Time flies when the sky is
falling. At least, we were told to expect the sky to fall in 1995.
That’s when federal biologists snatched a bunch of Canadian
wolves, hustled them south of the border and cut them loose in
central Idaho and Yellowstone.
Ten years sped by in a
flash. But when I look up, I see a pale blue winter sky, right
where it’s supposed to be. It puzzles me how people both
demonize and idolize wolves. I have concluded it has less to do
with data or reason and more with emotion, ideology and culture.
Ten years ago, cattle and sheep interests likened wolves
to terrorists, sure to rip the guts out of their industry. One
senator warned that wolves would snatch kids off bus stops. No
doubt, some wolves can be hard on livestock. When a rancher has a
troublesome pack in his neighborhood, it’s a very real and
expensive problem. But it’s one of many challenges ranchers
face, and for most it has proven to be manageable.
In
Montana in 2003, more sheep died from “turtlings” than were killed
by wolves. Turtling — a wonderfully descriptive word —
is when domestic sheep fall on their backs and can’t right
themselves. What killed the most sheep that same year was poisonous
plants.
Looking at the new pickup trucks in Montana
cowtowns, it’s clear ranchers lately have been enjoying the
fruits of their hard work. Beef prices went up due to “low-carb”
fad diets and a scare over chronic wasting disease that capped the
flow of cheap beef from Canada. Though the beef exports are back
and the low-carb craze is waning, you can’t blame wolves for
that.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service just
gave more leeway to ranchers in Montana and Idaho to defend their
herds. To me, this makes sense, as wolf populations grow. It makes
little difference to a wolf if it’s killed by a federal agent
or a local rancher, and wolves have proven themselves prolific
enough to withstand this kind of pressure. It’s also an
example of the flexibility inherent in the Endangered Species Act.
But besides some ranchers, the special interest group
complaining most bitterly about wolves is big game hunters,
charging too much competition from wolf packs for elk and deer.
Even though I am an avid member of this special interest group,
their lamentations leave me less than sympathetic.
In
Montana, for example, state wildlife managers for the first time
this year allowed hunters to kill two elk per season in some areas.
They also stretched the elk season from five weeks to seven in
several places, because hunters weren’t killing enough elk.
The columnist for my local newspaper’s outdoor page for years
had a NO WOLVES bumper sticker on his pickup truck, but he recently
wrote, “This year, there were more opportunities for hunting elk
than anytime during the last 50 years. The good old days of elk
hunting are right now.”
The mountain where I hunt elk and
deer is in the heart of a wolf pack’s territory. I step over
fresh wolf scat on many of my hunts. Yet for the past 10 years,
I’ve put meat in the freezer every fall and hung antlers on
the wall that would be the pride of any hunter. This year, I passed
up legal, safe shots at five deer before shooting the big buck I
wanted.
If I were to join the chorus about wolves eating
“my” deer or elk, I would just feel greedy. But I will tell you
what really did devastate game numbers in my area — the Big
Snow of 1995-96. Even so, the game recovered, despite the wolves.
If I wanted to be rational, I could point to all the
balance-of-nature benefits wolves bring to the natural landscape.
In Yellowstone, aspen and willow are already recovering after elk
overgrazed hillsides and riverbanks. The ripple effects, biologists
believe, will be more songbirds, more beaver, even more and bigger
trout in the streams.
But that is beside the point. The
West without wolves, cougars and bears would be as bland as Africa
without lions, leopards and cheetahs.
One September
evening a few years ago, my wife and I spied a pair of pointed ears
in the long grass of a mountain meadow. Binoculars revealed a wolf
pack, staring back. We watched them lope into the timber and then
shivered as one of them howled.
For kicks, I threw my
head back and howled in return. All around us, the pack broke into
full throat. By my watch, we howled back and forth for five
minutes. Maybe some folks can have an experience like that and not
be moved. I’m just glad I am not one of them.
Ben Long is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org). He lives
and writes in Kalispell, Montana.
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