Shooting Wolves in the Northern Rockies
(Off the ‘endangered’ list, their numbers increasing, gray wolves are fair prey again)
I can’t imagine shooting a wolf and I’m betting you can’t, either. Then again, I’m not a rancher in Wyoming, Montana or Idaho. 13 years ago, when 66 gray wolves were transplanted into that region, the government had it in mind to maintain around 300 wolves there, at a minimum. Maybe several hundred more. Nobody told the wolves, which are the largest members of the canine family and are skilled and effective predators. An estimated 15 hundred of them, or, conservatively speaking, at least 75 wolf-packs, now roam those three states. Since a pack can number as few as two and as many as 20, averaging eight members, there actually may be well over a hundred packs of the carnivores in the wide area covered. The gray, or “Timber”, wolf has been removed from the endangered species list and the states took over their management in late March. Sadly, the “management” of large, wide-ranging predators usually requires thinning their numbers periodically.
The problem, as with the herds of bison reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park years ago, is containing the wolves within some kind of boundaries, however large. It’s especially critical to try to keep the packs away from domestic herds of sheep and cattle, of which there are many in the three states just mentioned. Idaho and Montana, and until recently Wyoming, took wolf problems largely on a case-by-case basis, moving with public hunts and Fish and Game authorities to thin down…kill…wolves, sometimes whole packs, as necessary. Now, the entire state of Wyoming, except for the part covered by Yellowstone, has been designated a ‘predator zone’. That means wolves can be hunted at will.
Well, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to predict the reaction of environmental and animal rights groups. A number of them are planning to file a lawsuit Monday, seeking an injunction to stop the hunting and a re-designation of the wolf as an ’endangered species’. They contend a minimum population of 2000, maybe up to 3000, is needed to ensure the wolves’ genetic diversity; that the government was well on its way to meeting that goal, but “caved in” to political pressure.
Ranchers, obviously, are far less concerned with ’genetic diversity’ than with the survival of their stock. A single wolf pack that gets into a fenced area where, for example, sheep are at their mercy, often will kill far more of the domesticated animals than they need for food. The so-called “surplus kill” phenomenon is not a matter of slaughter for its own sake. The large number of prey animals and their inability to escape trigger the wolves’ predatory instincts over and over, driving them to stay on the attack. That’s one reason why hunting, to protect herds and for fur, had pushed the gray wolf entirely out of the three northern Rockies states by the 1930’s. According to the plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuit, it will be difficult, with the states in charge, to prevent that from happening again. ‘Earthjustice’ attorney Doug Honnold, who’s preparing the lawsuit against hunting wolves, says, “If anybody can kill wolves, you have no way of ensuring wolf-killing isn’t excessive.”
Ranchers tell a different story. “It’s hard for people to understand how devastating they (wolves) can be,” says one. Last year’s shootings of 188 wolves in the region were carried out mostly by wildlife agents because the packs were killing and harassing livestock. This year, since the wolves were taken off the ‘endangered’ list on March 28th, at least 37 have been killed, mainly by the public.
The conundrum is reminiscent of the movie “Jurassic Park”. It probably is not possible to introduce numbers of large, high-powered, rapidly breeding, territorial predators into an area with any expectation that humans will not have to intervene on an ongoing basis. As the wolf-packs mark out their territory, which is violated by other wolves at their extreme peril, the natural tendency is to expand, in terms of both population and territory claimed. The wolf has no natural enemies except for humans and, occasionally, other wolves.
The simple fact appears to be this: humans, because of their utter dominance of the environment, now are less a part of that environment than stewards of it. If we wish to enjoy the knowledge or even the sight of wild wolves running free, and I know I do, then we have the responsibility of keeping their numbers and range in check. I imagine that states like Wyoming will have to modify their ‘hunt at will’ positions. But I cannot envision a time when some kind of “balancing act”, overseen by humans, will produce just the right numbers of wild predators and prey in a given area. The variables are too many and life simply is too chaotic.
