1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

I am writing as a Texas constituent to strongly oppose efforts by the Trump administration to weaken federal protections for gray wolves and Mexican gray wolves or make it easier to kill them. I was particularly disturbed by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’s claim that because Mexican gray wolves are endangered, ranchers cannot shoot them and instead must “sit and watch them destroy their herd.” That presents a false choice between helplessly doing nothing and killing an endangered predator. Livestock losses to predators are real, and ranchers deserve effective assistance and fair compensation for verified losses. But we already have an entire range of tools for preventing wolf-livestock conflicts: livestock guardian dogs, range riders, fladry and electric fencing, hazing and other deterrents, carcass removal, changes in livestock management, and targeted intervention when necessary. These measures do not have to deter a wolf forever to work. Keeping wolves away during a vulnerable period, disrupting repeated livestock predation, or simply making livestock a less attractive food source so wolves return to hunting wild prey can prevent losses. Strategies can be combined and changed as wolves adapt. Mexican gray wolves are not invasive animals. They are native to the American Southwest and were deliberately eliminated from much of their historical range by humans. They remain one of North America’s rarest native canids. Wolves also serve an important ecological role as apex predators, influencing prey populations and behavior and affecting ecological communities in ways we are still learning to understand. As a Texan, I would go further: Mexican gray wolves historically lived in Texas, and I believe Texas should eventually participate in serious discussions about restoring them to suitable portions of their former range. Their human-caused disappearance from our state should not automatically be accepted as permanent. I am not arguing that a person should be powerless during an immediate attack on livestock or a companion animal. I am arguing for proportionality. Protecting an animal during an immediate threat is fundamentally different from broadly weakening protections for an endangered species. The federal government has wildlife biologists, agricultural specialists, veterinarians, conservation programs, compensation programs, and decades of knowledge about predator-livestock conflict. We should use that expertise to help ranchers coexist with native predators—not make endangered wolves easier to kill. Please oppose efforts to weaken protections for the Mexican gray wolf or broadly expand lethal take, and support investment in nonlethal deterrence, coexistence programs, and fair compensation for legitimate livestock losses. Ranchers deserve practical solutions. Mexican gray wolves deserve to survive. Those goals are not mutually exclusive.