When the United States Congress stripped federal protections from gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the Northern Rockies a year ago, environmentalists warned that hundreds of wolves in the region would be killed by ignorant hunters.
The situation is especially bad in Idaho. Broken promises and political pandering to anti-wolf extremists has led to the killing of more than 400 wolves -- almost half the state's wolf population -- in just one year.
Defenders of Wildlife is marking the first anniversary of wolf delisting with a series of actions aimed at shining the national spotlight on Idaho's extreme wolf-killing policies -- and the dangers it poses to wolf recovery in the American West.
Grand Canyon Wolf Killed
The wolf nicknamed "Echo," first to see the Grand Canyon in 70 years was killed by an ignorant hunter.
Grand Canyon Wolf Killed
The wolf nicknamed "Echo," first to see the Grand Canyon in 70 years was killed by an ignorant hunter.
Idaho officials aren't stopping as the death toll surpasses 400 -- they're aiming to kill off as many wolves as possible until they drive the population down to 150. Officials have already changed their rules to make it even easier for hunters and trappers to kill even more wolves.
It's clear that Idaho's goal is to drive wolves down to the barest minimum of 150 wolves -- decimating the state's wolf population.
This is not wolf management. It's an ignorant attempt to eliminate an ecologically important predator from the landscape.
Federal officials delisted wolves in the Northern Rockies based on Idaho's commitment to maintain between 518 and 732 wolves. But the governor broke this promise, leading to Idaho's policy of killing hundreds of wolves.
Idaho is using troubling tactics:
-- No quota limit throughout most of the state on the number of wolves that can be killed through hunting;
-- Allowing hunting for 8-10 months out of the year, which includes through denning season in some areas;
-- Increasing the number of wolves that can be hunted, trapped or snared per person;
-- Using aerial gunning to wipe out entire packs of wolves to artificially boost game populations;
These extreme policies feed a frenzy of uneducated anti-wolf rhetoric in Idaho.
Wolf recovery was one of the most important conservation success stories in this country. It is unconscionable tot let Idaho's extreme and unenlightened actions turn back the clock.
In California the story is completely different. There, an educated population has elevated their lone wolf to cult status. Read more below:
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| A Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) makes it to California. |
By MALIA WOLLAN
SAN FRANCISCO — On the Chinese calendar, this week ushers in the year of the dragon. But here, it feels a lot more like the year of the wolf.
On Dec. 28, a 2 1/2 -year-old gray wolf (Canis lupus) crossed the state line from Oregon, becoming the first of his species to run wild here in 88 years.
His arrival has prompted news articles, attracted feverish fans and sent wildlife officials scrambling to prepare for a new and unfamiliar predator.
“California has more people with more opinions than other states,” said Mark Stopher, senior policy adviser for the California Department of Fish and Game. “We have people calling, saying we should find him a girlfriend as soon as possible and let them settle down. Some people say we should clear humans out of parts of the state and make a wolf sanctuary.”
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| Route traveled by Wolf OR7 |
The wolf, known to biologists as OR7, owes his fame to the GPS collar around his neck, which has allowed scientists and fans alike to use maps to follow his 1,000-mile, lovelorn trek south from his birthplace in northeastern Oregon.
Along the way, OR7 has accrued an almost cultlike status.
“People are going to get wolf tattoos, wolf sweaters, wolf key chains, wolf hats,” said Patrick Valentino, a board member with the California Wolf Center, a nonprofit advocacy and education organization.
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| John Stephenson, a biologist, measured the stride of the gray wolf known as OR7 in Crater Lake National Forest, Oregon, in December 2011. |
In Oregon, students participated in art contests to draw OR7’s likeness and a competition to rename him (the winner: “Journey”). This month, people across the country attended full-moon, candlelight wolf vigils organized by groups with names like Howl Across America and Wolf Warriors.
As with seemingly all wayward and famous animals these days, the wolf has a lively virtual existence on social networking sites like Twitter, where at least two Twitter accounts have been posting from the wolf’s perspective.
“Left family to find wife & new home. eHarmony just wasn’t working for me,” read one Twitter profile. Another account, which describes the wolf’s hobbies as “wandering, ungulates,” recently had in a post: “Why is everyone so worried about my love life?”
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| Wolf OR7 whose image was captured by a remote trail camera in Oregon. |
The wolf’s presence has also set off more practical responses from state wildlife officials, who are hustling to prepare for what they now see as the inevitability of wild gray wolves here.
In mid-January, the California Department of Fish and Game put up a gray wolf Web site that includes a map of OR7’s trek and a 36-page explainer on the species. The department has already begun a series of public meetings with local governments in the state’s northern counties, where wolves are most likely to take up residence first.
Biologists say that OR7 is unlikely to survive long hunting alone without a pack and that it could be as many as 10 years before wild wolf packs roam northern California. Still, state and federal wildlife officials met Friday to discuss a strategy for wolves.
Next month, state biologists will get training by the Agriculture Department to identify livestock killed by wolves.
Once widespread across much of the country, gray wolves were nearly extinct in the contiguous United States by the early 20th century, killed by government trappers, ranchers and hunters. In 1974, the gray wolf was listed as endangered under the newly established Endangered Species Act. Then in 1995 and 1996 wildlife officials released 66 Canadian wolves into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, an area that is now home to nearly 1,700 wolves.
Wolves have been remarkably successful in reinhabiting their old terrain. In recent years regulators removed wolves from the endangered list for much of the northern Rocky Mountains and Great Lakes regions. In Idaho and Montana, they can be legally hunted.
In California, gray wolves remain protected under federal law, and the recent appearance of one has flared up large predator agita among ranchers.
“I’m afraid somebody will step up and take this wolf’s life in their own hands,” said Darrell Wood, a cattle rancher. “There are huge state and federal penalties for killing a wolf.”
Mr. Wood’s family has been raising cattle in Lassen County — where OR7 is now and where the state’s last wolf was shot in 1924 — for six generations. “I just hope it wasn’t a relative of mine who shot him,” said Mr. Wood, 56.
Other area residents seemed more interested in the wolf’s place in the mythological pantheon. “What’s next, sparkly vampires?” asked a commenter on a Lassen County Times article about the wolf, an apparent reference to “Twilight,” the vampire and werewolf series.
Ardent wolf fandom and ire do not surprise Ed Bangs, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service’s recently retired wolf recovery coordinator. “When wolves come back, one side says it’s the end of civilization, our children will be dragged down at the bus stop,” he said. “The other side thinks nature is finally back in balance and can we all have a group hug now.”
California will see the same divisions, said Mr. Bangs, who in his 30 years in gray wolf management attended hundreds of contentious meetings with residents, ranchers and environmentalists.
“I like to say wolves are boring,” he said, “but people are fascinating.”
What We've Read:
The Efficacy of lethal control of wolves has not been tested. A statistical analysis of the efficacy of wolf killings.
Fans of the technology fear F.A.A. rules could hamper innovation to make drones useful for many tasks like tracking wildlife.
25 years of records conclude that traditional wolf "management" (e.g. slaughter) does not work.
By Lydia Millet
TUCSON — IN December 2011, a wild gray wolf set foot in California, the first sighting in almost a century. He’d wandered in from Oregon, looking for a mate. In October 2014, for the first time in almost three-quarters of a century, a gray wolf was seen loping along the forested North Rim of the Grand Canyon, in Arizona. She had walked hundreds of miles, probably from Wyoming or Idaho.
The return of these animals to the homes of their ancestors — however fleeting — was a result of their 40-year protection under the Endangered Species Act.
OR-7, or “Journey,” as schoolchildren named the first wolf, had been born to the Imnaha pack, the first one in Oregon for many decades. When he wandered south, his brother, OR-9, wandered east. Shortly after he crossed into Idaho (where wolves are not protected), he was shot dead. OR-7 lived on, after his repeated incursions into California (where wolves are protected), to sire a litter of pups just north of the state line. He became the subject of a documentary — in California, even a wolf can be a star.
The story of the Grand Canyon wolf, though, may be over: Three days after Christmas, it appears, she was shot and killed in Utah by a man media outlets have called a “coyote hunter.” (A DNA test is pending.)
For almost two centuries, American gray wolves, vilified in fact as well as fiction, were the victims of vicious government extermination programs. By the time the Endangered Species Act was passed, in 1973, only a few hundred of these once-great predators were left in the lower 48 states. After numerous generations of people dedicated to killing wolves on the North American continent, one generation devoted itself to letting wolves live. The animals’ number has now risen to almost 5,500, thanks to their legal protection, but they still occupy less than 5 percent of their ancient home range.
Since 1995, the act has guided efforts to raise wolves in captivity, release them, and follow them in the wild. Twenty years ago this month, the first gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park.
But this fragile progress has been undermined. Since 2011, the federal government has moved to remove federal protection for gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains (Idaho, Montana and Wyoming) and in the western Great Lakes (Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan), the two population centers. Management of the species was turned over to these states, which responded with a zeal that looks like blood lust.
Relying on the greatly exaggerated excuse that wolves threaten cattle and sheep, the states opened their doors to the killing of wolves. (In some states, bait can be used to lure the animals to their deaths; in Montana, private landowners can each kill 100 wolves each year; in Wisconsin, up to six hunting dogs on a single wolf is considered fair play.) Legions of wolf killers rose to the challenge, and the toll has been devastating: In just three and a half years, at least 3,500 wolves have been mowed down.
There’s been an outcry from conservationists, ecologists and people who simply like wolves, but this has not stopped the killers. Some say wolves are a threat to their livestock investments (despite the existence of generous rancher-compensation programs in all wolf states save Alaska); others invoke fear of wolves; still others appear to revel in killing. Online, you can find pictures of wolf carcasses held up proudly as trophies and men boasting of running over wolves with their cars. Judges have started to step in. In September, a federal court decided that wolf management in Wyoming — which had allowed people to kill as many wolves as they wanted, throughout 84 percent of the state — should be returned to the federal government. In December, also in response to a lawsuit, another federal court reinstated protections for wolves in the western Great Lakes. These decisions should make clear that the states alone simply can’t be entrusted with the future of our wolves.
In Washington, the threats persist. The Fish and Wildlife Service is considering a proposal that would strip federal protection from almost all gray wolves in the lower 48 states, not just the ones in the Rockies and the Midwest. Meanwhile, right-wing Republicans in the new Congress are champing at the bit to remove the wolves from protection under the act — politics trumping science.
President Obama should direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to retain protection for wolves; if it doesn’t, they could be wiped off the face of the American landscape forever. A unified wolf-recovery plan for the nation is required. Not only do wolves play an important role in keeping wilderness wild, but they were here long before we were, and deserve to remain. Not for nothing was the environmentalist Aldo Leopold transformed by the sight of a “fierce green fire” in a dying wolf’s eyes.
I’ve seen wild gray wolves only once, as they trotted across a dirt road in front of my own family car in a New Mexican forest. There were three of them on the road, no doubt a wolf family, and three of us in the car: my husband, my daughter and me. In the back seat, my little girl was engrossed in a picture book and didn’t look up fast enough. I want her to have another chance; I want her to keep living in a world where something beautiful and wild lurks at the edge of sight.
Lydia Millet is the author, most recently, of the novel “Mermaids in Paradise.”
A version of this op-ed appears in print on January 19, 2015, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: High Noon for the Gray Wolf.