How is it that someone can tell outright lies about my Parents??

Changing management of wolves is a bad idea!!

People like Jim Harbison should be fined from reporting fraudulent facts regarding Wolves….  Or banned from outright lying in the public eye!!

For people who don’t like them, it’s always time to end protection for wolves, so the title of Jim Harbison’s essay (“Time to end government protection for wolves,” Sept. 3) comes as no surprise. But as the saying goes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.

The only thing lacking from Mr. Harbison’s tales of wolves stalking humans was an appearance by Little Red Riding Hood — and the facts. The truth is, wolves generally avoid people. Documented wolf attacks on humans in North America can be counted on one hand. New Mexicans are more likely to be killed by a bee sting, domestic dogs or even cows than a wolf.

Mr. Harbison also suggests wolves are decimating the ranching industry. In fact, wolf depredations on livestock are rare. More than 40,000 cattle are authorized to graze annually in the Apache and Gila national forests where Mexican wolves occur, yet confirmed wolf kills average only 16 head per year over this entire 6,800-square-mile area. Even if we generously assume that many more wolf kills go unconfirmed, it’s still clear that most wolves prefer wild prey over domestic livestock.

And when attacks on livestock do occur, ranchers can get compensation. The Mexican Wolf/Livestock Coexistence Council will not only reimburse ranchers for their losses, it will also pay them to implement proactive measures to avoid conflicts with wolves, and will even give them a cash reward for simply having wolves on their land or grazing leases.

Mr. Harbison claims wolves have devastated elk populations, and cites Yellowstone as an example. Mr. Harbison fails to mention that by the time wolves were reintroduced in 1996, Yellowstone elk numbers were unsustainably high. Wolves have helped to bring elk populations back into balance with their environment since then, along with other factors such as drought, bears and human hunters.

Kevin Bixby: Changing management of wolves is a bad idea – Las Cruces Sun-News.