Gray Wolf Population Stagnant

The Fish & Wildlife Service just announced that there are only 52 gray wolves in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The endangered gray wolf had been reintroduced into these areas in 1998, and FWS and environmentalists had hoped that by the end of 2006, the wolves would number at least 100.

Instead, wolves have been killed or removed for killing or threatening livestock, or for leaving their narrow reintroduction area, with 19 wolves shot or trapped by Fish and Wildlife in 2007 alone. In 2008, on the other hand, because the government did not kill any wolves, ranchers took the law into their own hands and illegally shot at least 5, which brings the total of wolves illegally shot to 30 since the program began.

As long as federal wildlife policy continues to view wildlife, even endangered animals such as the gray wolf, as being less worthy of protection than the ranchers' profits, wolves will continue to die. The feds need to expand the wolves' area and clamp down on the killings in order to allow this majestic animal to survive.

Albuquerque Pimp pleads guilty; Girlfriend stands by his side

So yesterday in local news, an Albuquerque man plead guilty to pimping out college students from UNM. I don't actually have a problem with sex work per se; where it's legal and regulated, women (or men) can choose, in as much as one chooses to be a prostitute, to work in conditions that are free of violence and disease, as in some European countries and much of Nevada.

But when there's a pimp involved, there's just nothing going on but exploitation. James Bays, who ran a service called Desert Divas, is called by his lawyer a "man with a loving family... a man that's got the potential to do something with his life."

Let's hope the devoted family man chooses for his next career a job that doesn't make money off of young women have sex.