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Impact Report

For plan Range Management for New Mexico (Catron County)
Date October 27, 2011, 7:53 pm
For Objective Medium-term Show medium-term objectives
Impact Report Natural resource management issues tend to dominate the day to day actives. Most of Catron County is public land managed by the US Forest Service or the Bureau of land management. Drought and fire dominated most of the year. A very dry fall, winter spring and early summer led to record wildfires. These wildfires contributed to questions about the land management agencies management of our rangeland resources. A combined effort of the Catron County Commission and the counties natural resource coordinator and the extension office led to the reorganization of the Carton County Land use planning committee. I have been appointed chairman of the committee and I am in the process of reorganizing the committees make up. The purpose of the committee is t get grass roots input from County residents on issues that affect the natural resources of Catron County. The current committee is made up of an overall committee and sub committees such as range, livestock, water, wildlife and mining. The Catron County Acequias Association was formed this year. Owners of water rights associated with acequias came together to form the association. Under New Mexico law this group is recognized as a governing entity. The short term focus of this group is to apply of funding to do ditch improvements from the Arizona water settlements act. Wolves continue to be a problem for county ranchers. Not only do ranches suffer from wolf impacts that are difficult to manage. But the wolves suffer as well. Wolf populations are not growing and many of the environmental groups are requesting that they be given more protections. Any increase in protections for the wolf could further put ranchers at risk financially. Work is ongoing to look at alternative management strategies to deal with wolf livestock conflicts. Do to the drought bears were also a problem this year. Residents were educated about bear behavior and reasons that bears come to homes. Several bears ended up being trapped and relocated by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.