Wolves backed by science, public

Arizona Daily Sun (Original) Letter to the Editor Posted July 12, 2015 by Ted Brown

To the editor:

Help me understand. Representatives Gosar and Pearce have introduced a bill to all but guarantee the extinction the Mexican gray wolf from our wilderness. I would like to know where is the science or data that's backing this decision.

I'm a certified Search and Rescue Tactical Rope Rescue Technician and a Wilderness Tech II and have been on hundreds of rescues over many years. In not one has a wolf ever been implicated.

I risk my life in our wilderness providing aid and assisting others and every living thing out there is precious to me. Biologists affirm that Mexican wolves will only improve the health of our wilderness just as it did for Yellowstone. Not a single person has ever been killed by a Mexican gray wolf.

Mountain lions and bobcats kill 30 percent more cattle and calves than wolves, so why isn't there an all-out campaign to rid the state of these predators? Why the wolves? 77 percent of Arizonans and 69 percent of New Mexicans support the reintroduction of the Mexican Gray Wolf onto their public lands. So why are they attacking and sabotaging the recovery of this animal?

I'm proud of our heritage and this wolf is part of it. Someone is getting into the ear of our representatives. And it's not the scientist nor the people whom they serve.

TED BROWN

Mesa