New Mexico Governor Fires Wildlife Commissioner After Leaked Emails Between Her and Anti-Wolfers
The decision to remove Sabrina Pack came the day after emails were published revealing her private communications with ranchers around Mexican wolves
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham fired state wildlife commissioner Sabrina Pack Wednesday for Pack’s alleged conflict of interest around Mexican wolves and wolf management, according to the Albuquerque Journal. Grisham’s decision came just one day after a public records request was published, revealing that Peck had been privately communicating with the head of a cattlegrower’s association and a county commissioner regarding a strategic marketing plan around Mexican wolves.
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Grisham’s spokesperson told the Journal that the decision to remove Pack from her seat was due to Pack’s “failure to disclose her conflict of interest as well as her failure to recuse herself from pertinent votes.” In New Mexico, the governor has the power to appoint and remove members of the Game Commission at will. And while the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish doesn’t directly manage or set policy for Mexican wolves, it is an advisory member of the Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team, a collaborative group that monitors lobo populations and works to limit interactions between wolves and livestock.
Pack, who was appointed by Grisham in March 2024, is described on the New Mexico Game & Fish website as a “lifelong resident of Grant County, with ties to ranching in the area and a passion for the outdoors as wildlife.” She is also “a marketing professional,” according to the website, who “serves as the Chief Operating Officer at SkyWest Media.”
The public records request released Tuesday, which was filed by the Western Watersheds Project, contained a series of emails between Pack, president-elect of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association Tom Paterson, and Catron County Commissioner Audrey McQueen.
Those emails showed that Pack, in her role at SkyWest, was working on and revising a marketing plan with Paterson and McQueen that was aimed at shifting public sentiment and conversations around wolf management in New Mexico. This included a coordinated media campaign that was meant to “elevate the voices of rural New Mexicans and others living with the consequences of federal wolf management, shifting public awareness and driving more balanced policy conversations across state and national audiences,” according to one email that included an executive summary of the strategic marketing plan, Wolves Among Us.
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