One year ago this week, a Daniel, Wyoming, man deliberately ran over a young male wolf with a snowmachine, duct-taped his muzzle shut and paraded him around a local bar before shooting him dead. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department fined the man $250 for possessing a live, warm-blooded wild animal, a misdemeanor in the state.
Four weeks later, reports of the crime — and video clips of it — hit the internet.
Reaction was swift and furious. Wolf advocates, social media influencers and thousands of others called for boycotting Wyoming and its wolf-hating residents. Hashtags like #wyomingtorturestate and #boycottwyoming took off, and death threats from across the globe flooded the small community of Daniel.
The perpetrator’s cruelty was shocking. Yet the vitriol directed at the state obscured a larger, more hopeful story about Wyoming’s wolves. Though the state spent millions of dollars fighting wolf reintroduction in the 1990s, it has since found a way to maintain a wolf population while keeping some semblance of peace. These days, public meetings about wolf policy tend to be, of all things, boring.
Thirty years ago, that was hardly the case.
When I was growing up in Casper, Wyoming, a popular bumper sticker read “Wolves: Government Sponsored Terrorists” — words that summed up my state’s attitude toward the predators that federal biologists planned to release in Yellowstone National Park. The outside world dismissed us as ignorant rednecks who couldn’t comprehend the ecological benefits of wolf reintroduction. In turn, many Wyomingites resented what they saw as government overreach — D.C. politicians meddling in a region and culture they didn’t understand.
After wolves returned to Yellowstone, attitudes changed little. Ranchers, outfitters, hunters and average Joes filled conference rooms to yell at biologists and wildlife managers. Wyoming politicians filed lawsuits, and wolf advocacy groups fired back. People threatened to “shoot, shovel, and shut up” — and some probably did.
“Wolves: Government Sponsored Terrorists”
Still, by the late 2000s, the wolf population in the Yellowstone region had increased enough to satisfy the recovery goals established under the Endangered Species Act. Wolves could be delisted, federal wildlife officials said, if the states presented reasonable management plans.
But Wyoming, according to lawsuits and several federal judges, failed to do so.
Unlike Idaho and Montana, which set wolf-hunting quotas statewide, Wyoming proposed to restrict hunting to its northwestern corner, where most wolves lived, and designate the rest of the state as a “predator zone,” where people could gas wolf puppies in dens, trap wolves in snares and, yes, run over them with snowmobiles. The state also proposed to maintain only 10 breeding pairs and 100 wolves outside of the national parks and the Wind River Reservation — a number so small that federal judges blocked delisting.
Eventually, the state gave some ground, agreeing to maintain more wolves. Wyoming now manages for about 160 wolves outside the parks and the reservation, a number that exceeds the threshold required by the Endangered Species Act but is below the carrying capacity of the state’s habitat. As a result, Wyoming’s wolves have plenty of elk, deer and moose to eat, making them less likely to resort to livestock. And when wolves kill fewer cows and sheep, wolf managers kill fewer wolves.
Though it had been a long, messy journey, it seemed that Wyoming had found a way to manage its wolves. As time passed, the fervor slowly, almost imperceptibly, died down. Conversations about wolves continued, but public meetings that were once standing-room-only circuses became undramatic affairs.
Not everyone is happy, of course. Plenty of ranchers and outfitters still hate wolves, and animal-rights advocates hate the predator zone. And yet the state’s wolf population is healthy and stable, with most residents expressing at least grudging satisfaction with the current truce.
As time passed, the fervor slowly, almost imperceptibly, died down.
Today — as Montana lawmakers debate bills proposing to kill nearly half the state’s wolves, Idaho continues to loosen regulations, and Colorado ranchers panic at the prospect of more wolves — it’s worth acknowledging Wyoming’s progress as well as its failures.
Since the incident in Daniel, hunters, scientists, and more than a few state lawmakers have called for a ban on killing wolves with snowmobiles, even in the state’s predator zone. Conservative Wyoming Rep. Mike Schmid proposed banning the practice altogether, though his bill failed to pass. But a bill that would outlaw torturing wildlife, including wolves, by enabling felony charges against people who deliberately prolong the suffering of predatory animals passed both Legislative chambers with broad support and is heading to the governor’s desk.
And for what it’s worth, I see far fewer of those anti-wolf bumper stickers than I used to. That’s not a scientific measurement, but it is a reminder that people can find common ground on hot-button issues, and even the highest temperatures can come down.
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