Community | December 08, 2011 | 42 comments

The New War on Wolves

source: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gibson-the-war-on-wolves-20111208,0,396...

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EthicalVegan
Los Angeles Times...

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PHOTO: Congress removed wolves in Montana and Idaho from the protection of the Endangered Species Act in April. (Associated Press)

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The new war on wolves

As soon as federal protection ended, the slaughter began.

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By J. William Gibson

December 8, 2011

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Congress removed wolves in Montana and Idaho from the protection of the Endangered Species Act in April. And this fall, the killing began.

As of Wednesday, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game reported that 154 of its estimated 750 wolves had been "harvested" this year. Legal hunting and trapping — with both snares to strangle and leg traps to capture — will continue through the spring. And if hunting fails to reduce the wolf population sufficiently — to less than 150 wolves — the state says it will use airborne shooters to eliminate more.

In Montana, hunters will be allowed to kill up to 220 wolves this season (or about 40% of the state's roughly 550 wolves). To date, hunters have taken only about 100 wolves, prompting the state to extend the hunting season until the end of January. David Allen, president of the powerful Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, has said he thinks hunters can't do the job, and he is urging the state to follow Idaho's lead and "prepare for more aggressive wolf control methods, perhaps as early as summer 2012."

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead recently concluded an agreement with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to save 100 to 150 wolves in lands near Yellowstone National Park. But in the remaining 80% of the state, wolves can be killed year-round because they are considered vermin. Roughly 60% of Wyoming's 350 wolves will become targeted for elimination.

What is happening to wolves now, and what is planned for them, doesn't really qualify as hunting. It is an outright war.

In the mid-1990s, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released 66 wolves in Yellowstone and central Idaho, most of the U.S. celebrated. The magnificent wolf, an icon of wilderness that humans had driven to extinction in the United States, would now reoccupy part of its old range. But in the region where the wolves were introduced, the move was much more controversial.

Part of the reason was the increase, particularly in Idaho and Montana, in paramilitary militia advocates, with their masculine ideal of man as warrior who should fight the hated federal government, by armed force if necessary. They were outraged by what they saw as federal interference in the region spurred by environmentalists, and their ideas found a willing reception among ranchers, who view wolves as a threat to their livestock — even though they ranch on federal land — and hunters, who don't want the wolves reducing the big game population.

The factions have reinforced one another, and today a cultural mythology has emerged that demonizes the federal government, the environmental movement and the wolves themselves. Many false claims have been embraced as truth, including that the Fish and Wildlife Service stole $60 million from federal excise taxes on guns and ammunition to pay for bringing wolves back; that the introduced wolves carry horrible tapeworms that can be easily transmitted to dogs, and ultimately to humans; that the Canadian wolves that were brought in are an entirely different species from the gray wolves that once lived in the Rockies, and that these wolves will kill elk, deer, livestock — even humans — for sport.

The false claims may have had particular resonance because they built on a long tradition in Western culture. During the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church ruled that wolves belonged to the devil: Demons could take the shape of wolves, as could witches. Puritans brought similar ideas to America. Cotton Mather called New England before it was settled a "howling wilderness." Asked to investigate Salem's alleged witches, Mather concluded in his book, "On Witchcraft" (1692): "Evening wolves" (werewolves and witches) were but another of the devil's tests as New England passed from "wilderness" to the "promised land."

And that attitude has persisted. Gary Marbut, president of the influential Montana Shooting Sports Assn., wrote in 2003 that "one might reasonably view man's entire development and creation of civilization as a process of fortifying against wolves."

Politicians from both parties in Western states have been eager to help with the fortifications. In Idaho, Republican Rep. Mike Simpson and the state's governor, Butch Otter, made removal of wolves from the Endangered Species Act a political priority. In Montana, Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg has made delisting wolves central to his 2012 Senate campaign against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. In April, Tester in turn persuaded fellow Democrats in the Senate to approve his inserting a rider in a budget bill that delisted wolves.

In early November, Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, made his own political contribution. Thrilled at the testing of a drone aircraft manufactured in Montana, Baucus declared: "Our troops rely on this type of technology every day, and there is an enormous future potential in border security, agriculture and wildlife and predator management." A manufacturer's representative claimed his company's drone "can tell the difference between a wolf and a coyote." Pilotless drone aircraft used by the CIA and the Air Force to target and kill alleged terrorists now appear to be real options to track and kill "enemy" wolves.

How far we have fallen since the mid-1990s, when we celebrated the wolves' reintroduction. During the 2008 presidential election, candidate Barack Obama declared: "Federal policy toward animals should respect the dignity of animals and their rightful place as cohabitants of the environment. We should strive to protect animals and their habitats and prevent animal cruelty, exploitation and neglect."

The president now should make good on that promise.

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J. William Gibson is a sociology professor at Cal State Long Beach and the author of "A Reenchanted World." http://www.jameswilliamgibson.com

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42 comments // The New War on Wolves

  • Luna2na
  • MotherForTruth
  • good_stuff
    • +1
      good_stuff  

    • Whether you agree with either side, can both sides agree that it is silly to reintroduce them only to kill all the progress you worked towards?

    • 6 months ago
  • crabbyoldguy
    • +1
      crabbyoldguy  

    • "Part of the reason was the increase, particularly in Idaho and Montana, in paramilitary militia advocates, with their masculine ideal of man as warrior who should fight the hated federal government, by armed force if necessary. They were outraged by what they saw as federal interference in the region spurred by environmentalists..."

      What the "anti-wolf" folks were trying to avoid was stupid actions such as this.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRCJm7FDtHY

    • 6 months ago
  • TanzaniteDiamonds
  • EthicalVegan
  • artemis6
    • +1
      artemis6  

    • Um , I fail to see why they are being hunted if they are not good eating . Is it a macho thing ? I never understood it . They are so like dogs , only much smarter . The Native Americans had great respect for them . I think it is fear and greed . I suspect big ranchers are behind a lot of it . They do not like to share with the wild horse and Buffalo either , they kill them for any excuse too . Too bad , because they are part of a whole and thriving eco system . Perhaps they should stop grazing their cattle on public lands and start a factory farm , because that seems to be what they want it to be .

    • 6 months ago
  • HarukoHaruhara
  • artemis6
  • OlBlue
    • +1
      OlBlue  

    • Many of the big landowners/ranchers do not want anything on their land they cannot make money from and that would even hint at competing with them for the almighty dollar. Not all but many. That is part of the problem. Many hunters have the short-sighted view of not wanting anything to exist that would compete with their blood-lust. They don't realize that the wolf keeps the elk strong. Again, not all but many.

      The wolf reintroduction program was short-sided. Too many wolves introduced in too many places. Now those responsible are surprised about the conflict!

    • 6 months ago
  • HarukoHaruhara
    • +6
      HarukoHaruhara  

    • What I have a hard time figuring out is the pathological and literal hatred of wolves in the West -- and I do mean literal HATE.

      Unless you live in the West, you cannot believe how hyperbolic and overheated the rhetoric gets over wolves, and it's not just from ranchers. "Wolves are killing all the elk, wolves will be eating people next. You libs won't be wanting to save the wolves when they're snatching your babies."

      I mean I understand the need to control the wolf numbers so they don't overrun the ecosystem, I understand the concerns of ranchers -- but the rhetoric gets flat-out ridiculous. The only thing I can think of is they hate wolves because they are somehow a symbol of East Coast and California environmentalists meddling in their affairs.

      The truth is, elk and wolves somehow managed to coexist for 50,000 years before man showed up. The truth is, in recorded history (the last 100 to 120 years at least), a grand total of two people have been killed in North America by wolves, that's a heck of a lot fewer than have been killed by domestic dogs -- every year.

    • 6 months ago
  • Luna2na
    • +3
      Luna2na  
    • HarukoHaruhara:

      "I understand the need to control the wolf numbers so they don't overrun the ecosystem..."

      Actually, you don't. They will never "overrun the ecosystem". This concept is as misinformed as the rest of those claims you dispute.

      Fact is, wolves regulate their numbers within a pack by two main factors; Size of established range and availability of prey within that range. When the prey base declines in size, so does the pack by, perhaps, not breeding during a given year - they breed/den once in a year and do not have pups as often as domestic canids - and dispersal of individuals who leave the pack to find other range or not. Some lone wolves do survive in solitude. But also, as seen in YNP studies, they kill each other off and their prey kills a number of them during the hunt. They do die, the life-span of an individual wolf in the wild is about 5 years, those in the protected areas, like YNP where hunting is not allowed, they live much longer but that's not every wolf in the park either. They maintain balance, which is not a static status quo. All these concepts are of human construction and only make sense to some of us based on philosophical terms - yet more human constructions built to maintain that superiority belief system and keep it intact.

      "Management" is a code word for killing predators, the only management employed by the agencies that have jurisdiction over them. They have no interest in non-lethal management, they just promote killing them due to the pathological hatred you spoke of... and for political gain.

    • 6 months ago
  • HarukoHaruhara
    • +3
      HarukoHaruhara  
    • Luna2na:

      The problem with that is there are introduced species in their historic range -- calves and sheep ... easy food. It's part of the reason wolves have been so successful. There is a lot of easy food that has been put in their historical range.

    • 6 months ago
  • Luna2na
    • +3
      Luna2na  
    • HarukoHaruhara:

      Fact is, livestock depredation by wolves is less than .01% of livestock mortality in the three states where they were reintroduced.

      Deer and elk were overpopulated in the region and wolves were so successful because F&G agencies have perpetually promoted an unsustainable number of prey - elk/deer for the sake of hunting opportunity and not much else. Since there was a long-term overpopulation of elk and deer, they wolves were alt to thrive and grow until they met with the "ceiling" - if you will - and then wolf numbers began to decline in proportion to the carrying capacity of the prey in the locale they inhabit. Had nothing to do with the wolves eating livestock. Why is it that when a dog kills somebody on the front lawn it gets a little coverage but when a wolf eats somebody's cow that they left out in the National Forest you'd think the world was coming to an end tomorrow? And, an exponential number of dog events take place compared to wolves eating a cow... So what's up with that sort of disproportion in coverage? Politics and the perpetuation of ignorance because it keeps the serfs on your side.

    • 6 months ago
  • HarukoHaruhara
    • +2
      HarukoHaruhara  
    • Luna2na:

      I find less than .01 percent hard to believe -- that's one death out of 10,000 -- maybe that's true if you include disease and ALL livestock like horses and llamas, etc..

      They do hit the sheep, and the wolf haters DEFINITELY exaggerate the problem.

      This is according to Defenders of the Wildlife, percentage of sheep losses caused by wolves by state:

      Arizona 2.56%
      California 3.61%
      Colorado 2.62%
      Idaho 5.10%
      Michigan 2.27%
      Minnesota 3.08%
      Montana 3.45%

      So according to DOW, it's between 2.5 to 5 percent of the sheep being killed are being killed by wolves. That's still a pretty low number. Most sheep are being killed by coyotes and mountain lions and domestic dogs.

    • 6 months ago
  • crabbyoldguy
    • +1
      crabbyoldguy  

    • Seems PETA is against Predator-Reintroduction Programs

      Animal Rights Uncompromised: Predator-Reintroduction Programs

      PETA does not support predator-reintroduction programs for myriad reasons. Animals can very often escape artificial boundaries and become a "nuisance," leading to their being poisoned, hit by cars, or shot. In failed attempts to escape, they might become entangled in barbed wire or be shocked by electric fences. Upon introduction to their new homes, their prey scatter, and their lives and behavior patterns are turned upside-down.

      Wolves, bears, lynxes, and boars deserve to lead free, natural lives. Reintroduction programs subject wild animals to capturing and handling, which is always very stressful for them and may eventually put them in the line of fire of farmers who are already angry about predator-reintroduction programs.
      To capture and transport wolves and other predators to a new area, the animals must first be tranquilized. When they recover from the anesthesia, they are released into unfamiliar terrain. This unnatural process causes a great deal of stress to animals and threatens their physical health and well-being.

      Wolves are social animals who live in tightly knit packs. It is nearly impossible to capture and relocate an entire pack, so relocation almost always breaks up a tightly bonded extended family, likely causing loneliness, pining, separation anxiety, depression, and grieving.

      Relocated animals often have difficulty determining where they can find food and shelter. Some of the wolves who were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park have left their new packs because it is difficult to adapt to the new area and function in their contrived "family" units.

      Reintroducing wolves and other predators into an environment that has been free of such animals for a long time is also traumatic for the animals who already live there, such as deer, birds, and any other animals who suddenly find themselves being stalked and attacked.
      While supporters of predator-reintroduction programs believe in the concept of restoring the "balance of nature," it's not possible to artificially impose this balance. Ecosystems are in a constant state of change, which has been sped up by human expansion and technological advances.

      Our species has wiped out predator populations in many areas of the world but must also realize that the system has evolved and recovered to its current state. Rather than attempting to return wilderness areas to some semblance of an undefined previous state and manipulating populations of animals, we need to focus our efforts on alleviating the suffering and promoting the well-being of those who are there now.

      Many articles and news reports about the wolf-reintroduction program in the U.S. focus on people's interests—the idea that the absence of wolves makes us miss out on a majestic part of nature. Such reports romanticize hearing "the cry of wolves" one day again in Yellowstone but do not consider the extensive suffering that could be expressed in these cries.

      http://www.peta.org/about/why-peta/predator-reintroduction-programs.aspx

    • 6 months ago
  • alexandrek
  • ProudCanadian
  • EthicalVegan
  • JangoFetish
  • tverdell
  • EthicalVegan
    • +1
      EthicalVegan  
    • tverdell:

      Hi! You know I always care... and when I find the time, I like sharing news such as this, if only to hopefully get humans to think more clearly and compassionately.

      Thanks for your continuous "support"!

    • 6 months ago
  • sugarmountian
    • +3
      sugarmountian  

    • It's again all about money. A misinformed public fueled by the interests for tourism and hunting dollars. You hear the herds of elk are being wiped out by those evil wolves all the time.
      The fact is that the elk herds have not been in better shape for years. Wolves do not kill for sport, unlike man. They prey on the old, sick, and defenseless to keep the herd healthy. Nature will keep wolves numbers balanced if given a chance. But again its all about the money. And the people with the money are overwhelmingly rethuglican. Go figure. Rethuglicans prey on the same old, sick, and defenseless but not for the health of the herd.

    • 6 months ago
  • Luna2na
    • +3
      Luna2na  
    • sugarmountian:

      "A misinformed public fueled by the interests for tourism and hunting dollars. "

      Actually, it's the tourism faction who are the most well informed of the two. Tourism or wildlife watching is a good business as it distributes the funds among a number of businesses and is a vector for informing the public in a fact-based, conservationist, fashion that is accessible to most who seek it out. And it does not promote the killing of the wildlife or disturbing the habitat and, as with wolves, the natural social order of the familial units.

      Hunting doesn't come close to that form of monetary draw nor knowledge of the activity or the prey they seek to kill other than appearance (Not denying that some are seeking food but the numbers are debatable as to their actual distribution for a variety of reasons.)

    • 6 months ago
  • Sexychicken
    • +6
      Sexychicken  

    • Why is that we humans think we have some divine right to this world. The wolves were here long before us. We are all God's creatures after all.

    • 6 months ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
  • katrinadane
  • Luna2na
    • +3
      Luna2na  
    • katrinadane:

      If you had any knowledge of the natural world and lived within the context of your surroundings, i.e. a true connection with nature, wolves in your front yard would not be a negative experience. I live out here where the wolves are and I don't think there's nearly enough of them. And yes, I see them near my home and hear them at night and I love it.

      If you have a true respect for nature and the environment that sustains human life on the planet, you'll get hip to what kind of social mentality shift is required to save our own hides. We all have a lot of work to do there...

      Read up on the role this animal plays in the environment... it's a keystone species! I invite you to take a read sometime so you can educate yourself about the truth - and the stupidity that tries to sweep it under the carpet to be trompled under the feet of our corporate rulers. There's a wealth of literature (both peer reviewed and first-hand accounts of those directly involved) to chose from.

      It's the biosphere, stupid.

    • 6 months ago
  • crabbyoldguy
    • +1
      crabbyoldguy  
    • Luna2na:

      The truth is as long as man uses medical technology to "interfere" with the natural process there will never be a balance in the world. So how far are we willing to go to maintain the natural balance, do we go back to the times when many women died durring child birth, back to the days of the plague. Should we shut down the NGO's providing food/health care in foreign lands and let nature take it's course ? Should we provide for the weak in our society?

      We are part of the biosphere and we fight nature every day, then we pat ouselves on the back and say "isn't it a good thing I did".

    • 6 months ago
  • Luna2na
    • +2
      Luna2na  
    • crabbyoldguy:

      "So how far are we willing to go to maintain the natural balance, do we go back to the times when many women died durring [sic] child birth, back to the days of the plague..."

      You make it sound as if those those issues have been obliterated, they have not. Such events occur daily, even in our land of exceptionalism though you won't hear about it in the media or most places unless you look. And, trust me, no matter how good your insurance is, you and all of us, will die of something eventually. I recall no promises of a life without pain or illness or death when I took my first breath in this life because there is no such thing... only corporate propaganda that makes you want to believe that such a thing is possible... if you buy their stuff. All living organisms in this biosphere are at a disadvantage compared to the most dominant species, humans. We, the most adaptable species, claim to have a superior knowledge which we also claim gives us the ability to act with conscience and responsibility... I see few signs of that taking place in these modern times with regard to the natural systems that make it possible for humans to exist at all... Convenience is not a right nor is it survival-sound thinking.

      How far are you willing to let the destruction of the systems that make your life possible to be degraded for the sake of "convenience" and profit?

    • 6 months ago
  • crabbyoldguy
    • 0
      crabbyoldguy  
    • Luna2na:

      "You make it sound as if those those issues have been obliterated, they have not."

      to clarify

      No, I proposed that man's "superior knowledge" has reduced mortality to unnatural levels and I queried whether we should step out of the way and let humans evolve naturally.

      "How far are you willing to let the destruction of the systems that make your life possible to be degraded for the sake of "convenience" and profit?"

      You are assuming that I'm raping the planet with my lifestyle.

      Should a 90 year old person have a pacemaker implanted to avoid the unavoidable ?

    • 6 months ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • +1
      EthicalVegan  
    • katrinadane:

      Oh, I would LOVE to see wolves around where I live! And besides all that, they were here way before humans started stomping on their rightful grounds. Anyway, I've always immensely enjoyed seeing wildlife being... well... wild.

    • 6 months ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
  • Luna2na
    • +3
      Luna2na  
    • EthicalVegan:

      Nice pics. Thanks for the post. I'm out here where all this political crap is taking place. These politicians do not represent the majority of their constituencies, only their special interest big buck$ contributors and patrons - primarily extractive industries, including welfare/public lands ranching, mining - including fracking interests, timber harvest. It's a sellout bonanza...

    • 6 months ago
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