The New Mexico State Game Commission invited public comment on the management regime for the endangered Mexican Gray Wolf at a listening session on Friday in Las Cruces. Predictably, game commissioners got an earful.
Many ranchers and representatives of New Mexico’s livestock industry told commissioners they’re not getting fair treatment from the government to compensate them for wolf livestock losses. Meanwhile, representatives of conservation groups said more wolves should be allowed to expand into new areas of the state.
New Mexico’s wolf population generally lives in the Gila National Forest and neighboring wilderness areas and wild lands in southern New Mexico and Arizona.
Commissioner Sabrina Pack lives in Silver City, close to the Gila. She thanked the audience after the comment session. She said the public input was particularly helpful, allowing commissioners to balance facts and “hopefully come up with constructive solutions, strengthening our work.”
Although the commission took comment on the state’s approach to wolf management, the commission isn’t formally considering any change in policy.
The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish works with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Arizona state wildlife agency and other federal and private entities to raise pups for release into wild wolf dens.
Many conservation groups called on the game commission to allow the release of entire wolf families, saying few of the pups released into wild wolf dens make it to maturity. They said fully bonded wolf families have superior genetics to the wild population. The groups also said wolves should be allowed to extend their range north of Interstate 40, a boundary set by game managers.
Chris Smith, wildlife program director with Wild Earth Guardians, told commissioners that the state shouldn’t continue its practice of capturing wolves that roam into Northern New Mexico. “Wild animals should be allowed to roam,” he said.
This spring, the U.S. Fish and WIldlife Service announced that the 2023 wolf census found a minimum of 257 wolves, of which 144 were in New Mexico and 113 in Arizona. Those numbers show a 6-percent increase in the wolf population over 2022’s minimum total of 242 wolves. The increase marks the eighth consecutive year of growth, the longest continuous streak since recovery efforts began.
The Mexican wolf had been extirpated in the United States by the mid-1900s. All the wolves alive today are descended from a base population of only seven animals that the USFWS rounded up in the 1970s – five wild wolves from Mexico and two from a zoo. Starting with such a small gene pool, restoration efforts have focused on breeding wolves that are as distantly related to each other as possible. The program has released wolves into the wild since 1998.
Larry Reagan, president of the NM Farm and Livestock Bureau, told commissioners that his organization has been opposed to the wolf introduction since the beginning. He said members oppose any increase in wolf population, saying it would be an unfair burden on procedures. He said they oppose any increase in population and believe it’s an unfair burden on producers.
Several ranchers and industry officials said they oppose current procedures that prohibit wildlife management agencies from informing ranchers where packs of wolves are located. They also said they oppose recent policy changes on how ranchers can assert that livestock losses are the result of wolf predation.
In other action, the game commission approved the transfer of the Laguna del Campo, also called Burns Lake, to the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant.
The Legislature in 2019 passed a joint resolution authorizing the commission to transfer the lake, just north of the town of Tierra Amarilla, along with associated water rights and over 20 acres of land to the grant, which is considered a subdivision of state government under the law.