Tell Governor Lujan Grisham to oppose the Catron County resolution to declare a state of emergency
The Honorable Michelle Lujan Grisham, Governor of New Mexico
The Catron County Board of County Commissioners unanimously passed a resolution to declare a "state of emergency" in Catron Country due to the presence and perceived impacts of endangered Mexican gray wolves. They plan to follow this up with a request to Governor Lujan Grisham. They are implementing a misinformation campaign to drum up fears of human safety and exaggerate claims of livestock losses due to wolves.
Their initiative calls for defunding the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program and prematurely delisting the Mexican gray wolf, and with that, a return to heavy-handed lethal control to reduce the number of wolves in the county. This is a major threat to Mexican wolf conservation and would set back decades of progress to recover this rare native species.
All New Mexicans who care about wolves and wild nature need to step up and speak out against this.
Ask Governor Lujan Grisham not to sign the Catron County disaster declaration. The Governor should support continued funding and legal protections for Mexican gray wolves, the rarest gray wolf subspecies in North America. Save disaster recovery funding for real disasters, not myths and misinformation.
Sponsored by
To:
The Honorable Michelle Lujan Grisham, Governor of New Mexico
From:
[Your Name]
We are writing to you as supporters of the recovery of Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico and the broader southwest. We are glad to see this species making a comeback in its native habitat and we are pleased to see the population steadily increasing. Despite some ongoing challenges with the program – in particular, reduced genetic diversity and an arbitrary boundary at Interstate 40 – we believe that recovery is heading in the right direction.
For this reason, we are concerned that Catron County is seeking your signature on a disaster declaration to give the county emergency powers and additional funding. The county is also requesting the deployment of the NM Army National Guard, the NM Air National Guard, and NM State Defense Force to protect livestock and residents.
This is dangerous, and we urge you to reject their request.
By deploying security forces to manage Mexican wolves, you would be validating the county’s assertion that Mexican wolves pose a real threat to the residents of the county. In fact, there has never been a documented case of Mexican wolves harming humans. Most wolves are extremely wary of humans, and there are already tools in place to legally haze wolves away from human-occupied areas. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is available to help remove wolves from populated areas, which is a safer, more humane way to deal with potentially habituated animals than asking armed troops to handle wildlife.
There is already federal and state money allocated to conflict-reduction with livestock, and money available to compensate livestock operators for depredated animals. Private non-profits have programs to assist with proactive management, and many ranchers are already heavily-subsidized through a below-market public lands grazing fee. New Mexicans do not need to continue paying for livestock operations in wolf habitat via additional state dollars, and we ask you to consider instead saving disaster recovery money for real disasters.