What Big Teeth You Have, Mayor Baca

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 1, 1999 | by John Elvin

The mayor of Albuquerque apparently has cast his lot with brother lupus, in the context of Ralph Waldo Emerson's observation that one can run with the sheep or run with the wolves. Mayor Jim Baca declared the week of Jan. 10 to be "Wolf Week" in his city, coincident with the annual convention of the Farm Bureau Federation of America being held there.

"I'm not surprised," a federation official tells Insight, regarding the mayor's declaration. Further questions were referred to an apparently harried public-relations exec who had not called back at press time.

The mayor's peculiar welcome to a major convention raises serious questions because of recent threats to the Farm Bureau -- as reported recently in Insight (see "Waging War Over Wolves," Environment, Jan. 11-18) -- related to its lawsuit to oust government-imported wolves from an area of Yellowstone National Park. At last report, the federation had received at least eight bomb threats at its Chicago headquarters attributed to "animal-rights" or other activists who may have been involved in arson and other ecoterror tactics.

While the mayor's proclamation is a passive gesture, the federation's opponents announced additional headaches for the conventioneers. The Defenders of Wildlife and other groups said they would bring live wolves to Albuquerque to protest the Farm Bureau lawsuit and other efforts to block wolf reintroduction.