The feature story in the November 10th edition of HCN – Still Howling Wolf – asked: Will Westerners finally learn to live with Canis
lupus? The article looks for the
answer in the attitudes of a variety of Northern Rockies residents in light of
a lawsuit that returned the gray wolf to federal Endangered Species Act
protection and nixed state management plans in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. And
while in the short term this has resulted in expressions of chagrin and
hostility by trophy hunting guides and some ranchers, a careful reading of the
story indicates that the wolves – if not the people whose lawsuit returned them
to ESA protection – have achieved grudging acceptance by at least some of the
very people who feel that wolves have negatively impacted their livelihoods.
Meanwhile wolves have also moved into Oregon and Washington and are expected to arrive in Northern
California within a decade.
Their reception in Oregon and Washington may not be as
controversial as it has been in the Northern Rockies. The fact that wolves are
recolonizing these states through natural migration and not human intervention
may be one factor mitigating negative reactions. In addition, Oregon and Washington have been
proactive; Oregon completed its wolf management plan in 2005 and Washington’s
plan should be in place before 2010.
Another difference is that the Canis lupus is listed in
these states under state endangered species laws which require protection,
recovery goals and management plans.
The gray wolf has been gone so long from California that
the species is not even included on The Fish & Game Department’s species
lists. But that does not mean that wolves are
not controversial there. Backed by scientific studies which found ample habitat
and prey base, Defenders of Wildlife petitioned the federal government in 2002 to
designate 16 million acres of national forests and parks in Northern California
and southern Oregon as suitable wolf habitat for study and management purposes. The studies
suggest the area could support as many as 500 gray wolves.
But Southern Oregon and Northern California – the Klamath
Mountains (which I’ve called home since 1975), the Modoc Plateau, Southern Cascades
and Warner Mountains – is a stronghold for the anti-environmental, county
supremacy and property rights movements. Defenders 2002 call was not received
well here and led to renewed calls for formation of the State of Jefferson
as, among other things, a refuge for Old West style wolf management also known
as “shoot and shovel”.
The trajectory of wolf management in the Northern Rockies,
however, gives hope that even in remote
Northern California and Southern Oregon Canis
lupus may eventually gain acceptance – if only grudgingly – by ranchers and
hunting guides. But the path to that eventuality may be as acrimonious and
tortuous as it has been in the Northern Rockies.
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