Mexican Wolf. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Since before New Mexico was a state, Catron County has been fighting against federal authority, resisting commonsense efforts to rein in logging- and grazing-based destruction, and insisting instead on self-governance and ecological ruin. The county encompasses nearly 7,000 square miles of forests and grasslands, rivers, archeological sites, unique geological formations and designated Wilderness. It’s largely unpopulated with just 3600 people, but they have loomed large on the western landscape for their anti-federal, county-supremacy positions and hostility to environmental regulation.

The latest example of this form of “governance” is the Catron County Commission passing a resolution asking the New Mexico governor to declare a state of emergency over the “natural disaster” of Mexican gray wolf reintroduction. A few squeaky-wheel ranchers have somehow convinced local residents to ignore the crushing poverty, high unemployment rate, the higher-than-average number of suicides, expensive housing, and percentage of high-school drop-outs, and instead blame their problems on the Big, Bad Wolf.

Mexican wolves are actually not that big – maxing out around 80 lbs for males – or bad at all: there is no case of a Mexican wolf ever harming a human. Not once, ever, in recorded history. Most of the approximately 280 wolves in the wild distributed between Arizona and New Mexico don’t even prey on livestock, but you wouldn’t know that from the horror stories shared on social media and at the April 3, 2025 commission meeting.........

© CounterPunch