Damn shame.

Those SOBs in Catron County just don't know when to quit. High Country News today reports on the ranch hand on the Adobe-Slash Ranch in New Mexico who baited Mexican gray wolves with a about-to-birth heifer in order to invoke the three-strikes removal.

On June 21, he branded cattle less than a half-mile from the wolves’ den, the enticing aroma of seared flesh surely reaching the pack’s super-sensitive nostrils. Miller was, in essence, offering up a cow as a sacrifice.

The government’s Mexican gray wolf reintroduction rulebook says that a rancher cannot shoot a wolf simply because she threatens his livestock. But if a single wolf kills three cows or sheep or other domestic animals in a single year, then federal officers may kill or capture the wolf. The wolf Miller had his eye on already had two strikes against her; Miller was hoping for a third.

"We would sacrifice a calf to get a third strike," Miller told High Country News, candidly revealing a tactic that could help ranchers get the upper hand in their protracted, bloody war against the endangered Mexican wolves.

And the blood, Mr. Miller, is on your hands for this alpha-female of a species that millions of Americans care about.

This admission comes on the heels of the disappearance of not one but three collared wolves in their recovery area this week. The NM Cattlegrowers were quick to say they had nothing to do with it.

Wolf-hating. Wolf-baiting. It's a traditional lifestyle.

- Lozen