Received an email press release from www.wolfcrossing.org about a poll of New Mexico and Arizona residents. Average people were asked questions about the wolf re-introduction program and how it relates to ranchers and grazing lands. What was notable was that respondents supported both wolf reintroduction efforts and ranchers and their right to make a living.

This conclusion from the press release speaks volumes, not only about the wolf controversy, but it can be applied to just about any agricultural issue in play today:

The vast majority of those polled admitted little to no knowledge of the issue, therefore the uneducated public opinion on Mexican wolves and wolf reintroduction is positive. Despite mass media campaigns by wolf advocates who have been educating the public on wolf management that may or may not be scientifically based for years the public still supports livestock grazing on federally administered lands. Possibly even over wolf recovery even though they also support the idea of wolves on the same landscape. What would happen with a little pro active education on the real wolf story from a ranching perspective?

Emphasis is mine.

Even the pro-wolf groups (Re-Wildling Institute, Arizona Zoological Society, New Mexico Audubon Council, the Southwest Environmental Center) that commissioned the poll could, if they would, admit to “little or no knowledge of the issue.” They know they want wolves and lots of them.

The core of the problems we face stem from (IMHO):

1. Insulation of 99 percent of the public from any type of practical hands-on interaction with nature, farming, livestock or the actual processes that result in food on their table (or handed to them out the drive-through window, depending on their home life). Ironically it’s the efficiency and effectiveness of our capitalistic system in agricultural production, processing and packaging–the easy, inexpensive and constant availability of food–that has led to this insulation.
2. Constant 24/7 shaping of public opinion and conventional wisdom (by news media, movies, TV, etc., with very few exceptions) to a politically correct reality where killing deer for sport and food is evil, where livestock producers are villains who are denying animals their “rights,” and where the only good farmer is one who raises organic veggies and sells them locally. Yes, animals have “rights.” (I guess animals don’t respect one anothers’ rights, because they have a tendency to eat each other on a regular basis.)
3. Extremely poor education in public schools. Oh, the teachers can teach all right, but the curriculum seemingly must include mainly P.C. highpoints in history, “green” emphasis in life sciences, and presentation of nature and animal issues from the conventional wisdom point of view (see 2.).

Now, maybe the east and west coast apartment, condo and liberal enclave dwellers who promote and/or fund programs like wolf reintroduction would change their minds a bit if we insisted that wolves, bears and cougars were reintroduced on, say, Manhattan Island, in central Connecticut or in the Los Angeles basin.

Nah, probably not.

Thanks to some behind-the-scenes work, Texas AgriLife Extension’s 2007 batch of soremouth vaccine produced at the Sonora (Texas) Experiment Station has been approved for distrubution.

I reported in an earlier post (scroll down) last month that the soremouth vaccine would not be released due to failing a dosage safety test in which a couple test animals–guinea pigs–died, but the vaccine has now received the go-ahead from officials, according to word relayed from Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association officers who heard it from AgriLife Extension.
For more information about the vaccine, call the Sonora Station at (325) 387-3168.

The good demand for finer grades of wool the industry has seen the last year and a half or so is likely to continue, along with sustained strong prices, according to Dr. Ron Pope of Producers Marketing Cooperative, Inc. Pope gave a wool and mohair market update at the semi-annual meeting of the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association in Fort Stockton Feb. 16.

The Australian wool market from August 2007 has shown a steady trend upward in prices, “not huge increases but week on week just a substantial gain . . . all the way through January of this year,” Pope said. The climb came after a three month decline in 2007.

Texas had seen “very decent prices” for its spring selling season last year and “then it started tailing off into June.” But the price rebound observed in Australian wool sales should carry over to the spring sales in Texas and elsewhere in the United States, he said.

“It’s good to see these markets rebound and continue to see a good trend and steady growth over a long period,” Pope said.
Currently the Australian market indicator is at U.S.$4.06, per pound, clean.

“This trend that we’re looking at as far as the growth is reflected in the 24 micron and finer wool types, which certainly includes the majority of wool that’s produced here in Texas,” he said. “The 25 to 27 micron range has seen growth or improvement in prices, not quite as proportional as the finer types.”

Wool coarser than 28 microns has seen flat but stable prices for several years. “There’s just not much movement in those prices on those microns,” Pope added.

U.S. Wool producers benefit with the U.S. Dollar weak against the Australian dollar. “ This creates kind of a double or two-fold increase in your prices that you receive – as the market’s moving up and the dollar gets weaker you get the benefit of both of those movements in terms of what you receive from your wool clip.” Pope said.

Only a few early clips had come into the warehouse in mid-February, but Pope said the quality of the clips he’d seen indicated strong wool with good fiber diameter “maybe just a tick coarser” than usual and relatively little vegetable matter or other contamination. Some of the wool he’d seen had shorter than average staple length.

Mohair

After nearly a year and a half of very strong prices on mohair with good clearances, hair prices began sliding a bit in October 2007. Adult mohair was bringing $3 and maybe a little above that through summer and into early October. Then at a sale in Texas a small lot of hair sold for $2.85 and prices dipped, Pope said.

The South African market remains unchanged. “Their currency was stable and yet they were being offered around 15 cents less than what the market should have been. This has continued and now we see recent sales of shorn adult at $2.70,” he said.

Though its too early to get a read on the spring Texas mohair clip, the fall clip here was “surprisingly free of defect,” he said. “It was probably one of the cleanest fall clips most people can remember seeing,” Pope said.

Demand from first stage mohair processors has dropped due larger than usual inventories of adult greasy mohair or top, he said.
“That’s putting a little bit of pressure on this adult market. Whether these inventories will be cleared by the time the spring harvest is over remains to be seen. Again, currency is playing a factor in the mohair market,” he added.

Benny Cox, sheep and goat sale manager at Producers Livestock Auction in San Angelo, on Saturday said that for the most part sheep prices at the auction are good and, while slaughter kid goats are selling on the strong side, other goat prices are mixed. Cox was giving a market report to Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association members at their semi-annual meeting in Fort Stockton Feb. 16.

Shorn ewes are pushed down the alley at Producers Livestock Auction toward the sale floor, September 2007. Photo by Gary Cutrer.

Both slaughter and feeder lamb prices are very strong. However, slaughter ewes and slaughter nannies are selling on the weak side. The Mexican border was shut down for the slaughter ewe trade from August 18 through October 31 and the logjam hurt the price of ewes at Producers, selling point for the majority of slaughter ewes going to Mexico from Del Rio. Fortunately for the market, speculators kept buying and holding the ewes in hopes the border would open up, Cox said.

Also, there doesn’t seem to be as much demand for replacement females — both ewes and nannies — as there has been the past few years. As to why the many replacement ewes and nanny goats that have been offered have not found buyers, he had no explanation. “With all the rain during the growing season, and the relatively good lamb market, as well as kid goat market you’d think there’d be a good demand for these replacement ewes and nannies. That hasn’t happened,” he said.

Marvin Shurley, president of American Meat Goat Association and second vice president of Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association, writes in the coming, March 2008, issue of Ranch & Rural Living about efforts to create an all-encompassing national goat organization. While at the American Sheep Industry Association meeting in Las Vegas in late January, members of the ASI Goat Committee decided that in order for collaboration of efforts between ASI and the goat industry on various projects to occur, there needs to be a central entity, a national spokes-organization for all goat groups.

Kudos to Marvin and other goat industry leaders for recognizing the need, and good luck stitching all the diverse groups together. Of course, AMGA, under Marvin’s leadership, along with other goat organizations including the Dairy Goat Association and several breed registries, attempted the same thing a few years ago in creating the U.S. Goat Council. Marvin writes:

A name, The American Goat Federation (AGF) was chosen for this to-be-formed-entity, replacing the former, U.S. Goat Council, that was chosen back in 1993 when this effort first began.

Fifteen years is long enough for this initiative to have been stuck on high center and those of us present at the meeting feel the U.S. goat industry has matured enough at this time to where we can move forward with AGF formation. We are looking to finally having that “voice” we have been in need of. As current American Meat Goat Association president it is with pride that I say we, the AMGA have been involved with this effort since the concept originated back in 1993 . . .