Louisa Willcox's Blog
Wolf Storm in Yellowstone
January 16, 2008
Posted by Louisa Willcox in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
The wolves were barely visible, with so much snow falling heavy and fast. Across Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, a black wolf was tussling with a pale gray one, on its back, feet in the air. In a flash, the gray rolled over, jumped up and playfully snapped at the black, who leaped to the side and came back for the other’s legs. Two other wolves lay curled up nearby. Behind them were about 30 buffalo, plastered with white. A few were taking the storm lying down, but most were grazing placidly, pushing the deep snow from the grass with their huge heads. Three ravens erupted from a draw near the wolves, sign of a recent kill. And a reminder that a wolf kill feeds more than the immediate family.
I needed this trip—we needed this trip, my husband and I. And we needed to see wolves especially, the animal that we had been working so hard for. In fact, we had worked ourselves through the holiday, and many, many months before that, preparing for the moment, perhaps a week away, when the federal government would decide to allow the killing of hundreds of wolves in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and central Idaho. First would come a revised “10(j)” rule under the Endangered Species Act, then—even worse—the government would remove federal protections altogether. Under both rules, massive numbers of wolves would be killed.
But wait a minute. Aren’t these the same wolves that Americans had made a commitment to restore, after they had been shot, poisoned and trapped out of 95% of their former range in the lower-48 states?
Yes. With the help of the Endangered Species Act, wolves like these four had done well. From 66 wolves brought into Yellowstone and central Idaho from Canada in 1995 and 1996, the population had grown to roughly 1500 today in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. A big reason was plentiful big game, especially elk, which are now at record-high levels in the region, partly because of a series of mild winters. More than enough elk to feed wolves, bears, wolverines—and people too.
But there are always a few who will remain unsatisfied, no matter how many elk there are. And now a minority of politically influential hunters and livestock producers have succeeded in pushing the federal government to revise the Endangered Species Act 10(j) rule to allow the killing of hundreds of wolves. I know some of these hunters and ranchers, and had talked to a bunch at hearings over the last year on the issue—like the one in Cody, where the catcalls from 600 angry cowboy hats made it difficult for we few wolf supporters to testify. Afterwards I had talked to some of them. But the discussions were not rational, couldn’t be rational, because the debate—like the one I had with a Cody outfitter a few inches from my nose—wasn’t really about what wolves are or what they actually do. Wolves had somehow become a surrogate for other problems, such as changing socio-economic climate and the role of the federal government in their lives. People like this Cody outfitter were afraid—not about wolves per se, but about the rapid changes in their lives; the cost of living, the loss of traditional logging and outfitting jobs. He felt helpless. He had to take his frustration out on something. And he could not do anything about international beef prices, or subdivisions, or the transition of the region’s economy away from its historical base of resource extraction to one based on clean air and the natural environment. But he could work to “fix” the wolf problem. Killing wolves was something.
And the killing could happen fast, especially with aerial gunning and radio collars on virtually every wolf pack. And it’s especially easy in the winter when wolves are more visible in the snow. With the help of traps, guns and airplanes, what has generally been considered one of the greatest success stories for conservation in recent decades could be rewritten as a tragedy in short order.
That is why we’ve been working so hard, preparing for the inevitable legal challenge of both the final 10(j) rule, as well as the next decision that will hurt wolves more: delisting. Removal of wolves from the Endangered Species Act would return management authority to the states. And the states of Idaho and Wyoming brag about being anti-wolf and their plans to reduce numbers to minimum allowable levels—about 100 in each state.
When I first started working on this issue over a year ago, it seemed unimaginable that hundreds of wolves could indeed be killed, but then I started listening to the rhetoric of key decisionmakers such as Idaho Governor Butch Otter, who announced “I’m prepared to bid for that first ticket to shoot a wolf myself.” And I read the small print in the many state plans and regulations that will affect wolf management after delisting. For example, Idaho’s plan (p. 31) says explicitly that its goal is to manage for 104 wolves—down from the current 700-800 animals living in the state. Idaho and the other state plans are all about killing wolves, not conserving them. And now, all three states are in the process of designing wolf hunts—processes that, of course ran over the Christmas holidays, in an apparently deliberate attempt to frustrate public comment.
Question: why would the government be revising the rules by which wolves are managed under the Endangered Species Act if it’s about to remove these protections anyway? Answer: because it knows that the delisting decision is legally vulnerable, and it wants to make sure that if we block it in court, that hundreds of wolves can be killed even if they are still listed under the Endangered Species Act. And this isn’t my own cynical interpretation: Ed Bangs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf recovery coordinator said as much in numerous public meetings over the last year.
The hostility that some hold toward wolves, and the lengths that they will go to kill them, continues to amaze me. I wonder if their minds would change if they spent some time out here in the Lamar Valley on a winter day, looking at four wolves play and nap in a snowstorm. I look again at the wolves through my binoculars. All are now lying down, heads tucked in. Braced for the snow—and blissfully unaware of the political storm around them. They are just wolves, doing what they have done for thousands of year. We have our work cut our for us to keep it that way.
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- Louisa Willcox
- Senior Wildlife Advocate
- Livingston, Montana
- NRDC's Senior Wildlife Advocate Louisa Willcox is based in Livingston, Montana. From 1997-2002 she served...
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