Hail the champions!


The State Champion Gallup Lady Bengals hop a ride on top of a fire truck Wednesday as they are honored for their achievement by a parade through downtown Gallup, followed by an autograph session at the city recreation center.

Photo by Jeff Jones



Almost a hundred mailboxes in Gallup were beaten and battered into deformed shapes Tuesday evening. This mailbox at 1105 Piano was one of the victims.

Photo by Craig Robinson

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'Animal Planet' to feature N.M. orphaned bear cubs

Tom Purdom
Staff Writer

GRANTS — New Mexico Department of Game and Fish is going national on Animal Planet's "Wild Rescues" with an innovative in-house program called Operation Bear Den.

The program airs Friday at 7 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on Animal Planet stations across the state.

Tim Baca, the department's video photographer shot all the video for the entire 30-minute segment, and, he is proud of his accomplishments.

It began when Baca filmed a segment on the sludge bear. "We gave Animal Planet some footage a while back about a bear that had fallen into a sludge tank and the department got the bear out," Baca said. "That footage got some national attention."

Animal Planet became interested in what was going on in New Mexico. Besides, black bears were getting attention, lots of it, on television sets and newspapers from one end of America to the other. Several weeks after the sludge bear episode, Animal Planet producers called Baca.

"They asked what we had going on and I told them we had a bear problem, that we were doing a new program to relocate black bears," Baca said.

Baca sent them some footage on what the department was doing in the program named Operation Bear Den and Animal Planet producers liked what they saw.

"They called us back, so we told them about Operation Bear Den," Baca said.

Operation Bear Den started last year with the lack of rain, which translated into a huge lack of acorns in the forests and the lack of a decent wild berry crop, two of the black bear's main diets that allows the animals to put on thick layers of summer fat. The fat is used by the bears during the long winter hibernation.

Black bears didn't read the part of bear manuals about bears and humans not mixing. The animals were simply hungry and they came to town — towns really — all across New Mexico in droves. Some even came into communities in McKinley and Cibola counties. Many adult bears across the state were killed in run-ins with vehicles, some were shot by poachers, some simply starved to death and some had to be destroyed when they became dangerous to humans.

The result ... an unprecedented number of orphaned baby bears.

The problem ... what to do with them.

Orphaned bears were taken to Kathleen Ramsay, a kindly veterinarian department staffers know simply as "Doc" at The Wildlife Center in Espaola.

It was New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Public Affairs Chief Don MacCarter who foresaw a huge problem "bruin" with the babies ... what on earth was going to happen to them as they grew older?

On a trip to The Wildlife Center one day McCarter saw the bear homes, igloo-shaped plastic domes similar to the plastic dog houses sold in pet shops and it suddenly hit him ... why not bulk up the babies with twice the winter weight they would ordinarily have to survive a winter's hibernation, put some of the plastic igloos out into the wild to serve as artificial bear dens and re-introduce the babies into their natural whild home.

Game and Fish officials immediately latched onto the idea as a workable plan, one which was a lot better than the alternative ... an uncertain future. Ramsay in November altered the bears' diet to artificially trigger the hibernation mode.

A plan was put into action and about 30 "sleeping" babies were re-introduced into the wild in the artificial bear dens placed in remote wilderness areas and as each den was filled with the little bears, Baca filmed the segments.

"I kept sending the segments in to Animal Planet and they kept taking the raw footage," Baca said. "Local televisions used some of the footage and NBC sent a film crew to New Mexico to film one of the releases for a short segment on the news."

Baca shot the segments in six days in December, several days in the north part of the state near Tres Piedras and a few days in the in the Gila Mountains just south of McKinley and Cibola counties.

In all, more than 30 bears were re-introduced into the wild in Operation Bear Den.

Of them all, only one bear died in the process, but the rest survived, some of them re-denning and some remaining in their artificial dens. All were equipped with radio transmitters to track their progress.

"Nothing on this scale has been done anywhere else," said Chris Chadwick, a Department of Game and Fish public information officer headquartered in Albuquerque. "It's the largest operation of its kind in the United States."

Baca said film technicians from Animal Planet's "Wild Rescues" pieced the segments together into an interesting show.

Animal Planet sent a copy of the segment to be aired Friday to the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. "It's well worth watching," Chadwick said.

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Ceremonial to ask Diné for use of Olympic site

Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonial Association plans to ask the Navajo Nation for a favor.

At its meeting Wednesday, the association's board wondered if it would be possible for the tribe to allow the Ceremonial to put up the pavilion that the tribe used at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

The pavilion, which included an imitation trading post, cost the tribe more than $1.5 million and was meant to be used as a traveling exhibition when the Olympics were over.

Board member Martin Link said that if the tribe approves, the pavilion would be set up at Red Rock State Park for the next Ceremonial.

In other business, the board had no problem re-electing Louis Bonaguidi as the association's president for another year.

Bonaguidi, who has been given much of the credit for turning the Ceremonial around the past year, has said that while the position is very time-consuming now that there is no full-time director, he was willing to serve another year if no one else wanted it.

He was the only candidate for the position.

The board also elected Mark Gartner as the board's chairman, which is more of an honorary position. Elected vice-president was Angelo DiPaolo, secretary was Dale Dedrick and treasurer Beth Sauter.

The next big event for the board is the annual auction, which is held every year to help raise funds for the association.

That will be held Saturday, April 6 at El Rancho.

Besides auctioning off various items donated to the association by local businesses, the association plans on having Cruz McDaniels, the artist who did this year's poster, there to sign posters.

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Term limits to limit number of candidates

Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — A large number of candidates are expected to file Tuesday for various county offices.

This marks the first time in eight years that no county incumbents will be running because of state term limits.

Local positions that will be up for election this year are county commission (both District 1 and District 2), county assessor, county sheriff and probate judge. Three magistrate judgeships are also on the ballot as are state representative.

Rick Palochak, director of the county election office, said that while the magistrate positions are state, their filing will be in the county. Candidates for state representative will file in Santa Fe, as will candidates for U. S. Representative.

Candidates running for magistrate need to turn in nominating petitions, with 220 needed for Democratic candidates and 32 for Republican candidates.

There are no nominating petitions needed for the county offices but candidates need to pay a $50 fee when they file.

The two county commission positions that will be up for election are those held by Ben Shelly and Earnest Becenti Sr., both of whom are in the last year of their second term. Others who will be out are Richard Bowman as county assessor, Frank
Gonzales as county sheriff and Charles Long Sr. as probate judge.

Candidates can file on Tuesday between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

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Woman seeks help to find stolen camcorder

Andrea Egger
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Linda Lee of Breadsprings wants her $300 camcorder back — or, at least, the money from the "sale."

Lee joked that if the thieves want the camcorder so badly, they should come get the charger and other parts for it. "Leave the money at the police department," she said jokingly Monday, when she sought aid from the Independent in finding the camera.

Her son, Kevin Lee, 15, had the camcorder with him in the bed of the pickup truck driven by his friend, Matthew Lincoln of Breadsprings. They were going to the skateboard park near the Fitness Center around 4 p.m. March 2.

"My son was sitting in the back. It was cold, so then he just jumped in front," Lee said.

But, alas, her son left the camcorder in the pickup's bed.

Then Lincoln picked up three other teens at the park. After these teens left the truck, young Lee noticed the camcorder "took off," too.

A Gallup Police Department report shows the names of the three suspects, but police didn't arrest anyone in the case, described in the report as a felony larceny.

Somehow, Linda Lee believes those three teens gave the camcorder to the driver of a red car at the park. But — she has no proof.

Neither do police, according to the report.

Last week, the mother took a picture of the camcorder to all the local pawn shops, to no avail.

This week, she decided publicizing it in the Independent might help her chances of getting it back. The family had only had the
camcorder for two months.

Kevin Lee wanted to use the camcorder that day at the park, she said. "He was going to make a movie of the skate jumps," his mother said.

Linda Lee asks residents who have any information on the camcorder to call the Gallup Police detectives, 863-9365.

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