More Wolf Insanity

by Angie Many

In 1974, the gray wolf was declared ‘endangered’ under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). There were wolves in Minnesota, and a lot of wolves in Alaska, but few or none in the other states. There was a reason for that. Wolves endangered people, especially children, and killed pets and livestock. Far from just killing to eat, wolves often kill to kill. They will run through flocks of sheep, for example, hamstringing as many as possible before they start to eat. Usually, many more sheep die from fright, from running into fences, and from crippling wounds than are eaten. Farmers, ranchers, and outfitters, in efforts to save pets, livestock, and game animals, shot them on sight. Most people, especially those with children, shot wolves found hanging around homes. When wolves were common, it would have been a difficult task to find people who wanted to ‘save the wolf.’

That has changed, of course, since too many people have too much time on their hands and too little compunction about endangering other people’s incomes, children, pets, livestock, and lives, as well as the game animals which have, in many cases, been brought back to thriving populations by programs funded and supported by hunters. These people, who almost without exception do not make their livings from the land or depend on game animals to round out their food supply, are determined to ‘save the wolf’.

It’s not enough for wolf advocates that there are numerous wolves in Montana, the Lake States, and Alaska. They want lots of wolves, and they want them in every state in the country. Like environists, they don’t care who they hurt in their zeal to obtain what they view as Utopia. Some truly believe that nature can’t be complete without the full complement of characters that existed before white men arrived. Others know that man can competently -- and more humanely -- fill the wolf’s role as predator, but their objective is not a ‘balance’ of nature. It’s elimination of man from much of the landscape. Wolves help to meet that objective, because where wolves are allowed to kill livestock without consequence, threaten pets and children, and expand without limits, man cannot long remain. 

“We could have bison all over the place too,

but they’d be running into cars and through wheat fields.”

David Mech, biologist, U.S. Geological Survey

Minnesota’s wolves were listed as ‘threatened’, which meant that they could be legally killed under certain circumstances. In other places, wolves were listed as ‘endangered’, which meant that even problem wolves could not be killed. The only legal solution was to relocate ‘endangered’ problem wolves: to dump them in someone else’s backyard. The penalty for illegally killing a ‘threatened’ wolf is $25,000. For killing an ‘endangered’ wolf, it’s $100,000. If a wolf is killing your child’s pony, you can’t legally kill that wolf. You can’t ‘harass’ wolves. If you shoot a wolf attacking your child, you had better be able to prove it to the satisfaction of a court.

In the Lake States, the plan to increase wolf populations was stop shooting Minnesota wolves that wandered into other states. That worked so well that there are over 3,000 wolves there now. They are numerous in Wisconsin and have been found in Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri.

In the West, beginning in 1995, an ‘experimental’ population of wolves was established by bringing, at taxpayer expense, wolves into Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho from Canada. They expanded quickly, and have now been seen drifting into Colorado and Oregon. In the Southwest, Mexican gray wolves have been dumped into New Mexico and Arizona.

Everywhere they go, wolves cause death. It’s in their nature. Pets, livestock, and wildlife have been killed. Children have been stalked. Adults have been threatened. The elk herd in Yellowstone is being decimated. Yet despite the fact that wolves are now too numerous to comfortably co-exist with people in the Lake States, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, wolf advocates, like most radicals, still want more.

In 2003, the USF&WS divided the gray wolf population into three areas. In the Southwest, the wolf status was left as ‘endangered’. In the Eastern area (the Dakotas to Maine), wolves were downlisted to ‘threatened’, since the Lake States contain more than enough of the critters. In the Western area (west of the Dakotas), wolves were also downlisted to ‘threatened’, since Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming were estimated to have 800 wolves (some estimates reach 1400). In the states where wolves were numerous (Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming), state governments were going to be allowed to form wolf management plans and assume management of the wolves within their borders. (If we were adhering to the Constitution, the states would have always had control of non-nationally-threatened wildlife within their borders.) 

“We believe our rule provided for biologically-sound

management of the core population of wolves in areas

where we knew they could thrive as stable, viable populations.”

USF&WS 

Wolf advocates didn’t like the division into three areas and the downlisting that it enabled. If wolves were downlisted to ‘threatened’, problem wolves could be killed, which might slow their spread into other states. So Defenders of Wildlife and 18 other extremist organizations sued the government. Once again, they found an activist judge who doesn’t live in the area where problems are occurring.

In January, U.S. District Judge Robert E Jones, in Portland, Oregon, ruled that the USF&WS violated the ESA act by reducing wolf protections. The judge ruled that by combining areas where wolves are doing well, such as Montana in the Western zone or Minnesota in the Eastern zone, with places where wolves are scarce, such as California or Maine, was improper. The judge also ruled that threats from predators, disease, and other dangers were not considered when the USF&WS made its decision to downlist. Jones said that the move to delist was simply an attempt to remove the wolf from the Endangered Species List as quickly as possible.

The ruling will no doubt be interpreted to mean that the states that have been through years or decades of ‘wolf recovery’ programs and were scheduled to be graciously ‘allowed’ to start managing their own wolves in the next year or so will now not be able to do so. Wolves will once again be considered ‘endangered’ instead of ‘threatened’, and landowners and wildlife officials will once again be barred from killing problem wolves.

The USF&WS stated that it believed that its decision had been made in a biologically-sound manner and that it correctly interpreted the Endangered Species Act (ESA) provisions. A USF&WS statement noted that “We believe our rule provided for biologically sound management of the core population of wolves in areas where we knew they could thrive as stable, viable populations.” That’s not good enough for animal extremists, however, who want wolves everywhere.

Backlash Needed

Making it impossible again to kill problem wolves may create a backlash of animosity among ranchers who are losing increasing numbers of livestock to increasing numbers of wolves and among people who are tired of being afraid for their children and themselves. That backlash could encourage Congress to make meaningful changes to the ESA.

David Mech, wolf biologist who works for the U.S. Geological Survey, is afraid the wolf ruling will cause problems. According to an article by Dan Egan at journalsentinel.com, Mech noted that if cow-attacking wolves can’t be destroyed, some wolves could cost the entire species its tenuous public relations revival. “I like to compare it with something like the bison,” he said. “We could have bison all over the place too, but they’d be running into cars and through wheat fields. With all these species, you have to have some control on their numbers.”

According to Defenders of Wildlife, the solution for the Eastern area is for the USF&WS to designate ‘Upper Great Lakes wolves’ as a distinct population. Since wolves in that area are numerous, they could be downlisted to ‘threatened’ and problem wolves could be killed. Wolves in other Eastern areas would remain on the ‘endangered’ list, so they could not be killed and would have a better chance of ‘thriving’ and spreading.

The ‘distinct population’ concept in the ESA was not intended to apply to identical creatures, but to animals which had developed different characteristics because they were in an isolated genepool. Yet Defenders and cohorts are determined to use any tricks possible to get their way.

The bottom line is that there are thousands of wolves in the lower 48 states, thousands more in Alaska, and thousands more in other countries. There has never been a need for them to be listed as ‘endangered’ and then ‘recovered’ at taxpayer expense of millions upon millions of dollars. The ‘need’ is only in the minds of those who believe that brute beasts are to be worshipped as superior to man and in the minds of those who want control over vast amounts of land.