Nimrods in West Texas bullying USFW Officials into shelving a Wolf restoration plan.............."Geez Louise" ......will we humans ever grow up and vault out of the middle ages of Little Red Riding Hood Wolf fears?

West Texas wolf release plan stirred plenty of opposition

• Jerry Lackey;abilenereporternews.com

A controversial draft concerning the release of the southwestern gray wolf in

 West Texas has 

been withdrawn — at least for now, said Sandy Whittley, executive secretary

 of Texas Sheep & Goat Raisers Association. "Word from our colleagues

 in New Mexico and Arizona is that

 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have decided to withdraw the proposed

 implementation of the Southwestern Gray Wolf Management Plan 'at this time,'

 " Whittley said. "They say the plan met

 with too much opposition."

mexican gray wolf once roamed in Texas

At the livestock association's winter meeting in February, a resolution was unanimously passed "to oppose the plan, not only from Texas but including New Mexico and Arizona." Joe Will Ross, a Sutton County rancher and San Angelo attorney who heads the association's resolutions committee, said: "The TSGRA does not support wolf recovery within Texas and desires any wolf found within the state be returned to wolf recovery areas or lethally removed if causing damage."

In the meantime, I received a letter from Joe N. Brown, who now lives in Sonora
 but spent more than 25 years of his life ranching in Pecos, Terrell and Brewster
 counties. "I am aware of what predators are capable of doing to a rancher's
bottom line," he said.

The Preliminary Draft Environmental Assessment for the Implementation of a
SouthwesternGray Wolf Management Plan, released Dec. 17 for review and
 comment by the 
U.S. Fish& Wildlife Service, called for re-establishing the wolves in New
 Mexico, Arizona
 and West Texas.

Whittley presented a map during the livestock association's meeting at the
Angelo State
 University Management, Instruction & Research Center that showed
 the West
 Texas line running from Amarillo to Lubbock to San Angelo to Del Rio.

West Texas lands, which are ideal breeding grounds for large predators,
 encompass
 the Davis Mountains and the Pecos River watershed in Jeff Davis, Brewster,
 Pecos,
Terrell and Val Verde counties.

The Big Bend region in Brewster County includes Big Bend Ranch State
Park, Black
 Gap Wildlife Management Area and Big Bend National Park, which is
 contiguous to
Parque Natural Sierra Maderas del Carmen (northern Coahuila, Mexico,
 south of Big
Bend National Park).

Brown sent a picture of him with a wolf he trapped in South Pecos County
 in January 1971.

"These wolves will not stay west of the Pecos River," he said. "They will go
where the food
 supply is located, i.e. the Concho Valley and the Edwards Plateau."

According to the September 1972 issue of Journal of Mammalogy, B.F
. Anderson shot a
 male gray wolf on the Cathedral Mountain Ranch, 17 miles south of Alpine
 in Brewster County
, on Dec. 5, 1970.

"Measurements (in millimeters) were as follows: total length, 1435; length of
 tail, 400; length
 of hind foot, 246; and ear from notch, 127. The eviscerated carcass weighed
 28.12 kilograms.
 The wolf appeared to have been in good condition, and tooth wear indicated
 it to be
 approximately 2.5 years old. The hunter kept the skin but donated the skull to
 Sul Ross State University," the article said.

Dr. Paul Wyerts, with the animal science department at Sul Ross at the time,
 viewed both
 the wolf killed on the Cathedral ranch and the one Brown trapped.

"The skulls of both wolves indicate that they were about the same age, and
 the circumstances
of time and place of capture raises the possibility that they were littermates,
" he said.

Although the Fish and Wildlife Service is now planning to release wolves
 only in Colorado
 and
 parts of New Mexico, word is they may decide to draft a Plan B,
 Whittley said.

"We cannot let our guard down," she said.

•