April 30, 2008

Why Can’t Humans Be A Part of the Equation?
Whining over wolves continues
even after population is healthy

     You’d never know the impacts exploding wolf populations are having on the Rocky Mountain West and upper Midwest by reading the Los Angeles Times’ editorial page today.
     In both an editorial and an op-ed piece, there is moaning that 35 wolves from a population conservatively estimated to be over 1,500 animals have been killed since the animal was delisted a month ago and management turned back over the states (Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming).
     The wolf population is five times higher than goal of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the animal – five times! -- and all three management states have programs in place to keep the wolf population from growing beyond what is sustainable for the wildlife and human community.
     The whining from the urban environmentalists (and the L.A. Times’ opinionists) is that humans should get out of the way and let the wolves take back over the entire Western landscape. To them, that is what is sustainable. And that viewpoint is the only valid one.
     A little perspective: Since the reintroduction of wolves into central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park just 13 years ago, the animals have reclaimed a vast portion of their historic habitat in the Northern Rockies. It took man more than 100 years to eradicate wolves in the same region through a concentrated, government-funded program of constant trapping, poisoning, shooting-on-sight, and digging pups out of dens.
     Yet, in just 13 years, wolves are spilling across the Montana plains into the Dakotas (although no one is sure if those are Yellowstone or Minnesota wolves, or both meeting in the middle), across most of Wyoming and south into Utah and Colorado, and west into Oregon and Washington. The wolves moving out of the core areas are animals that have been driven from existing packs and are forming new packs and producing even more pups. The 1,500 estimate is very conservative, according to some biologists.
     This is a modern conservation success story; a story of how a population can bounce back from total destruction in a region over a very short period of time. But what is happening to other wildlife and livestock in wolf country is giving people who live in the region an idea of why wolves were eradicated in the first place. A story in today’s Bozeman Chronicle noted that wolf predation on cattle and sheep has more than doubled this year and that it is 10 times higher than predicted by federal wildlife officials. In 1996, the year after wolves were reintroduced, there were eight cattle and 42 sheep killed by wolves. As of Tuesday this week, there were already 110 cattle, 442 sheep, and six other types of livestock verified killed by wolves this year. Ranchers will tell you the numbers are much higher, but those are verified wolf-kill numbers. If wolves keep eating livestock at the same pace, the tally will be pretty impressive by the end of the year, approaching 500 cattle and 2,000 sheep.
     Of course in urban environmental American, the attitude is “screw those ranchers.” These folks believe those cattle and sheep are probably feeding on public land, where they don’t belong, and should be fair game for the wolves, which do belong.
     But the wolves impact on native wildlife is also staggering. Coyotes, which were common throughout most of Yellowstone, are a rare sight today. Wolves kill them to eliminate competition. Moose, once a fixture in every beaver pond and small lake in the region, are all but gone from northern Yellowstone, killed by wolves. And elk and deer populations are plummeting everywhere wolf populations spring up.
     Shane McAfee from Salmon, Idaho, has been an outfitter in that wild, wonderful country for over 30 years. Since 1996, when the wolves were first introduced, he has watched the elk herd and local hunting success fall right into the toilet. In a letter he wrote to the Idaho Fish and Game Department, he tells how in 1996, he had 10 hunters in camp who killed nine bull elk, mostly quality, mature bulls. That was a pretty typical year for McAfee before wolves. Most hunters shot elk and deer on his hunts. In 2007, out of 20 hunters in camp only one killed a spike bull elk and only four took deer.
     “On my first three hunts, I went 15 days on horseback guiding and never saw an elk,” wrote McAfee, who said most of his hunters have refused to come back to Idaho until things change. “I wonder what this is doing to the economy of our small towns in Idaho.”
     That lament is being heard throughout deer and elk country where there are now wolves. Game herds are plummeting.
     Again, the writers of the L.A. Times’ editorials and the people who read that whining drivel don’t give a rat’s butt about rural people, and they care even less about hunting and hunted wildlife. Wolves belong there and should be left alone, they say. In their world it’s OK for wolves to eliminate the coyotes as competition, but it’s not permissible for humans – especially those whose livelihoods depend on livestock or visiting hunters – to keep the wolf numbers in check so they can have an elk or deer for the winter meat supply. That attitude is just plain prejudicial. These people condone the planting of vineyards that wipe out California’s native oak grassland so they can drink their designer wines, but God-forbid we keep wolf numbers in check so we can kill a deer or elk so we can have lean, natural meat on our barbecue.
     Ironically, none of the states have plans to eliminate wolves (in spite of how you might read the two Times’ stories). Even most of the ranchers and outfitters don’t mind having wolves back in the West. But let’s be reasonable about it. Keeping the wolf numbers in check with sport hunting programs, trying to keep them confined to certain areas where they will cause the least livestock problems, and tuning out the shrill voices who would turn the whole West into a humanless wilderness, is the sensible thing to do. Montana, Idaho, and especially Wyoming, have it right with their management plans. Wolves will still flourish, but maybe we can keep wolf numbers in check so that elk, deer, and livestock numbers won’t be overly affected. Maybe.
     Based on our past efforts to wipe out wolves, I kind of doubt we’ll be able to stay ahead of them with the foothold they’ve already established.
     The L.A. Times editorial called for a minimum wolf population of 1,000 animals, lamenting that two percent of the 1,500 population had already been killed in the first month they were off the threatened species list (and you were supposed to gasp when you read that). With the way the wolf population has grown over 13 years, I’d bet the states can’t keep the wolf numbers from growing and expanding their range under their current management plans. Wolf numbers will continue to grow even if we kill 30 percent of the population each year. The Times will get its way under the current plans.
     So before we worry about the wolf getting pushed back onto the endangered species list in the lower 48 states, let’s see if the current management plans will even begin to keep the numbers just in check.