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Endangered Species Plan
Common Ground on
Animal Cruelty Law
Pen-Pal Network
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On October 21, 1998 Wild
Friends inaugurated the first statewide celebration of Whooping Crane Day, which featured
two major events and many local actions. This day was chosen by Wild Friends students who
wrote House Joint Memorial 12 in 1997. Santa Fe, NM - In front of the state capitol, 26 students from Alameda
Junior High School wearing turquoise Wild Friends t-shirts gathered around their 5-foot
papier mache crane standing inside a circle of 1000 folded origami cranes. The crane was
created by students Forrest Brennan, Luke Cate, Tyson Hatch, Randy Raffensparger and Gavin
Wright. Three Wild Friends dancers in Whooping Crane dance costumes traveled from
Albuquerque to join them. Students also carried a beautiful 6-foot Whooping Crane Day
banner.
Jerry Marrachini, director of New Mexico Game and Fish read
the Governor’s official proclamation of State Whooping Crane Day. Alameda speakers
were Noa Flynn, Anna Folks and Isabel Shanahan, and Lilly Voza spoke on behalf of the Wild
Friends Dance Troupe. Everyone shook hands with and thanked State Senator Ben Altamirano
and Representative Max Coll and staff members of the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC).
In a remarkable 12-foot tall costume, John McLeod of All Species Project performed an
inspiring "whooping crane dance" while Nelson Denman played haunting cello
music. Other guests included Assistant State Land Commissioner Ed Moreno, LFC and New
Mexico Game and Fish staff who helped coordinate Whooping Crane Day activities, and Game
and Fish Commissioner Steve Padilla.Following the outdoor event, students entered the
Capitol and found their way to the hushed quarters of the Legislative Finance Committee
Hearing. This is the committee that makes all of decisions about money for schools and
teacher salaries, and sets the budgets for the Wild Friends Program and the NM Game and
Fish Department. The Wild Friends were introduced and one student spoke on their behalf.
Albuquerque, NM -
It was a windy, wet and wild whooping crane kind of afternoon in Albuquerque. Although
they had planned to celebrate outdoors at the Civic Plaza, participants had to race for
shelter into a large room of the Convention Center. Wild Friends students from five
schools gathered around the podium graced by Mayor Jim Baca and a striking metal sculpture
of a whooping crane. The students were encircled by a crowd of parents and other wildlife
supporters. Jefferson Middle School Wild Friends brought giant origami paper cranes they
had created.
Albuquerque Mayor Jim Baca, Wild Friends mentor, read a city
proclamation declaring this first official Albuquerque Whooping Crane Day. Wild Friends
students attending the ceremony were from Alameda Elementary School; Garfield, Jefferson
and Polk Middle Schools, and Bernalillo High School. Long-time Wild Friends Crystal
Carmichael, now at Albuquerque High School, and Adrian Madrid, now at Bernalillo High
School, helped behind the scenes.
Students from Alameda Elementary School performed Operation
Save the Cranes, an original play about Kent Clegg, a rancher/biologist who led a
small group of whooping cranes by ultralight aircraft from Idaho to New Mexico’s
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Carolyn Lopez narrated and Amber Smith played
the role of Kent Clegg in a life and death tale of the hatching of four endangered
Whooping crane eggs and the thrilling 800-mile flight to New Mexico. Student director
Travis Leigh had multiple roles and Chesea Patterson and Jo-Jo Griegos were eagles.
Teacher Naomi Julian and parent Karen Moses Altmans helped produce the play, and parents
provided support and transportation. The play’s witty dialogue, colorful costumes,
great mural and wonderful props were a hit with the audience.
Dr. Jim Lewis, a member of Kent Clegg’s crew and the
head of the ultralight research project, gave a report about where the whooping crane
chicks were on this day. Led by mentor Jack Pickering and student spokesperson Michael
Maldonado, Wild Friends students from Polk Middle School asked questions about the Rio
Grande flyway to Steve Chambers, Endangered Species Whooping Crane Program Chief, U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service. Bernalillo County Commission Chair Tom Rutherford, spoke
briefly.
Other distinguished guests included Director Ray Darnell and
Assistant Director Kent Newton from the Albuquerque Zoological Park; Al Rothanbargar from
Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education; Carolyn Mauro from Exotics of the Rain
Forest; and Public Information Officer Jerry Tuttle from Albuquerque Animal Services.
Other NM Celebrations - Veteran Wild
Friends teacher Kelly Weber and her students from Moriarty Middle School traveled to the
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, where they met a new Wild Friends group from
Bernalillo High School and their teacher Steve Williams. The Refuge Visitors Center
featured a display of the Wild Friends House Joint Memorial 12 creating Whooping Crane Day
and other materials. After spending the day at the refuge, the Bernalillo students
attended the Albuquerque celebration on their way home.
Belen High School students planned radio announcements and
school and community outreach. At Zuni Elementary School in Albuquerque, teacher Deborah
Festa-Doxtator’s new Wild Friends students presented three costumed shows dramatizing
the plight of the cranes featuring factual information about whooping cranes to combined
classes of younger students.
Wild Friends work hard at raising public awareness about
our New Mexico wildlife. Watch for us again next year!
Operation Save The Crane Photo Gallery
Student Productions
Bravo for the inspiring and humorous play, "Operation
Save the Cranes" presented by Naomi Julian's students at Alameda Elementary School.
The ultralight aircraft props, animal costumes and colorful backdrop, along with the
telling of Kent Clegg's story delighted everyone. The Wild Friends Dancers in spotted
costumes and green eye makeup, directed by Lorin Saint Morgan of Dance Alegre, Inc.,
elegantly portrayed jaguars in their "Eyes of Fire" dance. Their presentation
enlightened the audience about the discovery of jaguars in our state thought to have been
extinct. Puppets with a distinctive Pueblo design and a script which included Tewa
language and flute music animated "The Fish Story." Charmane Shitiva from Isleta
Elementary School produced this story.
US Forest Service Plan Would Protect Habitat
of Endangered Species in New Mexico
by Jack Pickering
Wild Friends have a chance to support U.S. Forest Rangers in
protecting streams in New Mexico where some endangered species live: Apache and Gila Trout
and four other fish; a lovely bird called Southwestern Willow Flycatcher (lives on banks).
The Forest Service is considering adopting a plan that would protect stream water and
banks in several ways. First, the plan would stop dumping of trash, also unlawful taking
of water, gravel, or soil. Second, the plan would restrict recreational activities such as
riding in off-road vehicles. Third, the plan would limit grazing and watering of livestock
on leased land.
The U.S. Forest Service wants to hear from as many citizens as
possible. All Wild Friends teachers have copies of the plan (called an Environmental
Impact Statement). You can write to Art Briggs before DECEMBER 1 and tell him how you like
the plan on pages 8-9 of the report.
Art Briggs, Director, USDA Ecosystem Analysis and Planning,
Watershed and Air Management, 417 Gold Avenue SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102.
Discussion question: Do you think driving
off-road vehicles, mining, dredging, and other activities are needed on all streams? Why
or why not? Are there enough other places for these activities?
Discussion question: Why do some ranchers
protect streams from cattle grazing with fences and use tanks for watering cattle? Can
they get help with buying and building fences? Why do some ranches prefer other ways to
feed and water their livestock?
National Geographic Pen-Pal Network
Want to make a new wildlife friend in another state or country?
The National Geographic Society has started a Pen Pal Network. To join, write to National
Geographic Society, Dept. GeoMail — OL, P.O. Box 96088, Washington, D.C. 20090-6088.
They will send you a form to fill out. After you join, you will receive names and
addresses of three pen pals selected according to your age and interests; tips on letter
writing; ideas for decorating your writing paper; and a map to help you locate the homes
of your new pen pals.
What's Next?
Finding Common Ground
For any legislative action project chosen, Wild
Friends recognize people have different points of view on wildlife issues. Wild Friends
work to identify, analyze and discuss multiple points of view.
Common ground goals are to:
- understand how people, environment, and animals interact;
- identify different ideas people have about and values they
place on wildlife, which lead people to have different solutions to issues.
Over the past, Wild Friends have learned about poaching, old
growth forests and habitat issues; endangered species such as whooping cranes, jaguars,
Mexican gray wolves, bats, ridge-nosed rattlesnakes, and Gila trout. Since 1991, Wild
Friends have written four memorials and one bill. In two months we hope to focus on a new
piece of legislation.
One bill that is being proposed for the upcoming session would raise penalties
for cruelty to animals. It would make some kinds of animal cruelty a felony instead of a
misdemeanor. The bill is being proposed by Ray Powell, the State Land Commissioner and a
Wild Friends mentor. He has provided Wild Friends with information about his bill, which
would change three sections of current New Mexico law.
Under New Mexico law, animal cruelty is broadly defined to cover
wildlife. The cruelty statute along with the game and fish laws are necessary to protect
wild animals completely. At the national and international levels, both the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species, called CITES, and the federal Endangered
Species Act contain prohibitions for cruelty to wildlife. (CITES is an international
treaty that was signed by 80 countries to help conserve wild fauna and flora of the
world.)
Ray Powell said the purpose of his animal cruelty bill is two
fold: one, to protect animals from cruel treatment, and two, to intervene in the lives
of people who display this kind of behavior before they begin to victimize other human
beings."
Two doctors did an important
study of violent and non-violent criminals in two U.S. Penitentiaries (Danbury, CT and
Leavenworth, KS). Their study was published in the Bulletin of the American Academy of
Psychiatry and the Law. The researchers wrote that "a clear relationship was
found between early substantial [animal] abuse and recurrent violence against
people." Many prisoners in the study reported that when they were young they had been
cruel to wild animals, as well as to pets and livestock.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Do you believe there is a link between cruelty to animals and violence to humans? Have you
ever heard any stories about friends who abused wild or domestic animals? Did they do it
alone or as part of a group? Did they do other kinds of violence? What do you think about
the following true examples: (In your discussions, try to remember that our Wild
Friends’ focus is wildlife.)
- A student in another state who liked to use his gun to
randomly kill birds later shot and killed several people at his school.
- A man was put in jail for public intoxication and
charges related to drug abuse. He had a reputation for fighting other adults. As a youth,
he had frequently fought with peers and he was expelled from school. Besides fighting at
school, he broke windows, and destroyed an old barn. From ages 10 to 18, he caught fish
for the specific purpose of beating them, and he exploded frogs with firecrackers for
"thrills."
- Albuquerque Open Space rangers reported numerous animal
poisonings in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains and in the Cibola National Forest.
Several dogs died from eating the poisoned meat, but rangers believe the area’s
wildlife also was affected although they had no way to measure to what extent.
Are you interested in this
subject? Would you like to study this issue in your Wild Friends group? Could you come up
with a list of things students can do in our schools and communities to stop cruelty and
violence? If you think there is a link between violence to animals and people, what do you
think can be done about it? If you were to write legislation about this issue, what would
you want your legislation to do? Can you identify some of the different points of view
people may have and their reasons for these beliefs?
We do not know of any other
proposed bills at this time. Do you have any suggestions for other subjects for our
legislative study? This newsletter also includes other issues that affect wildlife, which
may give you some ideas.
Thanks a million to
....
| Thank You Wild Friends Teachers! Rolene Barnett, Jefferson Middle School
Cathy Dahl-Bredine, Guadalupe Montessori School
Don Doherty and Diane Dykeson, Polk Middle School
Deborah Festa-Doxtator, Zuni Elementary School
Denise Jackson, Belen High School
Naomi Julian, Alameda Elementary School
Nick LaRue, Garfield Middle School
Debra Loftin, Bosque Preparatory School
Linda Marple, Alameda Junior High School
Lauren Ortiz, Truman Middle School
Lorin Saint, Director, Wild Friends Dance Troupe
Donna Schmitt, Capital High School
Kelly Weber, Moriarty Middle School
Steve Williams, Bernalillo High School
John Wright, Rio Grande High School
All the Wild Friends Parents
AND to Jack Pickering, Wild Friends Mentor |
Thank You
Speakers/Performers!Santa Fe:
Jerry Marrachini, New Mexico Game and Fish Director
Ben Altamirano, State Senator
Max Coll. State Representative
John McLeod and Nelson Denman, All Species Project
Albuquerque:
Jim Baca, Mayor of Albuquerque
Jim Lewis, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (retired)
Tom Rutherford, Bernalillo County Commission Chair
Steve Chambers, USFWS E.S. Whooping Crane Chief |
Thank You for Your Support!
Legislative Finance Committee Members
David Abbey and staff, Legislative Finance Committee
Larry Bell, Game & Fish Asst. Director
Eddie Bennett, Game & Fish Conservation Edu, Coor.
Ada Blair and staff, State Legislature
Pat Block, Game & Fish Budget Director
Scott Brown, Game & Fish Asst. Director
Sheryl Carnegie, Bosque del Apache NWR Media Coor.
Ray Darnell, Albuquerque Biological Park Director
The Deer Creek Foundation
Marty Frentzel, New Mexico Wildlife Editor
The Frost Foundation. Ltd.
Dean Hanson, Albuquerque Journal Photographer
O.K. Harris and staff, Art is O.K. Gallery
Julie Hicks and staff, Albuquerque Mayor’s Office
Floyd Lopez, Legislative Analyst
Eluid Martinez, Bureau of Reclamation
Carolyn Mauro, Exotics of the Rainforest
Ed Moreno, Asst. State Land Commissioner
Kent Newton, Albuquerque Biological Park Asst. Director
Phil Norton, Bosque del Apache NWR Manager
Steve Padilla, Game & Fish Commissioner
Daniel Perry, Bosque del Apache Biologist
Bill Rothanbargar, APS Board of Education Member
Roberta Salazar-Henry, Game & Fish Asst. Director
Raymond Sanchez, NM Speaker of the House
Hans Stewart, USFWS Public Information Specialist
Abe Torres, Civic Plaza Coordinator
Jerry Tuttle, Animal Services Public Information Officer
Abel Uribe, The New Mexican Photographer
Chris Wells, All Species Project Director
We welcome
new groups of Wild Friends from all over the state. Call 505/277-5089 or e-mail us if you are interested!
The University of New Mexico
Center for Wildlife Law
School of Law, INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC LAW
1117 Stanford NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1446 |
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