By Hannah Grover
A wildlife advocate says there are resources available to help ranchers reduce the number of cattle killed by wolves, even as Catron County issued an emergency declaration this week calling the lobos a threat to public health and safety.
The Catron County Commission met Thursday in Reserve to discuss the growing population of Mexican gray wolves, which some residents say are killing livestock and pets.
After the meeting, Bryan Bird with Defenders of Wildlife told NM Political Report about some of the efforts his organization is involved in to help ranchers in the Catron County area.
Bird said he is sorry to hear that Catron County residents feel unheard and believe that they aren’t receiving the help they need.
“They are the ones that have to experience this first hand,” he said.
While Bird said he is sympathetic to the concerns that ranchers have, he emphasized the importance of predators in the ecosystem and said ranchers are often operating on public lands.
Bird said the government needs to balance the benefits of public lands, including the wildlife resources.
“These [ranchers] are running private businesses on public lands,” he said.
Additionally, advocates say ranchers tend to rely on government subsidies.
Bird said ranchers receive payments for cattle losses and are also reimbursed for activities to reduce conflict with wolves.
Defenders of Wildlife has partnered with ranchers for many years to reduce losses.
Bird said the organization spends a significant amount of its budget helping ranchers with “the cost of doing business in wolf country.”
Those efforts include range riders and other methods of getting between the wolves and the cattle.
“We’ll match the cost of having somebody out there on the land,” Bird said.
He said Defenders also helps with flagging – surrounding the calving cows with a material to scare away wolves.
The Catron County resolution states that the “Government has continually lied about the nature of Mexican wolves, claiming that Mexican wolves rarely prey on livestock and that the County’s livestock would only minimally be effected [sic].”
The resolution further states that the “destruction of livestock by Mexican wolves has exponentially exploded to disaster levels” and that the wolves are harming both the hunting and livestock industries.
“People have been conditioned to be afraid of wolves,” Bird said.
He said wolves are not dangerous to humans and, while they will kill cattle, he doesn’t think the wolves are taking as many cows as ranchers claim.
The resolution cites the county investigator Shawn Menges’ claims that, since 2004, the wolves have caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in actual losses of cattle and led to thousands of missing cows.
Bird said those missing cattle may not necessarily be as a result of wolf activity. Cattle deaths are not uncommon on rangelands and some of the leading causes include weather and disease.
At the same time, he acknowledged living near wolves takes a toll on cattle. That can lead to less weight gain and miscarriage of calves.
“Anytime a rancher loses a cow, it hurts their pocketbooks,” Bird said.
Bird said advocates would like to see changes so that ranchers aren’t simply compensated for the loss of livestock.
“We want to shift the entire paradigm from paying for dead cows to paying for live wolves,” he said.
Wildlife advocates have questioned the accuracy of depredation numbers reported by the federal government and, in 2023, the Wildlife Services implemented new methods to ensure a more accurate count. The stronger standards implemented two years ago are intended to ensure wolves are not falsely blamed for livestock death.
According to Catron County Manager Deborah Mahler, it would cost more than $900,000 to adequately staff the county’s wolf investigation program.
“As someone raised in rural New Mexico, I know firsthand the value of our land, our livestock, and our way of life,” state Sen. Crystal Brantley, R-Elephant Butte, said in a statement. “The growing threat posed by the Mexican gray wolf is not just an inconvenience—it is an affront to the safety and livelihood of thousands of New Mexican families. I fully support Catron County’s disaster declaration and urge state and federal officials to take immediate action. Our communities should not have to live in fear while their concerns go unanswered.”
As drought grips Catron County, ranchers are facing hard decisions such as whether to downsize their herds. Already, many ranchers rely on other sources of income to supplement their ranching practices.
Bird said wolves can help ranchers in times of drought by controlling herbivore herds, which can improve water quality and forage.
At the same time, he said wolves could provide economic benefits in terms of attracting tourism, as has been seen in the Yellowstone area in Wyoming and Montana.
“I don’t want to tell them how to live their lives or what to do,” Bird said, but added that wolf tourism could potentially help the economy in Catron County.
They just enjoy killing over there…. most of the reintroduced wolves are just getting shot….
As a wildlife artist who often depicted wolves in my work, I can testify that these pieces were the first to sell. People LOVE wolves. Mr. Bird is right. Wolf tourism is a vast untapped potential resource for Catron county. People in rural places often have all the infrastructure in place to house and guide tourists because they house and guide elk hunters. But unlike hunting, an activity restricted to the fall, Wolf tourism could be a source of income all year round.
Bryan Bird is not real connected to reality, is he? Has he ever encountered a wild wolf, who is usually backed up by 5 or 6 of his “friends”. I have watched a wolf “play” with a young calf, trying to entice it into the treeline where there were other wolves waiting. We told a fish and game officer about it and even showed him the shenanigans going on and he shrugged his shoulders and drove away. Eventually the calf returned to it’s mother cow. This happened in Catron County a few years ago while elk hunting.
Leave the wolf’s alone. That’s the reason me and my family don’t eat beef. The cattle men think they own the public lands. Leave the wild horses and the wolf’s and bears alone. There’s room for all of us mammals even the stupid ones that walk on 2 legs and have no tail.
I think the ranchers and other people are doing a great injustice to the wolves they get compensated for losses I’m sure in this day in time everyone can come up with a feasible plan to preserve the wolves and ranchers way of life.Wolves contribute to the ecosystem helping ranchers with healthier grasslands also tourists would pay quite well to see wolves in their natural habitats.
Compensation to ranchers I wonder how honest those ranchers are. And how many wolf’s are blamed falsely. I’ve encountered coyotes and wolf’s in the park and they’ve eyed me and went their own way. I’m more afraid of an animal that walks on 2 legs with a gun then any beautiful wild animal. So shove the big bag wolf crap and leave it in the fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood.
Farmers and ranchers killed off predatory wolves decades ago. The new plague of wolves is from goody two shoe organizations like the World Wildlife Fund who introduced wolves into states like Montana back in 1996 with disastrous results. I was living there in 2009 when I learned a out the wild problem– timber wolves from Alaska had been introduced. They were killing machines& local hunters started killing them to protect their animals. Local authorities had to control the wolves via helicopter hunts. It was very problematic. The wolves killed hibernating bears with their cubs, entire herda of miniature horses and herds of elk– sport killing which involved ripping out their intestines and leaving them to die. This policy of importing wolves is insane and eventually ranchers will take matters into their own hands. Wolves. belong in sanctuaries, not running a mock killing free style Sorry bleeding heart liberals. Hope Trump gets around to putting an end to this lunacy