Wolf Research Paper
by Luke Van Horn ('19)
From the story of the three little pigs to little red riding hood, from Aesop’s fables to Disney, wolves are the easy villain. Yet, in reality, species of wolves across the U.S. are poisoned and shot from helicopters despite their infrequent encounters with people. Why is it that our culture sees wolves as a wild evil, when they are an endangered species that only a fraction of the population even encounters? Wolves have long been persecuted in the United States for their predation on livestock and game animals, yet their presence is essential for the stability of the North American ecosystem and must be maintained in order to avoid ecological degeneration despite the current political agenda of the federal government.
Part I: Historical Hunting of Wildlife and Game Preservation
From the foundation of the United States as a group of colonies, wolves have been the vilified and massacred by livestock producers. Ever since permanent european settlement had been established, pilgrims, naturalists, scientists have denounced the wolves: “William Bradford, who arrived in massachusetts on the Mayflower, declared in 1624, ‘The country is annoyed with foxes and wolves.’ Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island wrote, ‘the Wolfe is an Embleme of a fierce blood-sucking persecutor. Mark Catesby, the early naturalist, held ‘the wolves in Carolina are very numerous, and more destructive that another animal. They go in droves by night, and hunt deer like hounds, with dismal yelling cries.” Clearly these powerful figures from history had a bias against wolves. They paint wolves as “fierce,” “blood-sucking,” and “destructive,” which shows their complete devotion to their one-sided contempt. Yet almost four hundred years after William Bradford’s declaration, a similar sentiment is still shared: “In 1904, William T. Hornaday, longtime director of the New York Zoological Park… wrote, ‘Of all the wild creatures of North America, none are more despicable than wolves. There is no depth of meanness, treachery or cruelty to which they do not cheerfully descend.’” Not only did the early settlers of the Americas despise wolves but it seems that after almost half a millennium later, even zoologists, who should understand the complexities of intraspecial dependencies, still hate the wolves. This sheer contempt for wolves led the U.S. to hunt these predators to near extinction: “Our recent ancestors… simply set about eradicating wolves: not limiting or ‘controlling’ them, but wiping them out. Unhappily, there are still a few throwbacks eager to promote this course of action. One thinks, for example, of the gentlemen in southeastern Alberta who, in 1994, saw to the killing of more than forty wolves--about 75 per cent of a recovering population on the east slope of the Canadian Rockies.” The lack of regulation on the eradication of wolves is in, at least some part, due to the contempt of wolves shared by the general public, and more importantly influential figures, until the past fifty years or so. With the constant reminder that wolves were “blood-sucking,” “destructive” creatures who have “no depth of meanness, treachery or cruelty,” it is clear why the U.S. has only recently become aware that the practise of mass, systematic destruction of wolves should not be continued.
While people began to notice the effects of their century long campaign of massacring native animal and plant species, they only developed conservation as a way to preserve game species. Only after the public realized that their generations of overhunting and overtaxing the land had worn away their game, did they start to consider conservation efforts. However, these efforts were only directed towards preserving prey for hunting. One such efforts took place in 1953, when “about 100 experts in mammals were present at opening sessions to hear a report on ‘Operation Umiat,’ a Fish and Wildlife Service study of the feasibility of purging Alaska of the [wolf].” This study was apparently done to “find out whether it might be possible to wolf-proof Alaska--to make the territory completely safe for reindeer, caribou and moose that are the main food and clothing source for the Eskimos in Northern Alaska, west of the brooks Range, where ‘Operation Umiat’ was conducted.” In order to boost populations of over-hunted ungulates, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the branch of government dedicated to protecting wildlife, decided to eliminate the species’ other predator, the wolf. In this test of feasibility, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shot wolves from helicopters and poisoned their kills. It was recorded that “339 wolves were sighted and 259 were killed in six weeks.” Another conservation effort took place in 1946 in Arizona again with ungulate populations but this time killing coyotes instead of wolves: “Field and aerial surveys showed that the ratio of fawn survival was only 24.7 for every 100 does. Coyotes were numerous. During the winter of 1945-46 the State commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began a cooperative coyote-control campaign in seven northern Arizona areas. A mid-summer airplane count of antelope in 1946 showed that the percentage of fawns to does had soured to an average of 64 per cent on six of the seven areas. The seventh area had received little coyote-control work.” To the federal and state governments, this was conclusive evidence that ungulate populations, commonly hunted by people, could be increased by killing off other predators. As recently as almost fifty years ago, wildlife conservation efforts were created with the sole purpose increasing the number of animals to shoot.
Part II: Historical Conservation of Wildlife including Predators
Finally, biologists and conservationists realized that wildlife conservation had to apply to entire ecosystems rather than just game species in order to have a lasting and significant effect. Trying to preserve one species by killing another not only hurts the population of the species being hunted but it damages the ecosystem as a whole which it turn negatively affects the population originally trying to be preserved. While this holistic view of conservation was developed earlier than the examples of predator control previously mentioned, lack of policy and political action meant predator control would remain a strong method of conservation. As Whitney R. Cross, mentions in his article named The Road to Conservation from 1948, “Other cycles make plant and animal life support each other. Just as bees, alfalfa, cow manure, nitrogen-fixing bacteria and soil chemicals are all involved with each other and with our milk and beef supply, so in similar fashion all the worms, insects, birds, and wild animals contribute to intricately balanced patterns which control all the living species” Cross applied what biologists had previously found to an academic setting. He states that all animal and plant life supports one another in their ecosystems. To destroy one is to upset the balance. He then argues that, “Carnivorous animals, men included, normally operate in this economy as a minor force, in fact virtually as parasites, and only a small number can be supported by the earth upon the annual yield of its natural system. The other meat-eaters have behaved themselves, and even man was until quite recently a very small species in number, but when he reached his intellectual maturity a few centuries ago, he began to make trouble.” Because humans have become vastly overpopulated, Cross argues, they have overtaxed and unbalanced the ecosystems that they inhabit. By shooting too many deer, ducks, moose, bison, etc., humans are undermining the carefully balanced systems of life, which will ultimately cause mass extinction.
Furthering the argument of holistic conservation, a “land ethic” must be founded to allow the sustainable diversity of life to exist in a capitalist society. Arguably the most significant work of the burgeoning wildlife conservation movement was Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, published in 1938, where he outlined the problem with the relationship between capitalism and conservationism. He believed the only way to preserve ecosystems was not for governments to mandate laws but for the individuals to collectively establish a “land ethic”. This ethic would be founded by the local communities and it would hold everyone accountable to respect and value every part of the ecosystem. Leopold argued that predators had long been persecuted in the name of conservation, yet, “it is only in recent years that we hear the more honest argument that predators are members of the community, and that no special interest has the right to exterminate them for the sake of a benefit, real or fancied, to itself. Unfortunately this enlightened view is still in the talk stage. In the field the extermination of predators goes merrily on: witness the impending erasure of the timber wolf by fiat of Congress, the Conservation Bureaus, and many state legislatures.” Leopold recognizes that predator control, despite being disputed by ecological studies, continues in the U.S. and that it is an ineffective way to boost game populations. Leopold concludes his argument by stating, “To sum up: a system of conservation based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus eventually to eliminate, many elements in the land community that lack commercial value, but that are (as far as we know) essential to its healthy functioning. It assumes, falsely, I think, that the economic parts of the biotic clock will function without the uneconomic parts. It tends to relegate to government many functions eventually too large, too complex, or too widely dispersed to be performed by government. ” Conservation that is based “solely on economic self-interest” fails to preserve the vast majority of species which are just as important to the functionality of the ecosystem. Yet, as Leopold argues, to put the entire responsibility of conservation in the hands of the government can not work. As “Operation Umiat” and the coyote control in Arizona suggest, the federal government, and by extension the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot perform proper holistic conservation as they too are subject to the influence of economic gain. Thus, only the individuals of the nation can effectively conserve ecosystems as a whole, by establishing communal rules of wildlife interaction.
Part III: The Opposition to Conservation
Yet, predators such as wolves continued to be exterminated for the damage they wrought on livestock. At the same time as Leopold was writing his call for a “land ethic,” newspapers were writing about how evil and costly wolves were. While biologists, ecologists, and conservationists all understood, at this point, that predator control was disastrous for ecosystems and completely ignored the dependencies of organisms on one another, others had failed to come to this realization. As one article from the Washington Post mentions, “Once upon a time there was a wolf. Although he did have a lolling black tongue and ferocious, gleaming, green eyes he was not the wolf who disguised himself as a grandmother and eventually was killed by a convenient wood-cutter.” Drawing upon a common folktale, this article clearly paints wolves as monsters, much the way Little Red Riding Hood did. With “gleaming, green eyes” and a “lolling black tongue,” this monstrous image of wolf was an intentional decision to vilify wolves even further. By vilifying wolves as ruthless killers of livestock and people, the public can justify the hunting of them. The article continues, saying “He liked his dinners so well, this wolf, that alone and unaided he destroyed livestock in one Western State valued at more than $25,000…. His picture hangs now in the offices of the Bureau of Biological Survey, and--more specifically-- in the Division of Predatory Animal and Rodent Control.” It is evident that wolves are a nuisance to livestock producers and can cause lots of damage to these producers. It is no wonder then, why there has been asn is such backlash to wolf reintroduction plans. Wolves have long been seen as the enemy, even by the state with the “Division of Predatory Animals and Rodent Control” hanging pictures of slain wolves on their walls. Yet, despite scientific evidence of the effect of wolves on observed ecosystems, the public saw wolves as enemies of the state.
Anti-wolf and predator views are not only of the past; the current opposition to wolf reintroduction programs is just a strong as it has been. Though the aforementioned texts and passages reference past views on wolves, wolf opposition is still present across the nation. A news article from 1992, mentions some opposition to a, then, recent wolf reintroduction program: “Many ranchers, whose predecessors drove the wolf out of the West in the late 1930's, see no reason to turn back the clock. ‘This is going to put wolves into direct conflict with man,’ said Troy Mader, president of the Common Man Institute in Gillette, Wyo., a group that opposes reintroduction of the wolf. ‘That means they are going to be shot, either legally or illegally.’ Throughout Montana, wolves have been illegally poisoned and shot.” Clearly, these ranchers feel strongly about the issue of wolf reintroduction. With ranchers being the most affected by wolf killing, it is foolish to dismiss their perspective. The local ranching communities believe that they have the right to decide what goes on in their community, not the government's programs. The author of the book Beyond Wolves: The Politics of Wolf Recovery and Management, tells the reader his experiences with the rachers’ perspective: “Ranchers, or their representative organizations, would tell me how elite urban “enviros” are simply using the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a tool to lock out ranchers and extractive industries from the public domain. They would accentuate the importance of more local control, custom, culture, private property rights, and the need for “sound science” in wildlife management.” Thus, the controversy over wolf conservation becomes one of local rancher versus “elite” environmentalist. Wolf opposition, currently, is as much about boosting game populations and protecting livestock as it is about ensuring individual rights and respecting the local opinions. The fear that the government will use wolf protection programs to obtain more federal management of lands and, in the process, infringe on the local communities and individual freedoms, is a fear driving much of wolf opposition. In the past, wolves have been vilified and hunted to protect livestock and game; currently, in addition to the reasons in the past, are being opposed because they represent a perceived federal government overstepping.
Wolves, currently, are having their protections removed and many people still want them eradicated. The wolf opposition has seen much of their agenda supported by the current presidential cabinet. With the Trump Administration favoring private corporations’ rights and those of rural industries, it comes as no surprise that millions of acres have been removed from national protection and federal management and into the hands of agricultural and extractive industries. With this reduction in land protection comes the reduction in wildlife protection including that of the wolf. On March 22nd of 2017, it is legal again to hunt wolves in Alaska: “The FWS rule facing repeal explicitly prohibited many kinds of "predator control" on the 16 federally owned refuges in Alaska. That prohibition included a ban on the aerial hunting, live trapping or baiting of predators such as bears and wolves -- as well as on killing those predators while near their dens or their cubs.” Though the wolf conservation movement had seen great strides in its work, currently much of it is being again. One may think back to “Operation Umiat” and see its parallels in government action today. Alaska is not the only one to see its wildlife protections rescinded, wolf hunts in Wisconsin and Minnesota have become legal in the past decade.When speaking about the previous federal predator protections on Alaska, republican representatives criticize the protections flaws: “it fundamentally destroys a cooperative relationship between Alaska and the federal government.’ Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, also representing Alaska, echoed those concerns Tuesday, saying the restrictions changed the state's relationship with FWS ‘from one of cooperation to subservience,’ The Associated Press reports. ‘This rule is about Alaska,’ he said.” Representatives of Alaska argue that the wolf protection opposition is about states’ rights against federal oppression. While this is a significant part of the debate, livestock and game protection and the economic benefits for agricultural communities included with this protection are certainly part of the opposition as well.
Part IV: Current Conservation and Studies of Wolves/ Solutions(maybe another part)
Despite this political debate and opposition to wolves, they still remain a crucial member of the ecosystem. Wolves have become a proxy battle for in the fight for individual rights against federal regulation as well as the fight between ranchers and environmentalists. First and foremost, wolves are apex predators that represent the top of the food chain. Although it may seem unintuitive, being the apex predator in a balanced ecosystem often means being a stabilizing presence. As multiple studies suggest, wolves and other apex predators can keep their prey species healthy: “A case in point comes from Isle Royale in Lake Superior, where moose populations plummeted in the 1940s because of overpopulation and overbrowsing. But after a small population of wolves established itself on the island late in that decade, moose gradually increased to about six hundred in 1960 and fifteen hundred in 1970.” Wolves, in this case, did not act as the vicious slaughterhouse that they are often made out as. Instead, they acted as a stabilizing force that naturally limits the population of its prey species so that they cannot become overpopulated. This same study found that, “the wolves were removing mostly aged and inferior animals… In all these circumstances, it seems possible that wolves may unwittingly benefit their prey species by culling the weak and helping keep the population in check.” The easiest kills for wolves are almost always the animal that is among the weak in a herd. Thus by weeding out sick, old, or genetically weak, they keep ungulate populations fit and healthy. It is because of the wolves ability to stabilize prey populations and keep those populations healthy, that they are crucial to the function of ecosystems. With the rise of livestock populations in wolf habitats, wolves sometimes hunt livestock instead of naturally occuring prey species. Yet, the impact of these killings is less than significant: “Many wildlife researchers acknowledge that wolves kill livestock, but add that the impact is relatively minor. For example, in Minnesota, a state long inhabited by timber wolves, livestock losses affect only about 1 of every 1,000 farmers a year, according to a recent Federal study.” Because wolves rarely attack livestock, their importance to the health of their ecosystems far outweighs the cost of their damage. Finally, wolves’ impact on their ecosystem even goes so far as to affect the very land: “After the wolves were gone from the Rocky Mountains, the trees disappeared, and soil eroded near streams, said Bill Ripple, a professor of forest ecosystems and society at Oregon State University. Elk had eaten nearly all of the young tree sprouts. ‘If you lose the wolf, there's nothing to keep the elk in check,’ Ripple said. But when the wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in 1995, the balance shifted back.” Wolves, though small in number, have such a large effect on their ecosystems, it seems foolish to hunt them to protect other species.
Wolves have been caught in the crossfire of political turmoil and the only hope for their recovery is for state and federal governments to work together, for environmentalists and livestock producers to find common ground, and for the nation as a whole to support the effort. While scientists agree that wolves are a vital part of the ecosystem, it is only through public policy and cooperative action that wolves can recover. As of March 16, 2018, a program in New Mexico shows how collaboration can be possible between opposing views: “U.S. government and state officials intend to work together to recover an endangered species of wolves that once roamed the American Southwest, with a new signed agreement. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish announced on Thursday the agreement with Arizona and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.” For programs to succeed, it is crucial for all views to be included in a solution. Republican alaskans disliked the federal protection in their state, as previously mentioned, thus leading Alaska’s wolf protections to fail. Similarly to the individuals versus government aspect to the wolf debate, the rancher versus environmentalist facet must be addressed as well. Yet, there are solutions to this dispute as well: “Provided that stock growers take proper care of their herds and flocks… then incidents of predation, and losses of wolves, will be very rare. Where wild prey is available, few wolves pay much attention to sheep and cattle.” Much can be done to prevent wolf interactions with livestock that currently is not being utilized. The responsibility should not just rest on the shoulders of ranchers, however, and citizens living in cities or unaffected areas should pay their fair share of the cost of conservation: “Farmers and ranchers who meet high standards in their husbandry prices deserve to be compensated, at fair market value, when they do lose stock to wolves. The rest of us must be prepared to pay the price, either through taxes or--in jurisdictions where governments are taking a principled stand against public governance--through private subscriptions.” For recovery programs to function without political deadlock, there must be compromises made on both sides. Ranchers must be willing to experiment with practises that may not be economically favorable and conservationists must be willing to pay, at least through capital, to support these ranchers.
Wolves are an important part of the North American ecosystem yet centuries of hunting and government efforts have left their numbers dangerously low; though conservationists and livestock producers have debated wolf recovery plans, their presence is needed in the ecosystem. Throughout history, wolves have been hunted and painted as bloodthirsty monsters. Because of their threat to livestock and game species, the U.S. has been reluctant to protect them, despite environmentalists and scientists arguing otherwise. The wolf controversy has become part of a larger, individual versus government debate, which hinders its ability to be progressed. Currently, there is much being done to revoke the protections of wolves, but because of their studied importance to their ecosystems, comprises must be made to ensure their survival. Our nation’s ability to progress through opposing views is being tested.
Bibliography
“Animal Gangsters at Large: Every Year Foraging Beasts Destroy Livestock And Crops Worth Millions and Now Federal Agents Are Out After These Public Enemies.” Washington Post. March 25, 1934. ProQuest. https://search.proquest.com/docview/150508010/50EC6376B3C7429FPQ/5?accountid=704.
Barrett, Joe. “Wolf Hunt Begins Amid Court Fight.” Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2012. ProQuest. https://search.proquest.com/docview/2110928322/17C6081312B54096PQ/8?accountid=704.
Bryan, Susan M. “U.S., states to collaborate on Mexican wolf recovery.” St. Louis Post - Dispatch. March 16, 2018. ProQuest. https://search.proquest.com/docview/2014218483/8BE2AF7BFAAA4362PQ/4?accountid=704.
Chappell, Helen. “Red wolf comeback helps other animals,” August 26, 2011. ProQuest. https://search.proquest.com/docview/885419094/E4B9C7FF5D2045D5PQ/15?accountid=704.
Cross, Whitney R. "The Road to Conservation." The Antioch Review 8, no. 4 (1948): 432-46. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4609299.
Deindorfer, Bob. “‘What is Happening to Our Wildlife?’” Los Angeles Times. October 19, 1947. ProQuest. https://search.proquest.com/docview/165791815/fulltextPDF/855DDDB4BB154CE0PQ/2?accountid=704.
Dwyer, Collin. “Congress Rolls Back Obama-Era Rule On Hunting Bears And Wolves In Alaska.” The Two-Way: NPR, March 22, 2017. ProQuest. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1879778407/17C6081312B54096PQ/3?accountid=704.
Leopold, Aldo. “Land Ethic” in A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949). Originally published in Birdlore 1938. University of Colorado. http://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil3140/Leopold.pdf.
Meier, Barry. “Wolves Return to Montana, And the Greetings Are Mixed: Wolves Return to an Uneasy Montana.” New York Times, August 10, 1992. Proquest. https://search.proquest.com/docview/108900300/49224ACF8B6241D3PQ/19?accountid=704.
Nie, Martin A. Beyond Wolves: The Politics of Wolf Recovery and Management. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. http://www.questiaschool.com/read/120182589/beyond-wolves-the-politics-of-wolf-recovery-and.
Savage, Candace. The World of the Wolf. Vancouver: Greystone Books, 1996.
“SCIENTISTS ALOOF ON U. S. WOLF HUNT: Fish and Wildlife Service Plans to Rid Alaska of Predator by Airborne Hunters REPORT PRESENTED HERE Mammalogists Question Idea That the Beasts Destroy Wild Deer and Moose.” New York Times, June 17, 1953. ProQuest. https://search.proquest.com/docview/112792118/fulltextPDF/FC89A4981B8E45FBPQ/2?accountid=704.
Steinhart, Peter. The Company of Wolves. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
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Part I: Historical Hunting of Wildlife and Game Preservation
From the foundation of the United States as a group of colonies, wolves have been the vilified and massacred by livestock producers. Ever since permanent european settlement had been established, pilgrims, naturalists, scientists have denounced the wolves: “William Bradford, who arrived in massachusetts on the Mayflower, declared in 1624, ‘The country is annoyed with foxes and wolves.’ Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island wrote, ‘the Wolfe is an Embleme of a fierce blood-sucking persecutor. Mark Catesby, the early naturalist, held ‘the wolves in Carolina are very numerous, and more destructive that another animal. They go in droves by night, and hunt deer like hounds, with dismal yelling cries.” Clearly these powerful figures from history had a bias against wolves. They paint wolves as “fierce,” “blood-sucking,” and “destructive,” which shows their complete devotion to their one-sided contempt. Yet almost four hundred years after William Bradford’s declaration, a similar sentiment is still shared: “In 1904, William T. Hornaday, longtime director of the New York Zoological Park… wrote, ‘Of all the wild creatures of North America, none are more despicable than wolves. There is no depth of meanness, treachery or cruelty to which they do not cheerfully descend.’” Not only did the early settlers of the Americas despise wolves but it seems that after almost half a millennium later, even zoologists, who should understand the complexities of intraspecial dependencies, still hate the wolves. This sheer contempt for wolves led the U.S. to hunt these predators to near extinction: “Our recent ancestors… simply set about eradicating wolves: not limiting or ‘controlling’ them, but wiping them out. Unhappily, there are still a few throwbacks eager to promote this course of action. One thinks, for example, of the gentlemen in southeastern Alberta who, in 1994, saw to the killing of more than forty wolves--about 75 per cent of a recovering population on the east slope of the Canadian Rockies.” The lack of regulation on the eradication of wolves is in, at least some part, due to the contempt of wolves shared by the general public, and more importantly influential figures, until the past fifty years or so. With the constant reminder that wolves were “blood-sucking,” “destructive” creatures who have “no depth of meanness, treachery or cruelty,” it is clear why the U.S. has only recently become aware that the practise of mass, systematic destruction of wolves should not be continued.
While people began to notice the effects of their century long campaign of massacring native animal and plant species, they only developed conservation as a way to preserve game species. Only after the public realized that their generations of overhunting and overtaxing the land had worn away their game, did they start to consider conservation efforts. However, these efforts were only directed towards preserving prey for hunting. One such efforts took place in 1953, when “about 100 experts in mammals were present at opening sessions to hear a report on ‘Operation Umiat,’ a Fish and Wildlife Service study of the feasibility of purging Alaska of the [wolf].” This study was apparently done to “find out whether it might be possible to wolf-proof Alaska--to make the territory completely safe for reindeer, caribou and moose that are the main food and clothing source for the Eskimos in Northern Alaska, west of the brooks Range, where ‘Operation Umiat’ was conducted.” In order to boost populations of over-hunted ungulates, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the branch of government dedicated to protecting wildlife, decided to eliminate the species’ other predator, the wolf. In this test of feasibility, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shot wolves from helicopters and poisoned their kills. It was recorded that “339 wolves were sighted and 259 were killed in six weeks.” Another conservation effort took place in 1946 in Arizona again with ungulate populations but this time killing coyotes instead of wolves: “Field and aerial surveys showed that the ratio of fawn survival was only 24.7 for every 100 does. Coyotes were numerous. During the winter of 1945-46 the State commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began a cooperative coyote-control campaign in seven northern Arizona areas. A mid-summer airplane count of antelope in 1946 showed that the percentage of fawns to does had soured to an average of 64 per cent on six of the seven areas. The seventh area had received little coyote-control work.” To the federal and state governments, this was conclusive evidence that ungulate populations, commonly hunted by people, could be increased by killing off other predators. As recently as almost fifty years ago, wildlife conservation efforts were created with the sole purpose increasing the number of animals to shoot.
Part II: Historical Conservation of Wildlife including Predators
Finally, biologists and conservationists realized that wildlife conservation had to apply to entire ecosystems rather than just game species in order to have a lasting and significant effect. Trying to preserve one species by killing another not only hurts the population of the species being hunted but it damages the ecosystem as a whole which it turn negatively affects the population originally trying to be preserved. While this holistic view of conservation was developed earlier than the examples of predator control previously mentioned, lack of policy and political action meant predator control would remain a strong method of conservation. As Whitney R. Cross, mentions in his article named The Road to Conservation from 1948, “Other cycles make plant and animal life support each other. Just as bees, alfalfa, cow manure, nitrogen-fixing bacteria and soil chemicals are all involved with each other and with our milk and beef supply, so in similar fashion all the worms, insects, birds, and wild animals contribute to intricately balanced patterns which control all the living species” Cross applied what biologists had previously found to an academic setting. He states that all animal and plant life supports one another in their ecosystems. To destroy one is to upset the balance. He then argues that, “Carnivorous animals, men included, normally operate in this economy as a minor force, in fact virtually as parasites, and only a small number can be supported by the earth upon the annual yield of its natural system. The other meat-eaters have behaved themselves, and even man was until quite recently a very small species in number, but when he reached his intellectual maturity a few centuries ago, he began to make trouble.” Because humans have become vastly overpopulated, Cross argues, they have overtaxed and unbalanced the ecosystems that they inhabit. By shooting too many deer, ducks, moose, bison, etc., humans are undermining the carefully balanced systems of life, which will ultimately cause mass extinction.
Furthering the argument of holistic conservation, a “land ethic” must be founded to allow the sustainable diversity of life to exist in a capitalist society. Arguably the most significant work of the burgeoning wildlife conservation movement was Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, published in 1938, where he outlined the problem with the relationship between capitalism and conservationism. He believed the only way to preserve ecosystems was not for governments to mandate laws but for the individuals to collectively establish a “land ethic”. This ethic would be founded by the local communities and it would hold everyone accountable to respect and value every part of the ecosystem. Leopold argued that predators had long been persecuted in the name of conservation, yet, “it is only in recent years that we hear the more honest argument that predators are members of the community, and that no special interest has the right to exterminate them for the sake of a benefit, real or fancied, to itself. Unfortunately this enlightened view is still in the talk stage. In the field the extermination of predators goes merrily on: witness the impending erasure of the timber wolf by fiat of Congress, the Conservation Bureaus, and many state legislatures.” Leopold recognizes that predator control, despite being disputed by ecological studies, continues in the U.S. and that it is an ineffective way to boost game populations. Leopold concludes his argument by stating, “To sum up: a system of conservation based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus eventually to eliminate, many elements in the land community that lack commercial value, but that are (as far as we know) essential to its healthy functioning. It assumes, falsely, I think, that the economic parts of the biotic clock will function without the uneconomic parts. It tends to relegate to government many functions eventually too large, too complex, or too widely dispersed to be performed by government. ” Conservation that is based “solely on economic self-interest” fails to preserve the vast majority of species which are just as important to the functionality of the ecosystem. Yet, as Leopold argues, to put the entire responsibility of conservation in the hands of the government can not work. As “Operation Umiat” and the coyote control in Arizona suggest, the federal government, and by extension the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot perform proper holistic conservation as they too are subject to the influence of economic gain. Thus, only the individuals of the nation can effectively conserve ecosystems as a whole, by establishing communal rules of wildlife interaction.
Part III: The Opposition to Conservation
Yet, predators such as wolves continued to be exterminated for the damage they wrought on livestock. At the same time as Leopold was writing his call for a “land ethic,” newspapers were writing about how evil and costly wolves were. While biologists, ecologists, and conservationists all understood, at this point, that predator control was disastrous for ecosystems and completely ignored the dependencies of organisms on one another, others had failed to come to this realization. As one article from the Washington Post mentions, “Once upon a time there was a wolf. Although he did have a lolling black tongue and ferocious, gleaming, green eyes he was not the wolf who disguised himself as a grandmother and eventually was killed by a convenient wood-cutter.” Drawing upon a common folktale, this article clearly paints wolves as monsters, much the way Little Red Riding Hood did. With “gleaming, green eyes” and a “lolling black tongue,” this monstrous image of wolf was an intentional decision to vilify wolves even further. By vilifying wolves as ruthless killers of livestock and people, the public can justify the hunting of them. The article continues, saying “He liked his dinners so well, this wolf, that alone and unaided he destroyed livestock in one Western State valued at more than $25,000…. His picture hangs now in the offices of the Bureau of Biological Survey, and--more specifically-- in the Division of Predatory Animal and Rodent Control.” It is evident that wolves are a nuisance to livestock producers and can cause lots of damage to these producers. It is no wonder then, why there has been asn is such backlash to wolf reintroduction plans. Wolves have long been seen as the enemy, even by the state with the “Division of Predatory Animals and Rodent Control” hanging pictures of slain wolves on their walls. Yet, despite scientific evidence of the effect of wolves on observed ecosystems, the public saw wolves as enemies of the state.
Anti-wolf and predator views are not only of the past; the current opposition to wolf reintroduction programs is just a strong as it has been. Though the aforementioned texts and passages reference past views on wolves, wolf opposition is still present across the nation. A news article from 1992, mentions some opposition to a, then, recent wolf reintroduction program: “Many ranchers, whose predecessors drove the wolf out of the West in the late 1930's, see no reason to turn back the clock. ‘This is going to put wolves into direct conflict with man,’ said Troy Mader, president of the Common Man Institute in Gillette, Wyo., a group that opposes reintroduction of the wolf. ‘That means they are going to be shot, either legally or illegally.’ Throughout Montana, wolves have been illegally poisoned and shot.” Clearly, these ranchers feel strongly about the issue of wolf reintroduction. With ranchers being the most affected by wolf killing, it is foolish to dismiss their perspective. The local ranching communities believe that they have the right to decide what goes on in their community, not the government's programs. The author of the book Beyond Wolves: The Politics of Wolf Recovery and Management, tells the reader his experiences with the rachers’ perspective: “Ranchers, or their representative organizations, would tell me how elite urban “enviros” are simply using the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a tool to lock out ranchers and extractive industries from the public domain. They would accentuate the importance of more local control, custom, culture, private property rights, and the need for “sound science” in wildlife management.” Thus, the controversy over wolf conservation becomes one of local rancher versus “elite” environmentalist. Wolf opposition, currently, is as much about boosting game populations and protecting livestock as it is about ensuring individual rights and respecting the local opinions. The fear that the government will use wolf protection programs to obtain more federal management of lands and, in the process, infringe on the local communities and individual freedoms, is a fear driving much of wolf opposition. In the past, wolves have been vilified and hunted to protect livestock and game; currently, in addition to the reasons in the past, are being opposed because they represent a perceived federal government overstepping.
Wolves, currently, are having their protections removed and many people still want them eradicated. The wolf opposition has seen much of their agenda supported by the current presidential cabinet. With the Trump Administration favoring private corporations’ rights and those of rural industries, it comes as no surprise that millions of acres have been removed from national protection and federal management and into the hands of agricultural and extractive industries. With this reduction in land protection comes the reduction in wildlife protection including that of the wolf. On March 22nd of 2017, it is legal again to hunt wolves in Alaska: “The FWS rule facing repeal explicitly prohibited many kinds of "predator control" on the 16 federally owned refuges in Alaska. That prohibition included a ban on the aerial hunting, live trapping or baiting of predators such as bears and wolves -- as well as on killing those predators while near their dens or their cubs.” Though the wolf conservation movement had seen great strides in its work, currently much of it is being again. One may think back to “Operation Umiat” and see its parallels in government action today. Alaska is not the only one to see its wildlife protections rescinded, wolf hunts in Wisconsin and Minnesota have become legal in the past decade.When speaking about the previous federal predator protections on Alaska, republican representatives criticize the protections flaws: “it fundamentally destroys a cooperative relationship between Alaska and the federal government.’ Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, also representing Alaska, echoed those concerns Tuesday, saying the restrictions changed the state's relationship with FWS ‘from one of cooperation to subservience,’ The Associated Press reports. ‘This rule is about Alaska,’ he said.” Representatives of Alaska argue that the wolf protection opposition is about states’ rights against federal oppression. While this is a significant part of the debate, livestock and game protection and the economic benefits for agricultural communities included with this protection are certainly part of the opposition as well.
Part IV: Current Conservation and Studies of Wolves/ Solutions(maybe another part)
Despite this political debate and opposition to wolves, they still remain a crucial member of the ecosystem. Wolves have become a proxy battle for in the fight for individual rights against federal regulation as well as the fight between ranchers and environmentalists. First and foremost, wolves are apex predators that represent the top of the food chain. Although it may seem unintuitive, being the apex predator in a balanced ecosystem often means being a stabilizing presence. As multiple studies suggest, wolves and other apex predators can keep their prey species healthy: “A case in point comes from Isle Royale in Lake Superior, where moose populations plummeted in the 1940s because of overpopulation and overbrowsing. But after a small population of wolves established itself on the island late in that decade, moose gradually increased to about six hundred in 1960 and fifteen hundred in 1970.” Wolves, in this case, did not act as the vicious slaughterhouse that they are often made out as. Instead, they acted as a stabilizing force that naturally limits the population of its prey species so that they cannot become overpopulated. This same study found that, “the wolves were removing mostly aged and inferior animals… In all these circumstances, it seems possible that wolves may unwittingly benefit their prey species by culling the weak and helping keep the population in check.” The easiest kills for wolves are almost always the animal that is among the weak in a herd. Thus by weeding out sick, old, or genetically weak, they keep ungulate populations fit and healthy. It is because of the wolves ability to stabilize prey populations and keep those populations healthy, that they are crucial to the function of ecosystems. With the rise of livestock populations in wolf habitats, wolves sometimes hunt livestock instead of naturally occuring prey species. Yet, the impact of these killings is less than significant: “Many wildlife researchers acknowledge that wolves kill livestock, but add that the impact is relatively minor. For example, in Minnesota, a state long inhabited by timber wolves, livestock losses affect only about 1 of every 1,000 farmers a year, according to a recent Federal study.” Because wolves rarely attack livestock, their importance to the health of their ecosystems far outweighs the cost of their damage. Finally, wolves’ impact on their ecosystem even goes so far as to affect the very land: “After the wolves were gone from the Rocky Mountains, the trees disappeared, and soil eroded near streams, said Bill Ripple, a professor of forest ecosystems and society at Oregon State University. Elk had eaten nearly all of the young tree sprouts. ‘If you lose the wolf, there's nothing to keep the elk in check,’ Ripple said. But when the wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in 1995, the balance shifted back.” Wolves, though small in number, have such a large effect on their ecosystems, it seems foolish to hunt them to protect other species.
Wolves have been caught in the crossfire of political turmoil and the only hope for their recovery is for state and federal governments to work together, for environmentalists and livestock producers to find common ground, and for the nation as a whole to support the effort. While scientists agree that wolves are a vital part of the ecosystem, it is only through public policy and cooperative action that wolves can recover. As of March 16, 2018, a program in New Mexico shows how collaboration can be possible between opposing views: “U.S. government and state officials intend to work together to recover an endangered species of wolves that once roamed the American Southwest, with a new signed agreement. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish announced on Thursday the agreement with Arizona and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.” For programs to succeed, it is crucial for all views to be included in a solution. Republican alaskans disliked the federal protection in their state, as previously mentioned, thus leading Alaska’s wolf protections to fail. Similarly to the individuals versus government aspect to the wolf debate, the rancher versus environmentalist facet must be addressed as well. Yet, there are solutions to this dispute as well: “Provided that stock growers take proper care of their herds and flocks… then incidents of predation, and losses of wolves, will be very rare. Where wild prey is available, few wolves pay much attention to sheep and cattle.” Much can be done to prevent wolf interactions with livestock that currently is not being utilized. The responsibility should not just rest on the shoulders of ranchers, however, and citizens living in cities or unaffected areas should pay their fair share of the cost of conservation: “Farmers and ranchers who meet high standards in their husbandry prices deserve to be compensated, at fair market value, when they do lose stock to wolves. The rest of us must be prepared to pay the price, either through taxes or--in jurisdictions where governments are taking a principled stand against public governance--through private subscriptions.” For recovery programs to function without political deadlock, there must be compromises made on both sides. Ranchers must be willing to experiment with practises that may not be economically favorable and conservationists must be willing to pay, at least through capital, to support these ranchers.
Wolves are an important part of the North American ecosystem yet centuries of hunting and government efforts have left their numbers dangerously low; though conservationists and livestock producers have debated wolf recovery plans, their presence is needed in the ecosystem. Throughout history, wolves have been hunted and painted as bloodthirsty monsters. Because of their threat to livestock and game species, the U.S. has been reluctant to protect them, despite environmentalists and scientists arguing otherwise. The wolf controversy has become part of a larger, individual versus government debate, which hinders its ability to be progressed. Currently, there is much being done to revoke the protections of wolves, but because of their studied importance to their ecosystems, comprises must be made to ensure their survival. Our nation’s ability to progress through opposing views is being tested.
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