Public meetings will be held on modifications of the Mexican gray wolf program, but none will be held in Greenlee, which is largely affected by the program.

The closest meeting to Greenlee will be held 5-9 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 6, in Thatcher at the Eastern Arizona College Open Dining Room at the Activities Center. Thatcher is in neighboring Graham County, where no wolves were released nor have there been any confirmed sightings or evidence of their presence.

Wolves have been a major point of concern and contention among ranchers, hunters, hikers and the Greenlee County Board of Supervisors. The majority opinion, since the program’s inception, is that the animals are not wanted in Greenlee. Ranchers point to what they deem to be several flaws in the program, including failure to be reimbursed for cattle killed by wolves. They also cite the difficulty in finding cattle carcasses in rough, mountainous terrain and often not being able to identify a heavily decomposed carcass as being wolf-killed When the meeting dates were announced in September, Greenlee Coun-ty Administrator Kay Gayle said she was completely puzzled why none of the meetings were being held in Greenlee. She shook her head in seeming disbelief at the supervisors meeting, where the information was relayed to county officials.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established a non-essential, experimental population of the Mexican gray wolf in 1998 and has introduced more than 90 wolves into Arizona and New Mexico. Several of the wolves were placed in the Blue Primitive Area in northern Greenlee.

Brian Milsap from Fish and Wildlife said the agency has begun a scoping process to gather input on potential modifications to its rule that established the reintroduction program for the Mexican gray wolf.

“We have been reintroducing wolves into the wild for nine years now, and we’ve learned a thing or two,” Milsap said. “We want to hear from everyone else on what they have learned and what their recommendations are for recovering the Mexican wolf. We’ve set the meetings up to facilitate conversations. The Web site mirrors the meetings as much as possible so those who can’t be with us can join in on the Web site,” which is www.mexicanwolfeis.org.

“Modifying a federal rule starts with finding out what the community thinks,” Milsap said. “This part of the process is called ‘scoping.’ From here we consolidate the comments and advice and come up with different alternatives, which will be publicly vetted.”

He said the scoping process will include 12 open-house style meetings. Participants may attend anytime during the meeting at their convenience. The meetings will include:

• Informational materials about the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program.

• A continuous overview presentation for participants to watch at their convenience.

• One-on-one opportunities to provide information to Adaptive Management Oversight Committee representatives and agencies’ staff, and ask questions about the rule change and EIS process. Questions about the process will be answered, but issues will not be debated.

* Comment cards for participants to submit written comments during the meeting or during the comment period, which ends Dec. 31, 2007.

The Monday through Friday sessions will run from 5 to 9 p.m., and Saturday meetings will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Participants are welcome anytime during those time periods.

Meeting dates, times and locations can be obtained from the www.mexicanwolfeis.org Web site.

The Fish and Wildlife Service published a Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement and Socio-Economic Assessment for the Proposed Amendment of the Rule Establishing a Nonessential Experimental Population of the Mexican Wolf in Arizona and New Mexico on Aug. 7 in the Federal Register. Milsap said all comments received from then until the end of the year will be used to prepare a draft proposed rule, a draft Environmental Impact Statement and a Socio-Economic Assessment.

Once drafted, those documents will go through a public review process. A second set of public meetings will then be held in a meeting format in which members of the public may stand and deliver their opinions and views.

Questions should be di-rected to John Slown at (505) 761-4782.