The Beef With Wolves

In or around 1940, Eugene Cleveland Holder shot and killed the last Mexican gray wolf in Arizona. More than 60 years later, his grandson Will Holder and wife Jan -- fourth-generation ranchers who live and raise cattle in the middle of a wolf recovery zone -- scream, throw rocks and dance around like drunks upon seeing a predator near their livestock. But they don’t shoot.

“It’s karmic justice,” says Jan Holder. “The wolf is here to stay. We’re just trying to figure out how to live with it and still be able to raise cattle.

“Whenever you see a wolf you make a lot of noise and act insane,” Holder continues. “You scream, you holler, you wave your arms. You bang pot and pans together. You throw rocks -- they don’t like that. Mainly we just act like a bunch of idiots. We’ve found out that works pretty good.”

The Holders are part of the Wolf Country Beef program in Arizona and New Mexico that teams cattle ranchers with Defenders of Wildlife, a national conservation organization well known for its efforts to restore wolf populations in the lower 48 states. Participants allow the recolonization of the gray wolf on their private lands and will not use lethal controls on coyotes, wolves and other predators. Any losses dues to wolf predation are reimbursed by Defenders.

In exchange, the meat the wolf-friendly ranchers produce bears a “Wolf Country Beef” label -- like the Holder’s organic Urban’s Natural Beef -- that identifies their product and their company as working to assist with the recovery of gray wolves. The Wolf Country beef is sold in grocery stores as the environmentally friendly choice, making red meat green. (Think dolphin-friendly tuna, and salmon-safe farmers, who agree to reduce runoff into nearby spawning grounds.)

Holder says 39 wolves currently roam the 7,000-square-mile Blue Range Recovery area in the Apache-Sitegreaves and Gila national forests of Arizona and New Mexico. Biologists hope to be tracking 100 wolves in the recovery area by 2008.

Many cattle ranchers, however, would still rather shoot first and ask questions later.

Shortly before the Defender’s first release of wolves in New Mexico, a group of opponents led by the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to stop the re-introduction, arguing that wolves would cause “irreparable harm” to the cattle. The case was thrown out in ’99.

Now, these same opponents may get some help from the Bush Administration.

Just when gray wolves are beginning to make a tentative comeback in the U.S., Interior Secretary Gale Norton is expected to weaken federal protection for wolves by the end of January, making it easier to kill wolves in the few places they survive throughout their historic range. The Bush Administration has also indicated that it will back away from a Clinton Administration proposal to initiate wolf recovery in the Northeast states.

Nina Fascione, a Defenders vice president, calls this “a precursor to de-listing,” meaning that Norton will move to have wolves removed from the list of threatened animals protected by the Endangered Species Act.

In the early 1900s, ranchers lobbied Congress to eradicate so-called “nuisance animals.” Within 40 years, the gray wolf was virtually hunted and poisoned out of existence. The gray wolf was put on the endangered species list in 1976, nearly six years after the animal was last seen in the U.S.

In recent years, Defenders of Wildlife has played a key role in reintroducing gray wolves to the Southwestern states, “but the job isn’t done yet,” says Fascione. “Of course, our ultimate goal is de-listing, but only after the job is finished.”