In 1974 and 1975, some very cool stuff happened. First, President Nixon signed into law the Endangered Species Act and in 1974, wolves in the Lower 48 were the first species declared endangered under this bright and shiny new law. Next, 1975 hailed the end of the war in Vietnam.
But time can be a cruel mistress for we cannot stop ourselves from fighting more wars. And in 2011, the Obama Administration compromised both the Endangered Species Act and wolf recovery in one fell swoop by approving a federal budget with a very sneaky rider. For buried deep within the budget’s muck and mire, the delisting of wolves was mandated for the Northern Rockies. Adding insult to injury, legal challenges were blocked and it became the first time Congress alone stripped a species of protection under the ESA.
Along came the Trump administration and in 2020 ESA protection was removed for all gray wolf populations in the Lower 48, apart from a small group of Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico. After environmental groups successfully sued US Fish and Wildlife a couple of years later, federal protections for gray wolves were again restored over much of the U.S. but sadly, not for the Northern Rockies populations. Now one can only imagine, with great horror, what further atrocities await wolves and other wildlife with another Trump reign…
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I will not argue that today, most small and multi-generational family ranches are struggling to survive. Adding wolves to the equation just makes it that much more difficult, or so one may be led to believe. But while wolves become an easy target for misdirected blame and aggression, there are far more factors that are being swept under the battered rug, like so much dirt mingled with cow shit. It is far too convenient, romantic for some, to point a finger –or a gun– at an apex predator, making it their own personal scapegoat.
A while back, I phoned a good friend who helped maintain his family’s small, fourth generation ranch near Montana’s Tobacco Roots and the Highlands. A former educator, he had written his master’s thesis on the decline of family farms in American rural communities. When I asked him what he felt was the biggest threat to ranching in America he replied, “No, it’s not depredation, but rather favorable tax policies and agricultural subsidies benefiting large commercial livestock operations that are systematically wiping us out.”
But you can’t legally practice shoot, shovel and shut up on lobbyists and politicians who promote, support, and are engaged in the commercial livestock industry.
At that time, the ranch was grazing 150 cows and 70 sheep (it had been historically both larger and smaller). By means of non-lethal predator control -range riders, fladry, and livestock guardian dogs- the ranch had experienced not one loss from wolf depredation over the many decades and generations. And at the same time, there were (and are) wolves in that area. “But we have definitely lost livestock to coyotes, domestic dogs, foxes, and hunters,” he said, shaking his head.
Statistically, wolves account for a very small percentage of livestock losses nationwide, less than 0.1%. US Fish and Wildlife, using professional, field-verified reports, calculates these numbers even lower than the USDA’s National Agriculture Statistic Service, which uses unverified livestock industry reports. Non-predator causes account for around 95% of livestock losses: disease, injury, weather, poisoning, and theft. But it is much simpler to bludgeon, shoot, and trap wolves than it is to acknowledge less emotionally charged, less romantic, and apparently factual causes.
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“Can anyone tell me what’s good about wolves?” asked a little girl during one public meeting of the Idaho Fish and Game Commission. The meeting preceded a vote the next day for setting up that year’s hunting and trapping season for the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf. Her father, a hunting guide and trapper, suggested during the same meeting, "Open 'em year-round. Hunt 'em, trap 'em, run 'em over. Don't make a collared wolf illegal to shoot. Shoot 'em all!"
During the past fifty years and counting, the wolf began as a mere ghost in the Lower 48, given federal protection in great hopes of enhancing biodiversity and restoring healthy ecosystems. Nearly twenty years later, efforts went so far as to take individual wolves from their packs in Canada, turning them into non-consenting martyrs and reintroducing them, kicking and howling, into Yellowstone National Park. Twenty more years pass, and we watch in horror as wolves continue to be vilified, legally and illegally tortured, trapped, poached, and hunted.
Like most of us, wolves are neither devils nor saints. Wolves are just another animal playing an important role in the fabric of a diverse planet Earth. Collectively, we must look toward a changing landscape that impatiently waits beyond the end of our own noses, far and away from our own back forties. We need to think outside the fence-line. Until then, we will continue to huff, and to puff, and keep right on trying with all of our might to blow this house down.
