Home › Contributors › Louisa Willcox › The Weight of the Wolves

Louisa Willcox's Blog

The Weight of the Wolves

May 29, 2008

Posted by Louisa Willcox

Tags:

bushadministration, ESA, greateryellowstone, injunctionhearing, lawsuit, wolf, wolfdelisting, wolves, yellowstonenationalpark

My husband is nervous, and he shows it by being quiet. And hardly eating anything. Right now Doug has the weight of the northern Rockies wolves on his shoulders. Tomorrow a federal court judge may decide the fate of Yellowstone and northern Rockies wolves.

This is the second time since the day, about 13 years ago, when wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone and Central Idaho ecosystems, when Doug appeared in front of a federal judge to keep wild wolves from being killed. The last time was when Farm Bureau attorneys tried to destroy the 20 or so Alberta wolves, quivering in crates after being trapped, drugged and transported hundreds of miles into Yellowstone. He won, almost lost and then ultimately snatched victory from the mouth of defeat, thanks to a ruling by the 10th circuit court of appeals.

He got grey and not enough thanks for his efforts. But the other side got the worse end of the deal: the government attorney got a kidney failure (hospitalized before the day of the first scheduled hearing) and the Farm Bureau attorney had a stroke. After trying to take a sabbatical after the first debacle, when some of our allies called him names in the papers, Doug forced himself to come out of semi-retirement to argue in court why wolves should stay alive in the region. He won.

Wolves knew nothing about the drama, only that they were not dead and that a wide open expanse of wild country lay before them, and it was full of elk. Since then, those few wolves have multiplied and defied the obstacles, mostly people with guns, to grow to a population in the region of 1500 or so animals. They have recreated a healthy ecosystem in Yellowstone, improving songbird habitat, grasslands, and the right conditions for pronghorn antelope to reproduce. As the only species lost in Yellowstone since the Lewis and Clark expedition journeyed across the West two hundred years ago, the wolf has been restored, and again serves, with the grizzly and the mountain lion, as one of the ecosystem’s major carnivores, maintaining the balance between predator and prey. 

With the stroke of a pen, it could all be lost. Tomorrow, a federal court judge could order that the state plans and laws, which would allow the killing of hundreds of wolves, are adequate to manage wolves, and that recovery levels of 300 wolves are enough. We could then witness a slaughter of over a thousand wolves, executed as we have seen in recent weeks, on the backs of snowmobiles (one tracked over 35 miles before being shot), as well as by trappers, aerial gunners, and guys stalking wolves near elk fed grounds or protecting den sites, where wolves are trying to raise their young.

Tomorrow Doug, an attorney with Earthjustice, representing NRDC and 11 other conservation organizations, will try to convince another judge why these wolves should be saved. Not just to maintain the biological integrity of the some of the wildest places left in the lower-48 states, but to save that part of our souls that needs wildness.

Doug is in the bathtub now, trying to find that place of peace and wholeness, where his best arguments come from, arguments that a judge might understand. He has read thousands of pages of briefs and he has done his homework. He needs now only rest, and the force of wolves.

May the spirit of wild wolves be with us.

• permalink

Comments are closed for this post.

© Natural Resources Defense Council