ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Ranchers are asking a U.S. district judge to hold-up what they explain as a prospective mass massacre of as lotsof as 150 “unauthorized” cows on public land in southwestern New Mexico.
Plans by the U.S. Forest Service call for shooting the livestock with high-powered rifles from a helicopter and leaving the carcasses in the Gila Wilderness. Critics state that might outcome in an approximated 65 heaps of dead animals being left in the forest for months upuntil they decay or are consumed by scavengers.
Officials closed a big swath of the forest Monday and were setup to start the shooting operation Thursday. After hearing hours of arguments Wednesday, Judge James Browning stated he would evaluation the case and make a choice priorto the end of the day.
The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association, person ranchers and the Humane Farming Association submitted a grievance in federal court Tuesday, declaring that firm authorities were breaking their own policies and violating their authority.
The grievance states that court intervention is needed to put an instant stop to “this illegal, vicious, and ecologically hazardous action, both now and in the future.”
The ranchers state the company’s existing policies call for shooting the animals as a last resort and might set precedent for how federal authorities manage unbranded animals on uninhabited allocations or offer with other land management disputes throughout the West.
“There’s a extreme risk here, not simply in this specific case and the dreadful results that it will really bare if this is enabled to go forward