Going wild again
Thanks to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, gray wolves are thriving in the Rocky Mountain West, testament to federal protections that can and do bring back endangered species.
The $17 million enterprise has left about 700 wolves running in about 41 packs throughout Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is so confident of their recovery that the wolves are about to be downgraded in protection from “endangered” to “threatened.” And next year all federal protection may be lifted.
The “howling” success is due only to government efforts to attach the endangered designation to the wolves and then to monitor the progress as they thrive and their numbers grow larger.
But it’s not all hugs and kisses among affected populations.
While the wolf program validates the importance of a strong ecosystem, not everyone agrees. Ranchers have been vocal critics, with good reason. They have not been allowed to kill wolves who prey on their cattle. The new designation will allow ranchers to kill those that prey on livestock.
Conservationists and conservation groups who have invested time and money into the wolf program, are understandably concerned about the new kill-the-wolves policy. “There is very little out there to indicate that we’re not just headed back to the bad old days of wolf pelts all over people’s walls,” said Tim Preso of the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund.
The program has shown that the wolves belong in the wilderness. And when wolves take cattle, those ranchers can expect compensation, as they do in Arizona. Now, with the relaxed protections, ranchers will be allowed to shoot wolves that thin their herds. But the taking of wolves will be allowed only outside the protected confines of Yellowstone National Park.
Conservationists’ concerns are justified. The animals nearly fell into extinction largely because ranchers killed them for their beef-eating ways.
However, the Fish and Wildlife Service plans to monitor the wolf populations and will step in, if necessary.
The success of the program bodes well for Eastern Arizona, where wolves were introduced in 1998.
Here, too, the ranchers and local residents feared that the wolves would take the livestock, as they have. In fact, the Fish and Wildlife Service ordered that two of the wolves be killed because they had come to rely on the cattle for feed.
But the larger benefit, the restoration of wolves that once roamed the West, is an accomplishment that should be celebrated. It should be celebrated not only for the wolves, but for putting the wildness back into the wilderness areas like Yellowstone National Park.