It’s been about
three months since wolves in the Northern Rockies were removed from
the protection of the Endangered Species Act. To date, at least 20
wolves have been reported killed in Wyoming, where they may legally
be shot on sight. That’s an average of one wolf killed every four
and half days. Five of these wolves were shot in Wyoming during the
first weekend after delisting, with local bloggers bragging about
their success:
“Word on the street from the town of Cora
is they had a hell of a fine weekend wolf hunting — a town wolf
hunt,” and “I can speak first hand to the hunting of the wolves. I
held two of the dead wolves killed this weekend. I’m one of the
“Red Neck Hunters” and proud of it.”
During the
first weekend after wolves were delisted, the Casper Star Tribune
reported that “large numbers of hunters reportedly prowled the
state’s newly designated wolf predator area in Sublette
County.” An outfitter boasted he’d hoped to shoot 10
wolves himself.
These wolves weren’t killed by
wildlife managers because they’d been eating cows or sheep.
They were mostly shot by people for “sport,” their only
crime was that of, well, being a wolf.
Wyoming leads the
Northern Rockies in wolf killing because it has the most egregious
plan for wolf management. Montana and Idaho intend to manage wolves
as a game animal, which will eventually include regulated public
hunting. Wyoming, however, classifies wolves as a “predatory
animal” in areas that cover 85 percent of the state. With the
exception of Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, plus a
small buffer area surrounding the parks, wolves in Wyoming may be
shot on sight anytime and by anyone. You don’t even need a
hunting license.
Hunting has a long and proud tradition
in this country, and over the years it has come to incorporate
principles such as the doctrine of “fair chase” and
conservation of a limited resource. When you buy a state hunting
license, license fees go to the state fish and game agency to
support wildlife and habitat conservation.
Wolf shooters
in Wyoming, however, don’t pay license fees so they
contribute nothing to habitat conservation or to the long-term
maintenance of the species. Moreover, the shoot-on-sight policy
fails to uphold a key principle of scientific management — the
gathering of information about what’s going on in the wild.
Freelance hunting tells nothing about how many people are hunting,
where they’re stalking, or how many wolves they kill. Maybe
Wyoming biologists can check blogs for data.
The restoration of the gray wolf to the Northern Rockies is a
remarkable success story. Wolves now join the bald eagle, peregrine
falcon and a host of other species as an example of how a strong
Endangered Species Act has allowed conservationists to protect and
recover wildlife from the brink of extinction. But delisting wolves
without a commitment from all three states to even-handed,
science-based wolf management plans may very well land the wolf
back on the Endangered Species List.
You’d think
we’d learned something in the 60-plus years since hunter and
conservationist Aldo Leopold stated the principles of wildlife
ecology. After shooting a wolf while working for the U.S. Forest
Service in Arizona, Leopold wrote of seeing a “fierce, green fire”
extinguish in the dying wolf’s eyes. In that moment, he said, he
realized that all species were important, and later concluded that
conservation requires us to live in accordance with all aspects of
the natural world around us. “Harmony with land is like harmony
with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his
left,” Leopold said. “That is to say, you cannot love
game and hate predators.”
I don’t know what Leopold would
think about people hunting wolves so soon after we saved wolves
from dying out in the Northern Rockies. But I have no doubt he’d
frown upon Wyoming’s 19th century management policy that treats
wolves as pests to be exterminated rather than an integral part of
the web of life.
Derek Goldman is a contributor
to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News
(hcn.org). He lives in Missoula, Montana and serves as the
Northern Rockies representative for the Endangered Species
Coalition, a network of more than 380 scientific, sporting,
religious, humane, business and community
groups.
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