Agency to help with wolf-related livestock losses

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - The New Mexico Farm Service Agency says federal help is now available to ranchers who have suffered livestock losses resulting from wolf depredation.

The agency's executive director, Salomon Ramirez, says wolf depredation has been determined to be an eligible loss under the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees and Farm-raised Fish program. The loss must have occurred after Jan. 1, 2008.

Under the program, the agency can spend up to $50 million per year nationwide to provide relief for losses due to feed or water shortages, weather or other conditions and now wolf depredations.

The Mexican gray wolf is a subspecies of the gray wolf. It was exterminated in the wild by the 1930s, but the government began reintroducing wolves in 1998 along the Arizona-New Mexico line.