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Center for Biological Diversity supports plans to kill feral cattle

An estimated 150 unbranded feral bulls and cows roam the new Sand to Snow National Monument near Palm Springs, Calif. Federal wildlife officials plan to gun down feral cattle on the Gila National Forest along the Arizona-New Mexico border.
Clinton Christensen/Courtesy of the White Water Preserve
An estimated 150 unbranded feral bulls and cows roam the new Sand to Snow National Monument near Palm Springs, Calif. Federal wildlife officials plan to gun down feral cattle on the Gila National Forest along the Arizona-New Mexico border.

An environmental group is supporting a U.S. Forest Service plan to put a dent in the feral cattle population on national forest land near the New Mexico-Arizona border.

The Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement Monday that it “commends” the federal agency for trying to remove unowned, feral cows that can threaten sensitive habitat along streams and wetlands in the Gila Wilderness.

The plan calls for wildlife agents to shoot down unbranded livestock from helicopters. The Center says unowned feral cows are “dangerous and destructive.”

Ranchers are concerned about the ability of the wildlife agents to distinguish branded from unbranded livestock.