Reserve, New Mexico — May 21, 2025 — Catron County is facing a growing crisis as Mexican wolf encounters with both people and livestock continue to escalate, raising serious public safety concerns. From January through April 2025, Wildlife Services confirmed 56 Mexican wolf livestock kills in New Mexico, with an additional nine listed as probable—representing over 60 percent of the total confirmed and probable kills reported during all of 2024.

“Livestock depredations alone are a crisis for Catron County,” said District 1 Commissioner Buster Green. “But now we also have a public safety disaster. Just last week, while my family and I were eating dinner, a Mexican wolf went after our pet dog in our front yard. If we hadn’t been inside, it could have gone after my young daughters.”

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Photos by Mary Alice Murphy of the hosts, guests, donors and awardees at the30something gathering at Bear Mountain Lodge on Sunday afternoon May 18,2025.

the30something 2025 Award Winners

 Over the weekend, the30something, a donor advisory group founded by Janey Katz in 2019, presented four $30,000 awards to local non-profits. These awards were made possible by our generous members, pooling their $1000 individual donations into $30,000 awards, creating a monetary sum that has greater impact in our community. The four winners are as follows:

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By Lynn Janes

(Author's Note. Generally, this writer likes to highlight the positive events in council and board meetings when possible but this time she felt this problem needed to be noticed. Many very positive things happened in this meeting.)

The town of Bayard held a special meeting April 23, 2025. Attendance included Mayor John L. Ojinaga, Mayor Pro Tem Eloy Medina and Councilors, Frances Gonzales, Eloy Gonzales and Gilbert Ortiz. Martha Salas, city clerk, also attended.

Police Chief Hector Carrillo wanted to give a little breakdown of what had transpired before Robert Whitaker, Gila Regional Medical Center (GRMC) spoke. Three years earlier Bayard had approached GRMC about obtaining an ambulance. The reason had been to have a crime scene unit. The crime scene unit will be used for search warrants, burglaries, unattended deaths, etc. It allows them to have everything they need at the scene instead of having to go back and forth to the office. After Whitaker came, he helped them obtain that request.

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Friday, May 16, 2025 I Sixth Judicial District Attorney Norman R. Wheeler announced today that John Elizalde was held without bond in a Pre-Trial Detention hearing for charges of Aggravated Assault with Deadly Weapon, through an act of arson. Sixth Judicial District Trial Attorney Mark Abramson was the prosecutor at the hearing in the Grant County District Courthouse, Silver City, New Mexico. Elizalde will be held until trial.

On April 11, 2025, Elizalde set a brush fire near the Montgomery residence on the adjacent vacant lot. The fire grew into a much larger blaze, which could have caused serious injury or death. The fire spread, burning the Montgomery property's rose bushes and coming very close to the carport attached to the house, threatening to catch the house on fire.

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By Roger Lanse

Original:

According to the Pinos Altos Volunteer Fire Department, they were paged out to a manufactured home fire at Highway 15 near Sanctuary Road at 8:52 a.m., this morning, May 16, 2025.

Also responding are the Tyrone and Whiskey Creek VFDs, the Silver City Fire Department, and the Grant County Fire Management Office. The fire is being worked at this time – 9:45 a.m., and what was originally reported as black smoke is now white.

Additional information will be coming as the Beat receives it.

The Grant County Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Forest Service also responded to this structure fire. The New Mexico Fire Marshal's Office is handling the investigation into the cause of the blaze.

All together, approximately 40 fire-fighting personnel were on scene from the various agencies, along with several engines, water tenders, brush trucks, and command vehicles.

The mobile home appeared to be a total loss.

Investigation is continuing.
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According to Silver City Fire Department Battalion Chief Nathan Schwartz, there was one fatality, a female, in the structure fire.

SCFD arrived at the scene at 9:04 a.m. to a structure fire which had morphed into a small brush fire. They left the scene, Schwarz said, at 1:52 p.m.

Investigation of the incident continues.

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Grant County Sheriff's Office staff told the Beat on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, that the body of a female discovered in the single-wide mobile home that was destroyed by fire on Highway 15 near Sanctuary Road on Friday, May 16, has been taken to the Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque. GCSO has not yet received word of identification of the body.

GCSO originally was told there might have been a second body, but no other than the female was found.

Smoking, fireworks, campfires, open burning, open fires are prohibi

tedSANTA FE – Today the Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Forestry Division, under the direction of State Forester Laura McCarthy, will enact fire restrictions in the following counties: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, Cibola, De Baca, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Hidalgo, Lea, Lincoln, Luna, Otero, Roosevelt, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance, and Valencia. They will remain in effect until rescinded. 

The restrictions come as a response to the increasingly dry and warm conditions in southern New Mexico -- conditions heightened by low humidity, high winds and the abundance of dry fine fuels across our forests and grasslands. With wildfire danger at extremely high levels, the State Forester has placed the following restrictions on non-municipal, non-federal, and non-Tribal lands in Catron, Chaves, Cibola, De Baca, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Hidalgo, Lea, Lincoln, Luna, Otero, Roosevelt, Sierra, Socorro, Torrence, and Valencia counties:

Prohibited

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