WILD BILL
The Greatest Hunting Controversy of Them All
By Bill Schneider, 11-23-06
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| Yellowstone Wolf in snow. Courtesy the U.S. National Park Service. | |
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I’ve been writing about wildlife and conservation for 34 years, and one thing I’ve learned is that if you want controversy, write about wolves or hunting. Now, I’m wondering what would happen if I wrote about both at the same time.
Hunting is engrained in the culture of the New West, but demographics are gradually changing with new folks moving in every day from urban America where hunting may not be so engrained into their lifestyle. Still, I feel safe in saying that the majority of NewWesties accept hunting as a legitimate form of outdoor recreation instead of viewing it as legalized murdering of innocent animals.
But will the majority accept wolf hunting? It won’t be too long before we have to answer this question.
As you read this, at dusk in our general big game hunting seasons, the option of making the wolf a trophy big game animal is buried in the management plans, formal and informal, written by the Idaho, Montana and Wyoming wildlife agencies.
Wolf hunting is not a frontline issue, yet, because we have a few hurdles to jump first, not the least of which waiting for Wyoming to cave in on its extreme position on managing wolves. The Cowboy State wants the authority to kill wolves anyhow, anywhere outside of the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. This extreme position is out of touch with biology and political reality and has prevented the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from approving Wyoming’s management plan as the federal agency has in Idaho and Montana.
Wyoming is also holding up progress in delisting the wolf from the Endangered Species Act, which is the last big official hurdle to jump before we get to have a big fight over wolf hunting. Idaho and Montana want the wolf delisted on a state by state basis instead of waiting for Wyoming to recognize reality, but the FWS prefers to address the entire tri-state population at the same time.
All this haggling among agencies means any formal proposal to make the wolf a big game animal is probably at least a year away, if not several years. But there’s no doubt that it’s coming, probably minutes after all three states finally get complete control of wolf management from the federal government. If I worked for a state travel agency, I’d have plans on the shelf for dealing with a national tourism boycott.
To me, the wolf seems like an agent of change. I lost a big bet on the wolf when I underestimated the green power behind the proposal to bring wolves back to central Idaho and Yellowstone. I bet against it because I thought the wolf represented such a powerful cultural change in the West that it couldn’t come back. I was sure wrong about who had the power, the aggies or greens.
The wolf restoration project proved we could go back and correct past mistakes, even when faced with intense political resistance. Bringing the wolf back was like bringing the wild back into the West.
Now, the symbol of change, Canis lupis, is back in full force. Back in January 1995, 14 gray wolves rode in boxes on trailers down from Canada through the Theodore Roosevelt Arch and into fenced pens up in Crystal Creek in the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone Park. Two months later, wildlife officers left the gates open one day and three packs of wolves burst out into the virgin territory of Yellowstone to launch a sea change in western culture.
Over in central Idaho, the same thing happened. Although lost in the fanfare of the Yellowstone wolves, even more Canadian wolves, 35 in total, were released in central Idaho.
Now, a decade later, we have at least 1,000 wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. That means we’re close to the total number of wolves that will ever be allowed to exist in the New West.
If we aren’t quite at the total, we soon will be because wolves aren’t like grizzly bears, which have close to the lowest reproductive rate of any mammal. Wolves, on the other hand, when in good habitat with an adequate prey base, reproduce like rabbits.
With so many wolves, two things are certain. First, wolves will persist in eating a lot of elk and deer and a few cows, sheep and domestic dogs, much to the disdain of ranchers and some big game hunters and outfitters, keeping an age-old conflict alive.
And second, we will have to decide how to control wolf numbers. If we don’t have active control, those 1,000 wolves will become 10,000 wolves in a few years, and we’ll have the Big Dog everywhere -- Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, eastern Colorado, Black Hills, anywhere with adequate prey, wild or domestic.
Allowing the wolf to reclaim its entire native habitat won’t fly with the majority, so we will need control. We will have to kill wolves to save wolves. But how?
Right now, we have limited control through management actions i.e. professional biologists trapping or shooting wolves that have lost their way and acquired a taste for lamb chops. But this option, although perhaps most palatable to wolf lovers, is expensive and only targets the bad actors while ignoring the most of the population out there eating natural prey and making lots of baby wolves.
I suspect all other options will be less palatable. We could hire professionals to shoot, trap or poison wolves, a quasi-resurgence of the old ways, maybe even bring back the crusty “wolfers” of western lore. They could bring back the wire “loop” used to drag wolf puppies out of dens so their heads could be bashed in and piled up for bounty payments.
Or we could see the wolf in the same light as bighorn sheep or mountain goat, a trophy animal, and sell a limited number of permits each year to control the population. Think about it.
There you go. You heard it here first, and it will be interested to see what we decide.
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Comments
The powerful ag community rejected that option because it would have meant that the wolf would be managed by Wyoming Game and Fish, not the Wyoming Department of Agriculture.
That is the reason delisting the wolf in Wyoming is hungup, and will remain hungup, because Interior lawyers clearly understand they would lose should Interior approve the Wyoming plan and the resultant case ever go to federal court.
The Wyoming Legislature is firmly in favor of predator status for the wolf in most of the state, because so many legislators are either members of the ag community or beholden to it. As for the governor, his support of predator status gives him a great deal of political protection in the ag community.
Thanks for putting the two issues together; you're never one to avoid controversy.
A couple of points:
1. Brodie says trophy game status for wolves statewide would mean that G&F;would manage wolves, instead of Ag, and that's why Ag refuses to back off the dual status plan. That misses the point that Ag and the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association already own the Wyoming G&F;Department, lock, stock and barrel, and pretty much would control wolf management to their satisfaction even if wolves were legally trophy game statewide. There are other factors at play in Wyoming's obstinence on dual status, but I've discussed that on Ralph Maughan's site and won't repeat myself here. In any case, because of that little political fact, I have decided to advocate that the G&F;Commission and Department be abolished and its personnel and assets be transferred to the Wyo. Department of Agriculture as the Game Ranching Division. That would be a more honest state of affairs, and certainly more accurate. You heard it here on New West first, folks.
2. I hope your claim that wolves would reach 10,000 in the Greater Yellowstone without any control was a deliberate exageration. Ecologically, it's nonsense. That would be twice the number of wolves in the Yukon, and about the same number of wolves as are now in Alaska. Ecologically, people seem to forget that the greatest predator of wolves is wolves themselves; they don't tolerate high densities and don't tolerate invasions of their territories. In other words, wolves control themselves at certain densities, which themselves depend upon prey numbers and densities. The consequence of this process is that, as wolf territories work themselves out, wolf numbers and densities will begin to fall, as we're starting to see now in the Park itself, and, all other things being equal, the wolf populaton will eventually stabilize. However, the intensive control efforts that we see throughout the Greater Yellowstone tends to destablize this ecological process outside the Park. (That's another argument against wolf control in the Greater Yellowstone). But the bottom line is, you'll never see 10,000 wolves in the Greater Yellowstone. They couldn't and wouldn't tolerate those kinds of densities.
Wonderful column.
Robert
Yes, wolves have been working the coyotes pretty hard wherever there are wolves. I have yet to hear an acknowledgment or appreciation of this fact from any one in Ag. Don't expect to, either. That would be to admit that wolves provide an ecological benefit.
Robert
Probably should have clarified that 10,000 number. Yes, I think 1,000 wolves can become 10,000 wolves, but not in Greater Yellowstone, or even the entire current occupied habitat, but by expanding into new habitat. Even then, 10,000 might be the wrong number becuase, of course, I have no idea how far this could go. Nobody does. The point is, without control, wolves will pioneer new habitat, total numbers will grow at a rapid rate, and quickly be "too many.".
Bill
Thanks for the clarification. I just want to emphasize that 10,000 wolves is a lot of wolves. There are about 4000-4500 wolves in the Yukon Territory, and between 10,000 and 12,000 wolves in Alaska. As I'm sure you're aware, both the Yukon and Alaska are really big places. Here, just how much space are you talking about? The entire Rocky Mountain chain between Canada and Mexico? Or Oregon, Washington, and Northern California? Maybe.
My point is that far too many people believe that we're going to have wolves coming out of our ears without wolf control, when there is truly no biological or ecological basis for that belief. For those of us who are ecologists, biologists, or naturalists, we cringe when we hear intelligent people make such claims, possibly because we hear much too often the same thing from uneducated or unintelligent people who want to drive wolves into extinction.
I'd bring to your attention a quotation from Aldo Leopold's essay Conservation:" "to have an ecological education is to live in a world of wounds." In that quotation, Leopold was referring to the fact that much damage that people do to land and wildlife is not evident to them, whereas the damage is out in the broad daylight for anyone with ecological training and awareness. But another way to think about the quotation, when taken out of its context, is to acknowledge that to a certain extent, nature really is "red in tooth and claw." There are ecological mechanisms in place to prevent animals from exceeding the carrying capacity of their habitats and food bases. Wolves are not exempt from these mechanisms. Those of us with an ecological education are aware of those mechanisms, and they are sometimes not pretty.
(Only human beings have to some degree exempted themselves from these mechanisms, or at least they believe they have done so. That's why war does serve an ecological function).
I would highly recommend Paul Errington's book Of Predation and Life, if you can find it. It most surely is in your local university library. Errington was a younger colleague of Leopold's and was one of the first wildlife ecologists to work out in detail the mechanisms of predator-prey ecology. He also thought philosophically about the issue.
As a hunter, I'm certainly not one who is opposed to hunting wolves, when the time comes to do so. Ecologically,the lives of individual wolves are necessarily forfeit to a variety of causes of death, including human-caused. I find the so-called animal rights position ecologically bankrupt as well as philosophically incoherent. However, I do object and oppose predator control, for various ecological and practical reasons. It doesn't work, and in the long run causes more harm for land and wildlife than good. The problem is, it often takes an ecological education to see what the harm is.
The issue is ecological awareness, and developing it in a wide variety of people.
To focus more on such awareness and education is why I have decided to abandon conservation politics, because I'm tired of conservationists playing politics, which truly has run its course of effectiveness in conservation. Too many conservationists believe that if you "get the institutions" right, a claim you hear from the so-called free market environmentalists in another context, that we have achieved conservation. That's nonsense. We clearly haven't achieved conservation, from the perspective of land and wildlife. Leopold came to the same conclusion; that's why he came up with the Land Ethic. For him, conservation was a state of harmony between humans and land. We are far from it.
A lot of people have contempt for Leopold's Land Ethic, including environmentalists and conservationists, because they think it's naive. Well, it is. On the other hand, there truly is no other option for sustainable lives on the land than changing peoples' hearts and minds about how they live. That is truly where the challenge is--not getting the laws and incentives right, because the latter will always ensure that conservation never happens.
Robert
But all of this is sort of off-message. The point I'm trying to make is that we might want to start thinking about how to control the expansion.
Bill
People don't think about this way, but the wolf reintroduction success is a testament to the success of the protection of Yellowstone and the Idaho Primitive Area (expanded to the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in 1980). It worked in large part becuase of the conservation movement's success in land protection efforts in earlier decades.
Thinking longer term, I predict the environmental groups who led the effort to reintroduce the wolves will play the key role in whether state wildlife agencies can "manage" these animals similar to cougar & bear. The challenge for these groups is to change their attitude that these animals are no longer endangered. This is difficult, as difficult as Newt Gingrich found it to be Speaker of the House after the Republican Revolution. He was much more effective leading the insurgency in the US House when Speaker Foley was in charge. Similarly, conservation groups are more in their comfort zone as insurgents.
If the Idaho attempt earlier this year is any indication, it's pretty clear it will take a long time for the conservationists to change their attitude and recognize that a new reality exists for the wolf population in the northern rockies, and it's that the introduced populations are at recovered, sustainable levels. In many ways it will be a leadership test for the conservation movement, and some of the groups involved in wolf recovery are probably not up to the task because they are better at the insurgency game.
So yes, there will be great controversy when the state wildlife agencies. And Bill is correct, if not handled correctly it's not out of the realm of possibility that opposition from environmental groups to wolf hunting could snowball into national boycotts.
People don't think about this way, but the wolf reintroduction success is a testament to the success of the protection of Yellowstone and the Idaho Primitive Area (expanded to the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in 1980). It worked in large part becuase of the conservation movement's success in land protection efforts in earlier decades.
Thinking longer term, I predict the environmental groups who led the effort to reintroduce the wolves will play the key role in whether state wildlife agencies can "manage" these animals similar to cougar & bear. The challenge for these groups is to change their attitude that these animals are no longer endangered. This is difficult, as difficult as Newt Gingrich found it to be Speaker of the House after the Republican Revolution. He was much more effective leading the insurgency in the US House when Speaker Foley was in charge. Similarly, conservation groups are more in their comfort zone as insurgents.
If the Idaho attempt earlier this year is any indication, it's pretty clear it will take a long time for the conservationists to change their attitude and recognize that a new reality exists for the wolf population in the northern rockies, and it's that the introduced populations are at recovered, sustainable levels. In many ways it will be a leadership test for the conservation movement, and some of the groups involved in wolf recovery are probably not up to the task because they are better at the insurgency game.
So yes, there will be great controversy when the state wildlife agencies. And Bill is correct, if not handled correctly it's not out of the realm of possibility that opposition from environmental groups to wolf hunting could snowball into national boycotts.
I'm not sure discussing Alaska and Canada is off message, but in any case, my point is that we would achieve much more in the long term by taking advantage of ecological controls that work naturally (and cost-free) rather than wasting millions of dollars in predator control and management funds that are better put into habitat acquisition, protection, and conservation. Thinking that we have to "control" predators is obsolete thinking, not to mention expensive thinking.
Robert
I find myself constantly referring back to the Environmental Impact Statement from 1994. Actually, the control plan outlined in the EIS was that upon recovery, the states would assume management of wolves as the Wyoming equivalent of "trophy game," that is, regulated hunting and/or trapping was envisioned for wolves as for any game animal. Game animal, not predatory animal.
Interestingly, if you read appendix 11 of the EIS, which lays out the criteria for delisting, you'll see the requirement for the States to adopt an adequate regulatory mechanism for management and conservation of wolves. According to appendix 11, Wyoming's then (1994) designation of wolves as predatory animals was declared inadequate to wolf conservation and contrary to the requirement for regulated management. In other words, for Wyoming to assume management of wolves, the State would have to agree to manage wolves throughout the state as trophy game with regulated, not unregulated, hunting and trapping. The State has refused to do this for purely political reasons that have nothing to do with wolves. See my comments on Ralph Maughan's website.
In short, there was a control plan envisioned for the "whole end to end effort"--delisting upon reaching the recovery criteria, then State management. Regulated hunting and trapping is certainly consistent with the delisting criteria. Open season on wolves, as is allowed under the State's dual status plan for 80% of the State, is not.
Wyoming's refusal to apply trophy game status to wolves statewide is the sole barrier to delisting wolves in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. For folks who are concerned about "too many wolves," pressure needs to be applied to the State of Wyoming to quit playing politics and get on with it by agreeing to manage wolves as trophy game and regulate hunting throughout the entire state.
Robert
Bill
I agree. From the standpoint of the predictions in the EIS, reintroduction has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its supporters. People have also been amazed by the willingness of wolves to put on such shows in the Lamar Valley in full view of people lining the road like people at a Macy's parade.
Here's something else to chew on. If you look at Wyoming Statute 23-1-302(a)(ii), you'll find that the Wyoming Game & Fish Commission "is directed and empowered ... to establish zones and areas in which trophy game animals may be taken as game animals with a license or in the same manner as predatory animals without a license, giving proper regard to the livestock and game industries in those particular areas."
This statute has been on the books for a long, long time, longer than wolves have been in the State. It is essentially authorization to treat trophy game animals as predatory animals anywhere in the state. It is a "dual status" provision.
Now, given the long-time existence of this provision of law, one has to ask, why has the State of Wyoming gone to such lengths in public to loudly defend its wolf plan, a plan that will never pass legal muster?
If the State had really wanted wolves delisted, and then treat wolves as predatory animals after delisting, it would have been a simple matter to quietly grant wolves trophy game status throughout the state, come up with a wolf plan that implemented that status throughout the state, go through delisting, and, once fully in charge of wolf management, simply implement this little provision of law that has been buried in the Statutes for years and achieve on the cheap what clearly is not going to be achieved now, at great cost.
In other words, once delisted under this scenario, the Commission could declare wolves predatory animals anywhere in the State it wanted, and there would be nothing that environmentalists could do about it, because wolves would be out from under the protections of the ESA. And figure the chances of wolves going back on the list!
Going the loud, belligerent route, as the State is now doing, ensures that wolves won't be delisted anytime soon. I have argued elsewhere that this is deliberate.
I have several times in the past brought this provision of law to attention of the Game & Fish Department, and when I've done this, the Department has dodged the question with the speed and quickness of O. J. Simpson dodging tackles in his Southern Cal days. The Department certainly knows about the provision. Why does no one else seem to know about it?
It would be an interesting question to follow up on.
Robert
I agree with you, Bill, a tourist boycott could be a reality.
I have spent enough time studying predator control to realize that when it becomes necessary, it's a political necessity, not an ecological one. I have yet to see a situation in which habitat, environmental, and/or management problems weren't the underlying problems when people complain about too few elk, moose, or caribou and too many wolves (or bears). Most of the time, predator control is an attempt to mitigate the human failure or refusal to manage human activity that affects game by taking out wolves rather than restricting the damaging human activity. For example, roads have a tremendous negative impact on ungulates by fragmenting their habitat and making them more accessible to human hunters. This is particularly true in Alaska, where in the hunt areas between Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Tok, there are too many roads and trails open to ATVs, etc., as well as way too many hunters coming out of Anchorage and Fairbanks, not to mention the military bases near those cities, who demand a moose. In short, there are too many hunters for the available moose. So the Board of Game goes for wolf control, but does very little to improve the habitat or manage the hunters.
There's so much propaganda out there that it is helpful to go to the actual documents, like the EIS, to see what actually is the case.
Allow wolves to take domestic livestock at will and you take away a rancher's ability to make a living, the ranch becomes ranchettes, and valued open space and winter range is lost.
USFWS is already killing wolves that show no fear of humans. Wan't it Ed Bangs who said that he had the best job ever? Reintroduce wolves successfully, and then have a lifetime job limiting their impacts on wildlife and domestic animals by killing the transgressors.
The urban armchair eco-givers, imparting wisdom from the city center, have successfully stopped 90% of timber management on public lands. The results have been rural poverty throughout the former timber towns, diminished funds for local schools, roads and public health, an arithmetically compounding fuel load in the forests that saw nine million acres burn this year, and over a billion and a half dollars spent on fire control, and more humans killed in the folly of saving homes from fire out of the wilderness areas. Seeing what the collective wisdom of the people has produced in stopping public land forest management, I can only wonder how wrong their touchy feely wolf worship will turn out to be for ecosystem protection.
I just finished a book on the people who have herded reindeer for 15,000 years. Reindeer are domesticated caribou, and can "go wild" by getting mixed in with caribou (like hatchery salmon), and wolves can kill reindeer. But the native herders have bells on their burden and leader animals, and shoot at any wolf that gets near the domestic animals. Wolves do just fine knowing that one herd provides more risk than another: the risk of death. Wolves have learned to mostly leave belled herds alone.
The last Yellowstone wolves I saw were mangy. I saw one near Corwin Springs that had a rat tail and some hair tufts. A beautiful example of wolfery. Do you let that one live to be social and give his mange to healthy animals, or do you take it our of the pack? Is a mangy wolf a trophy? When you designate protected species for the purpose of regulating human activity, how right do you have to be? When do people come before the other species? I seem to remember that any time you call an animal a trophy, the greatest protectors of it become those who want a chance to someday take a trophy. Most of the critter management in this country is partly financed by Pittman-Robertson money collected on the sales of guns and ammo. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Not one hiking staff, binocular, backpack, bird book, pays for the study and protection of critters. We all should think hard about having a wolf to hunt here and there.
We don't hunt predators. That's a choice - neither of us is comfortable shooting "dogs and cats". We understand that there are too many cougar in our small area here. But we're not interested in killing them - there are plenty of others who don't have our "scruples". We don't have wolves yet, though bear are in a small resurgence.
By extrapolation, we'd not be killing wolves any more than we do cougar and coyotes. However, we fully understand the necessity of keeping the numbers under control. Truthfully there's less of a problem here with coyotes than cougar - as soon as the rabbit population gets whacked, the coyote population shows an obvious reduction. The cattle here seem to be relatively unbothered, there's no sheep in the valley, and the feral cats don't appear to appeal (while I feel sorry for them, I do wish they weren't so numerous....) - so the coyotes eat the rabbits until the cars, not to mention the hawks and eagles, prune the rabbit population to the point of almost no return. Then you don't see very many coyotes for a year or so.
The cougar however eat deer - of which we have while not more than plenty, at least a sufficiency. So the drawing of permits for cougar is generally welcomed by those who hunt deer locally, and there's never a problem with "leftover" undrawn permits. And I would think that at the point at which wolves re-enter the predator mix here in quantities enough to add to the problem that they too would become a permit-drawing specialty hunt.
We'll understand the need, but we won't do the hunting....
I agree with you that predator control is a political necessity and not an ecological one. We still waste millions of dollars on coyote control because of agricultural politics and the ignorant people who think that the more we kill, the fewer will be around....they've never heard of the "rebound effect". Could it happen with wolves? Maybe.
I'm sure that the longer we have wolf populations around, the more the feds and state agencies will have to look at colateral ecological damage when they think about control actions. I don't think they're ready to deal with that.
Remember 10 of 11 expert wolf biologists stated the Wyoming plan was adequate to be assured that we would always have wolves to contend with. Certainly it would have been far better to save the money spent writing up wolf plans by the states and the feds just mandate what we had to do, that is in essence what the situation is. Wyoming has to write the plan the feds want to get the plan accepted. But we have to remember getting a plan accepted is a very long way from delisting......if such a thing ever occurs. I think the Minnesota plan has been accepted for something like 10 years, and they are just about as close to delisting as we are. Any one want to take bets on when grizzly will be delisted? Environmentalists will never willing relinquish their control, nor will they ever take any responsibility for any problems caused by their imposition of their ideal eco changes.
We will not go back to the era of wolfers trapping, poisoning, den killing. And we cannot afford or should want to have APHIS flying around in helicopters shooting wolves for USFWS. There is a better solution somewhere in the middle that allows livestock growers to have limited or no loses, and people not to be threatened by animals with no fear of humans.
It may seem like splitting hairs, but as long as we have a human population managing the large ungulate population (hunting, specifically), wolves will not find their natural range of variability. There won't be enough elk for all the hunters and the wolves both to meet current harvest goals set by game management agencies AND allow the wolves to breed according to the availability of food--that's only going to add to the loss of domestic livestock.
My point is simply that as long as the prey populations are managed, the predator populations have to be as well. I'm definitely pro-wolf: I want them to succeed and return to their wild status. But I really don't see any way around a hunting season on them. That's the only solution to a really tough problem--it's rough, but it is likely going to be the reality. And if it were up to the public to decide via ballot, I'd vote for wolf hunting on a controlled basis.
If hunting is stopped the funds to manage wildlife will dry up and then there would be no way to control or protect anything.....nor to provide habitat for wildlife.
Predator control is a necessity for the safety of people as well as protection of wildlife and personally owned livestock. Introducing wolves was a political decison, if it had been ecological, they would have been necessary from coast to coast and border to border.
We have lots of wolves here, in fact too many. In some areas there has been a 100% moose calf kill by wolves and bears. In Alaska we have instituted a wolf control program. Moose stocks are slowly rebounding in these areas. Instead of killing the wolves, I would like to see some of these animal activist groups come up here and remove the excess wolves; however they can spend their own money in doing so.
Great article Bill.
Meanwhile, the rancher must go on, so after he has disposed of the carcasses, and I have never heard of a single offer by a wolf worshiper to help dispose of the results of one of their rampages, he has to replace the animals. That comes out of his pocket until he is at best partially reimbursed by DOW. They are often "too busy" to take care of reimbursement in a timely manner. Even that does not pay for a trip or trips to a sale barn for more animals, that may be 100 miles or more away, nor for the time to try to replace them.
Why are wolfers not more open minded about seeing to it the ranchers are protected by themselves killing the livestock killers.
Right now there are over 5000 wolves between the Rockies and the Great Lakes states, and they are still breeding like rabbits, the tax imposed on ranchers for the entertainment of city folk is about to get totally out of control, if it isn't now.
Even that kind of reimbursement does not address the issue of small animals like lambs and even calves consumed on the spot or hauled away to the den. Wolf scat full of wool doesn't prove the lamb was killed by wolves only that it was eaten by them. I'm afraid you are right the agenda is to get rid of ranchers, although it is beyond my understanding why anyone want to get rid of food producers.
The DOW reimbursement is strictly voluntary and they under no compulsion to pay.
Good idea Craig Moore on the insurance, but instead of the ranchers paying it, it should be paid by PETA and Friends of Animals if they want to save a wolf that is killing live stock.
From a CST article last year:
A much-cited General Accounting Office study in 2001 said the (Wildlife Services) program's benefits exceed costs by a ratio ranging from 3:1 to 27:1. That GAO report also noted a 2000 national livestock loss of half a million livestock, valued at $70 million. In that year, Wyoming sustained $5.6 million loss in livestock to predators.
The GAO also noted that collisions between automobiles and deer cost $1 billion annually, while collisions between aircraft and birds cost $400 million in 2000.
Wyoming's share of the 2004 budget was $2.8 million, of which $2 million was focused on agriculture. That's up from $2.6 million in 2003, $1.8 million focused on agriculture.
A focus on coyotes
Here in Wyoming, coyotes -- not wolves or grizzly bears -- are the greatest and most persistent threat to Wyoming agricultural interests. According to statistics compiled by the Wyoming Agriculture Statistics office, predators took 9.8 percent of the 41,000 lost cattle and calves last year. Of the 4,000 cattle and calves lost to predators, 2,200 were taken by coyotes -- a little more than half of the predator total. In decreasing order, the most damaging predators were wolves (600), mountain lions (500), grizzly bears (300) and black bears, eagles, wild dogs and other predators (tied at 100 each).
Digestive problems (14.7 percent), respiratory problems (21.3 percent), weather (18 percent) and calving (25 percent) caused far more deaths than predators.
Coyotes also hammer sheep and lambs, which are much more vulnerable to predation than cattle and calves. In 2004, sheep and lamb losses were 55,000 animals, of which 55 percent or 30,000 were due to predators. Coyotes took 19,700 sheep and calves or 35.8 percent of the total loss. While all losses totaled $4.33 million, predation cost the sheep industry $2.21 million or 51 percent of the total.
Other predators that killed sheep last year include eagles (3,500 -- mostly lambs), mountain lions (1,400), bears (1,000) and wolves (200).
Even if wolves only killed 6 cows that were not compensated, and they were your 6 cows worth about a thousand each, you wouldn't be real happy. The fact is only about 10% of wolf losses are actually confirmed according to Ed Bangs. That is pretty sad for a damage that was imposed on ranchers for entertainment of others. I don't know how one whould get around the confirmation process. It only takes hours or even minutes in some cases for all predators to destroy a carcass beyond determining the cause of death. Extreme trauma is the defining criteria for wolf kills. If it has been 48 hours or so in 100 degree plus heat it will be too deteriorated to determine, the same if it has been scavenged to a large degree. That has to be taken into account.
Last year a Farson rancher had 30+ head of sheep killed in a single pasture, it was a week before they were found dead and FWS confirmed ONE definate and one probable. The rancher lost over 3000, and he is supposed to believe that the other sheep fell over dead? This sort of thing is hitting individuals hard, and there has to be a better way.
One problem I can see with the whole thing is that they put the wolves in the wrong places. The folks who did NOT want wolves got them, and the folks who love wolves did not get any, that should have been reversed, and I suspect we'd come up with a whole lot better plan fast.
If it were up to me I would leave the wolves alone but its not, I’m only 17 and I don’t know what the government is doing at all. People can say that we control the government, I think that were doing a cruddy job. ...not pointing anyone out it seems to me that the more we fight over this issue the more people are tugged to the side on how and who is going to deal with it. The wolves are probably sitting on the side lines laughing their butts off.
I’m not an expert on what to do with the wolves or other wildlife, but I do know that the wolves do play and important role on keeping elk number right and other praetors on there toes. A small voice from no one important…
Elaina
First of all every voice is important in this country, and don't you forget it. I am so happy when I see a young person taking interest in issues, and trying to get real facts.
First of all, yes there were wolves in this country before it became settled, and that was everywhere, so you need to ask the question if wolves are necessary, why are they not necessary everywhere people now live?
Then you need to go back to early history written as this country was being settled to determine the wolves and their impact at that time. For instance, I'm sure you have read that wolves were "extirpated" from Yellowstone. Do you know how many wolves were killed....136 over 42 years. Of that number only 56 were adult animals. A total of 44 wolves were brought into Yellowstone in 1995 and 1996. Most articles will say 34, and that is how many were brought from Canada, but another 10 were brought from northern Montana because they were involved in killing livestock, which they immediately went out of Yellowstone and resumed doing. 9 of those 10 had to be killed.
In case you are wondering why wolves are killed for killing livestock, that was a part of the agreement when they were brought in. Whether those who wanted them actually intended to honor their word or not is another question that I cannot answer. When the proposal was made the scientists felt that 300 wolves in the 3 state area would restore things to normal. We passed that number a very long time ago, and now are 4 times that plus. So what is happening to the "balance" now?
When you read the other sites trying to get at the truth of the situation, look as much at what they are against as what they are for? Are they against wolves because they are killing game or because they are killing livestock? Are those concerns legitimate? Do they feel ranchers should be put out of business, or are hunters bad? Are those concerns legitimate? If they hate hunting because it is cruel why do they enjoy sitting on a hillside watching wolves tear an elk apart, eating it while still alive?
There is a lot of things to consider in the whole situation for sure. I will be glad to recommend historical things for you, a start would be Lt.Doane's journal of the first exploration of Yellowstone in 1870, I think it can be found online. President T. Roosevelt's speech in 1903, (he said coyotes were the only canine predator in any numbers).
Well stated!
It's how I feed my family.
Anyone surprised at all at the failure of the wolf proponents failing to keep their word? I'm not at all.