild;

WHEREAS, pursuant to the New Mexico Wildlife Conservation Act, the State Game Commission has enacted rules which make it unlawful for any person to take (defined as harass, hunt, capture, kill, or attempt to do so) any threatened or endangered species or subspecies in the State of New Mexico;

WHEREAS, under the New Mexico Wildlife Conservation Act endangered species may only be removed, captured, or destroyed with prior authorization by permit given by the Director of the Department of Game and Fish (“Department”) where necessary to alleviate or prevent damage to property or to protect human health;

WHEREAS, trapping and snaring activities occur in New Mexico within the Recovery Area even though such activities are negatively impacting the Mexican Gray Wolf, as traps and snares do not discriminate between Mexican Gray Wolves and the game animals intended to be taken;

WHEREAS, Mexican Gray Wolves may suffer injury or death while caught in a trap or snare due to dehydration, exposure to weather, or predation by other animals;

WHEREAS, in the last eight years, in the Recovery Area located in New Mexico, there have been six confirmed and three probable Mexican Gray Wolves that have been trapped, five of which have sustained injuries from traps or snares, including two Mexican Gray Wolves that had injuries severe enough to result in leg amputations;

WHEREAS, missing toes, claws, or other injuries can inhibit the Mexican Gray Wolves’ ability to catch prey and may actually increase the risk of livestock predation, as domestic livestock are easier to capture than native prey such as elk or mule deer;

WHEREAS, Mexican Gray Wolves require adequate prey and freedom from indiscriminate traps and snares to thrive in the Recovery Area; and

WHEREAS, tourism for watching the Mexican Gray Wolf has had almost no chance to develop in New Mexico, because the Mexican Gray Wolf population has not grown as planned.

NOW THEREFORE, I Bill Richardson, Governor of the State of New Mexico, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the State of New Mexico, do hereby order the Department of Game and Fish to carry out the purpose of the New Mexico Wildlife Conservation Act, which requires endangered species, including the Mexican Gray Wolf, be protected and direct the Department of Game and Fish to temporarily ban trapping in the portion of the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area located in New Mexico. The ban shall:

1. Prohibit trapping by persons licensed to trap pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 17-5-5 and youth under the age of twelve years. This prohibition should not affect the right of a resident to trap animals in order to protect livestock, domesticated animals, or fowl. The ban shall be in effect for six months starting on November 1, 2010, while the two studies described below are completed.

2. Prohibit all methods of capturing a furbearer on land or in water, including leg-hold traps, neck and leg snares, Conibear kill traps, body-crushing traps, natural and man-made cubby sets, and other methods of trapping specified in 19.32.2.10 NMAC. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and the government of the United States and its agencies are exempted from this closure if the Mexican Gray Wolves require capture for medical treatment, monitoring, or relocation.

I further direct the Department to undertake a study of the various types of traps and snares allowed in New Mexico and to determine the level of risk to the Mexican Gray Wolf associated with the various traps and snares. The Department shall then pursue appropriate regulations to allow trapping within the Recovery Area only by use of traps and snares that pose minimal risk of harm or injury to the Mexican Gray Wolf.

I further direct the Department of Tourism to undertake a study on the potential economic benefits of ecotourism related to recovery of the Mexican Gray Wolf in the Recovery Area.

THIS ORDER supersedes any other previous orders, proclamations, or directives in conflict. This Executive Order shall take effect immediately and shall remain in effect until such time as it is rescinded by the Governor.