Federal Helicopter Teams Set To Gun Down Wild Cattle In New Mexico. Ranchers Are Furious.

The Gila National Forest wilderness in New Mexico is the scene of a renewed fight over feral cattle.

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS), is planning to kill potentially hundreds of wild cattle in the sprawling Gila Wilderness covers more than half a million acres. The USFS Closed Visitors will receive the Gila on Monday and, beginning Thursday, the Gila plans to hunt cattle in rugged Gila terrain via helicopter for four consecutive days.

This is not the first time that the USFS has carried out an operation like it. Last year, the federal government sent a helicopter team to hunt for cattle. 65 wild cattle were killed in the operation. Riling State lawmakers, local landowners and ranching interests. Last year, the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association sued to stop the culling. It represents ranchers throughout the state. The New Mexico Livestock Board condemned the operation in December as animal cruelty.

“We know that those animals don’t need to be in there,” NMCGA President Loren Patterson last month. “We also believe that this aerial gunning program, just like last year, will just be a population control, but doesn’t solve the problems associated with those feral cattle. We want those animals removed in a humane way.”

Sometimes, the carcasses of cattle found after last year’s operation had broken limbs or their entrails hanging out. A few carcasses were discovered in rivers of the national forest, raising questions about water quality. After being reported, the government removed the carcasses.

Photo by Rachel Gabel, The Fence Post Magazine.

U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) are under pressure from environmental groups to remove the cattle from Gila National Forest. The Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), are being pressured by environmental groups to remove the cattle and other livestock from Gila National Forest. Center for Biological Diversity and other activist groups claim the livestock is causing habitat damage to endangered species. Environmentalists have forced the federal government to adopt more aggressive plans for removing feral cattle through legal challenges.

The federal government conducted nine roundups in the Gila over the last two decades. They removed a total 211 cattle. According to the USFS estimate, there are 50-150 feral animals still living in the wilderness. Ranching interests insist that these cattle should be removed by herding and not using bullets.

According to Forest Service, the gathering operations pose dangers and risk to animals and people. After a 2020 deadline, because of ineffectiveness and difficulty in raising cattle in Gila, the government decided that aerial shoots would be a better option. Lawsuit The CBD.

“The remote location, the steep, difficult terrain, vast territory, and access restricted to foot or horse due to the designated Wilderness status are limiting factors, along with the wild, uncooperative nature of the feral cattle themselves,” Ivan Knudsen, spokesperson for USFS, told The Daily Wire via email.

“The Gila Wilderness feral cattle do not behave like domesticated cattle, but tend to scatter more like deer; and when captured, tend to thrash and flail, which makes roundup and capture difficult and dangerous for the contracted cowboys, their horses and dogs. Approximately half of the cattle captured using ground-based roundups die or must be euthanized due to stress or self-inflicted injury during capture,” Knudsen said.

Sarah Falen, Wild West Advocacy’s founder, stated that the government’s problems with herding cattle was largely due to its choice of contractors. Falen stated to The Daily Wire the government had hired contractors that were specialized in gathering feral horse, and not cattle. The roundups were also held periodically, which allowed the feral cattle to breed, and to replace many of the herding losses.

While the roundups are time intensive, ranchers and critics say the operations are preferable to sniping cattle from a helicopter – for the welfare of the livestock and a host of other reasons that concern ranchers in the surrounding area.

Habituating Mexican graywolves to hunt and scavenge Gila to the taste cattle is one of the biggest concerns. You can read more about it here. Decision memo Post last week: The USFS acknowledged these concerns, but said that they were being addressed. “does not have any evidence that wolf scavenging on the cattle carcasses has any known effect on the wolf depredation rates on livestock.”

Falen pointed out a USFWS discovery that two Mexican graywolves were last year seen eating the carcasses and blood of dead cattle. In its memo, The Forest Service referenced the USFWS. “Last year, after the Forest Service lethally removed feral cattle in the Gila Wilderness Area, two wolves were attracted to the carcasses, stayed in the area for several months, then moved back into their normal areas without preying on live cattle.”

Mexican gray wolves are a threatened species that is protected by the Endangered Species Act.

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases