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Summit Attracts  Hundreds More than 450 students and 50 teachers and parents made the third Wildlife Summit the biggest and best summit yet. They came from all over, including out-of-state. In addition to the "regulars," Wild Friends from California, Florida, Hawaii, and Missouri traveled to the summit. Center for Wildlife Law founder Ruth Musgrave flew in from Washington and teamed up with international wildlife conservationist John Stokes, just back from Brazil, to be the summit’s Masters of Ceremony.

Maxwell the bald eagle stunned everyone with his piercing eye contact and six foot wing span. His handler Jim Finley has his hands full

The summit took place in Albuquerque in mid-November. Albuquerque students from Carlos Rey, Longfellow, and Mountain View, and a home-school group from Jemez Springs, comprised the 150 elementary school students. Two hundred middle school students were from Alameda MS (Santa Fe), Edgewood MS, and Scarracino MS (Socorro). Albuquerque Country Day School, Garfield, Harrison, Jefferson and Polk made up the Albuquerque middle school delegations. Socorro HS, and Bosque Prep, Highland HS, and Rio Grande HS from Albuquerque sent 75 students to the summit. Twenty Wild Friends dancers represented a number of elementary, middle, and home schools.

A standing ovation awaited former Speaker of the House Raymond Sanchez when he presented the framed Wild Friends memorial to a delegation of three students. Little did he know that he was about to receive an award, too. Sanchez was surprised and delighted when the three students thrust a huge teddy bear wearing a Wild Friends T-shirt into the arms of our stalwart supporter.

It was a long-awaited, peak moment when, after two years of collecting signatures, Wild Friends were able to present their whooping crane petitions with more than 5,000 signatures. Sari Gudwin from Alameda MS presented the 3-inch-thick stack of petitions to Agnes Oczon, Director of Communications for Sen. Pete Domenici, who couldn’t be present to receive them in person. The petition asked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s support for efforts to reestablish a whooping crane flock in the Rocky Mountain flyway. Four Polk MS students presented Ms. Oczon with a Wild Friends T-shirt, and Carlos Rey ES gave her a special handmade whooping-crane pin. Norman Farquhar led the line of Longfellow ES students in presenting their original whooping crane posters to Oczon for Sen. Domenici. Summit goers will remember from the April 1998 summit when, in the play "Operation Save the Cranes," Norman was Kent Clegg, the rancher/biologist who made history when he led five whooping cranes behind his ultralight aircraft from his ranch in Idaho to New Mexico’s Bosque del Apache. Kent Clegg himself was there to see the play, and returned again this year to see the presentation of the petitions. "If the whooping crane becomes extinct," said Norman in his presentation, "it will be all of our loss." After the presentation, the audience had a chance to bring up their concerns to Ms. Oczon about other wildlife issues. Many students stepped up to the microphone to ask questions.

The reverse media conference also provided an opportunity for students and teachers to ask questions and make comments about the media’s coverage of wildlife issues, such as endangered species and Rio Grande restoration. KOB-TV’s anchorman Tom Joles was back for another summit to answer questions, along with three newspaper reporters, Tania Soussan of the Albuquerque Journal, Lowry McAllen of the Albuquerque Tribune, and Ben Moffett of the Socorro El Defensor Chieftan. Moderators Tom Rutherford and Jack Pickering helped keep things moving and made sure that every student wanting to ask a question got a chance. Rutherford is a long-time Wild Friends supporter and mentor, as well as a Bernalillo County Commissioner.

The audience was full of VIPs, made more visible by the introductions of School of Law Dean Robert Desiderio.

Live animals were "stars" of the morning and thrilled the audience with their natural talents. Maxwell the Bald Eagle jousted with his handler Jim Finley of Espanola’s Wildlife Center, while Dr. Kathleen Ramsey told the audience about eagles. Next up was Carolyn Newell of Exotics of the Rainforest whose two scarlet macaws were a blaze of color in the UNM Continuing Education auditorium. Carolyn brought an incredible array of animals, including a rare hyacinth macaw, a tarantula, scorpions, and snakes.

A five-month old mountain lion named Moonshadow toured the aisles, purred, rolled, and sniffed the students, thoroughly investigating his surroundings. He’s the brother of Phantom who was the cat’s meoew at the 1998 summit.

It wouldn’t be a summit without the Wild Friends Dancers. This year, they capped the morning with a "glittering" rendition of the plight of endangered fish, the silvery minnow and the Gila trout, dancing to Schubert’s inspiring "Trout Quintet."

After lunch with VIPs, the students attended workshops around the summit theme of "Wildlife and Water." A workshop for high school students tackled the "slippery" issue of "How Can City Folk, Farmers, Fish and Fowl Share Our Rivers?" The students got to ask questions and share opinions with river managers and wildlife conservationists. Wild Friends mentor Mayor Baca talked about the urban point of view and N.M. Rep. Don Tripp (R-Socorro) spoke for the agricultural community. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Michael Gabaldon said, "I believe the river can be shared by these many competing interests." Wildlife advocates were U.S. Fish & Wildlife’s Joy Nicholopoulos, Tim Aydelott of the NM Museum of Natural History, and Steve Harris of Rio Grande Restoration. Other workshops addressed sharing forest streams, beavers’ impacts on the river, and how desert animals adapt to low-water habitats. One workshop was related to the Wild Friends’ 2001 legislative project (see pg. 3). N.M. Game & Fish’s Dan Brooks and U.S. Fish & Wildlife’s Lucinda Shroder talked about poachers, showing poaching artifacts such as a polar bear fur, snake skins, and elk teeth. N.M. Sen. Dede Feldman (D-Albuquerque) and APS Board of Education’s Dolores Herrera role-played with students on how to meet with legislators.

See you at the next summit!

Wild Friend Goes to Game Commission Meeting

Wild Friends Receive Awards 

Wild Friends Work on Anti-Poaching Law
by Carolyn Johnson, Institute of Public Law

It’s a sea of blue shirts and a crisp, fall day at the UNM Sports Complex. Wild Friends are getting ready to speak to the New Mexico Legislature’s Courts and Criminal Justice Committee about passing a very important law. Wild Friends have been studying this law since last year. It’s called the Wildlife Violator Compact.

There are 11 students representing four Albuquerque schools, who are there to participate in the democratic process. They’ve done lots of research and are nervously looking over their notes, and looking at the legislators at the front of the room. Their teachers are there, as is staff from the Center for Wildlife Law and representatives from the N.M. Game & Fish Department.

The Wildlife Violator Compact (WVC) is an agreement (or "compact") among states to keep track of and punish poachers—people who violate the State’s wildlife laws. When one state revokes someone’s hunting or fishing license, other states who sign the agreement will know about it, and can refuse to give that person a license, too.

Lawbreakers who mend their ways can, some day, get their license back. But in the meantime, the WVC provides a united front against poaching. Thus far, 13 states have signed the agreement; and the students are there to talk to the committee about the reasons for New Mexico to join as well.

Why is this important? Many good reasons, according to Wild Friends, who have definitely done their homework.

Evan Moore, a sophomore from Highland High School, tells the committee that where there are poachers, there are often drug dealers, according to information from the New Mexico Game and Fish Department. In the 1980s, Game and Fish noticed that people arrested for drug crimes in Rio Arriba County often had hundreds of poached animals in their possession. Crystal Carmichael from Albuquerque High agrees. "We’ll be kicking out poachers from New Mexico," she suggests.

A student from Rio Grande High, Edgar Luna, points out that there is money to be made from poaching animals and selling them to be stuffed or have their body parts used. "Bears are poached for their claws and gallbladders," he says. Highland High student Danielle Gerhardt adds that "even though we can synthesize the chemical substance in gallbladders and there is no need."

Laura Finley from Jefferson Middle School warns the committee, "If we don’t pass the Wildlife Violator Compact, soon there will be an abundance of poachers in our state." This theme was echoed by many of the students, afraid that New Mexico could become a haven for lawbreakers kicked out of their own states for hunting and fishing violations. "Wildlife laws are vital to ecological resources of each state," says Rio Grande High student Leila Salim," and New Mexico will no longer be a place for poachers to run to."

Tino Amparan from Highland High School noted some interesting math. "The country’s 17 million hunters outnumber wildlife conservation officers 9,000 to one." His point was well taken by the committee: We need all the help we can get.

The legislators ask the Game and Fish officers questions: How much will it cost to join the compact? How does it actually work when someone whose license has been suspended in one state tries to apply for a license in another?

The legislators want to make sure that if New Mexico joins the compact, New Mexico’s laws will remain in effect (they will) and New Mexicans will not have to follow the different laws of other states (we won’t).

The members of the committee thank the Wild Friends for coming to talk about the issue. Representatives David Pederson and Mimi Stewart recognize some of the student "old timers." Rep. Stewart says some have been involved with Wild Friends as long as she has—six years!

Senator McSorley thanks them for their presentations. "You give us the kind of information that helps us make intelligent decisions," he says, "and you have an effect on legislators." Rep. Miera tells them, "You have us thinking." Rep. Pederson reminds everyone, "This is the way government is supposed to work. Every citizen gets to tell the government what they think."

Rep. Pederson closes the meeting by speaking directly to the Wild Friends. "I expect to see some of you sitting over here in the legislature some day," he says, "making changes." Then legislators come over and shake hands with the students, and have their pictures taken, which seems to please everyone.

Editor’s note: Carolyn Johnson, Wild Friends reporter, went to the hearings and files this report.

 Hearty thanks... to the 450 Wild Friends students, teachers, parents, and ...

...and to everyone else who contributed their time, expertise, and energy to make the Wildlife Summit an incredible experience for all of us.

Thanks to our sponsors: Bureau of Reclamation, Deer Creek Foundation, New Mexico State Legislature, PNM Foundation, and the UNM Law School.

We welcome new groups of Wild Friends from all over the state. Call 505/277-5089 or e-mail us if you are interested!
Newsletter Staff: Carolyn Byers, Judy Flynn-O'Brien, Carolyn Johnson, Kathy Grassel

The University of New Mexico
Center for Wildlife Law
School of Law, INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC LAW
1117 Stanford NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1446