USU wolf report provokes growls
By Jerry Spangler
Deseret News staff writer
That howling you’ve been hearing hasn’t all been coming from wolves
prowling Utah’s mountains. Rather, it is coming from ranchers and farmers,
sportsmen and wolf advocates, biologists and lawmakers.
It seems everyone has an opinion on wolves, usually on one extreme
or
another. But there are two points upon which all agree: The wolves will be
coming in greater and greater numbers, like it or not, and their arrival
will stir a public debate over wildlife the likes of which Utah hasn’t
seen in decades.
In fact, wildlife biologists at Utah State University are now
stirring
that debate with a voluminous report titled “Wolves in Utah: An Analysis
of Potential Impacts and Recommendations for Management.” The report is
careful to note it “does not advocate for wolf reintroduction,” but it
also debunks much of the criticism against wolf reintroduction.
The bottom line: Utah could, in theory, support up to 700 wolves,
but
more realistically that number would be about 200, most scattered through
potential wolf habitat in the Bear River Range, the Uinta Mountains and
the Book Cliffs. There is even good wolf habitat in southern Utah in the
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Boulder Mountain, LaSal
Mountains and Capitol Reef, Canyonlands and Zion national parks.
In all, there are more than 36,000 square kilometers of potential
wolf
habitat in Utah.
Historically, wolves were once found from one end of the state to
the
other, with Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves inhabiting the northern
part of the state and Mexican gray wolves the southern part of the state.
“Southern Colorado and southern Utah is where the two subspecies
blended together, and it would be very appropriate to have that happening
again,” said Nina Fascione, vice president of species conservation for
Defenders of Wildlife. “Wolves are very adaptable, and southern Utah is a
definite possibility.”
Some see it as inevitable as Mexican gray wolves establish
themselves
in New Mexico and Arizona. And there are currently proposals to
reintroduce wolves to southern Colorado and the Grand Canyon, both areas
that are only a hop, skip and a jump from the canyons of southern Utah.
In northern Utah, wolves have already begun migrating into the Cache
Valley and the Morgan area, where a 2-year-old male was captured last week
and returned to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.
But actually Utahns have been seeing the wolves for years. The
Deseret
News has received more than a dozen e-mails from people who say they have
seen wolves, including one as far south as Mount Timpanogos. In one case,
there are photos to prove that wolves have been here for some time.
Those sightings were not “verifiable” according to the standards of
wildlife biologists, and it wasn’t until this summer when a wolf killed
sheep in the Cache Valley that wildlife managers admitted they had finally
arrived, probably from packs in the Yellowstone area where they were
reintroduced in 1995.
Research and results
Craig McLaughlin, mammals program coordinator for the Utah Division
of
Wildlife Resources, says he is feeling heat to come up with a state
management plan for wolves, all the time knowing it will be ripped apart
by everyone from the Utah Farm Bureau, which is leading the opposition
charge, to Defenders of Wildlife, the nation’s foremost advocates for wolf
recovery.
That plan is expected to be released for public comment sometime in
2003.
Everyone on all sides of the Utah wolf debate knew the wolves were
coming, but only USU wildlife biologists tackled the thorny issue. They
are already drawing howls of protest. Among the USU findings:
Studies in other states have determined that wolves do not dramatically
reduce populations of deer and elk, usually preying on young, sick,
injured and old animals. In fact, wolves might improve the overall health
of big game by eliminating diseased animals that could infect the entire
herd.
The USU study determined “that a wolf population of 200 would not
significantly decrease overall ungulate (deer, elk) populations in Utah.”
The presence of wolves might cause elk and deer to change their herding
behavior, which could improve overall big game habitat. In Yellowstone,
this shift in elk behavior has led to a recovery of aspen groves and
riparian areas devastated by over-grazing. The same behavior is predicted
for Utah.
The presence of wolves seems to have reduced the number of coyotes, but
the increased abundance of carcasses from wolf prey actually helps bears,
cougars, raptors and foxes. “Most of these effects are positive and appear
to be increasing overall ecosystem integrity,” the USU report found.
Wolves could improve Utah’s tourism economy, as has happened in North
Carolina and Yellowstone. In Minnesota, a wolf interpretive center
generates $3 million a year in tourism revenues.
People are wildly supportive of wolf recovery and express it with their
pocket books. One study in Yellowstone found that each person surveyed
would give, on average, $22.87 for wolf recovery. The USU study
recommended a comprehensive economic analysis of potential benefits.
Based on studies in other states with wolves, the number of livestock
killed by wolves in Utah would be minimal, only about 2 adult cows a year,
116 calves a year and 385 sheep.
The USU study also noted that the numbers of sheep and cows killed
might actually go down after the reintroduction of wolves because wolves
diminish the numbers of coyotes, the primary predator of sheep.
Collectively, the value of Utah livestock lost to wolves would be
about $39,000 a year. In other states, Defenders of Wildlife compensates
ranchers for livestock killed by wolves under the policy that the cost of
wolf recovery should be shifted to those who want to see the wolf restored
to its original range. The same scenario would likely occur in Utah, said
Curt Hawkins, a Utah wolf advocate who is currently campaigning to raise
$100,000 for a compensation fund.
Wolves do not diminish revenue from hunters or diminish hunters’ success
rates. In Yellowstone, it was predicted that reduced hunting opportunities
would cost the area between $200,000 and $400,000 a year. But a study in
2000 found there was no actual economic loss since the wolf was
reintroduced.
Primarily, the USU scientists encouraged the state to become more
proactive in its management of wolves and to develop a public education
campaign that will dispel myths on both sides of the debate. It also
called for the creation of a Wolf Advisory Committee that “would solicit
input from scientists, managers, ranchers, hunters, wolf advocates and
other interested parties.”
“Although wolf management involves economics, politics and
sociological issues, its core must be based on biology,” the report
stated. For and against
Focusing the debate solely on biology may be the hardest part for
anyone involved in the issue. Wolves evoke inexplicable passions both for
and against them.
For many, passion for wolves is almost an ideology. “The wolf is so
symbolic. People go nutty over them and always have,” said Ed Bangs, head
of the wolf recovery program for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
For others, the wolf is a different kind of symbol, that of a
vicious
predator exterminated from the Utah landscape some 70 years ago with good
reason.
“We cannot sustain wolves, we do not need them and we do not want
them,” said Wes Quinton, vice president of public policy for the Utah Farm
Bureau.
The USU study is already generating considerable discussion as
different groups line up to take their shots at the USU researchers. C.
Booth Wallentine, chief executive officer for the Utah Farm Bureau, growls
that he “simply does not agree” with the report’s finding that Utah could
support 200 wolves. “We believe it is faulty, and so does the U.S.
Department of Agriculture,” he said.
Don Peay, director of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, disagrees
with
the premise wolves do not adversely impact deer and elk herds. He has seen
how elk hunting in the Yellowstone area is in full decline since wolves
returned, and some outfitters there say they can no longer in good
conscience bring hunters to the area.
USU professor Robert Schmidt, who headed the wolf project (it was
not
funded by any outside government or special interest group), said critics
are welcome to take shots at the research. “We just put the ideas out on
the table, and hopefully it will stimulate discussion,” he said.
And that’s more than anyone else has done in the Utah wolf debate.
McLaughlin said the Yellowstone wolves are not waiting around for
Utahns to resolve their differences over how wolves are managed. And
sooner or later there will be a breeding pack roaming the state, he said,
characterizing the Utah wolves of 2002 as the “first wave of
colonization.”
Federal authorities say future wolves who wander into the state are
welcome to stay, and they are fully protected by the tough mandates of the
Endangered Species Act while here. And there will be no more attempts to
trap and return wolves to home ranges in the Yellowstone area.
Defenders of Wildlife says there is some question whether it was
even
legal under the Endangered Species Act for the gray wolf trapped in Utah
earlier this month to be returned to Wyoming. “That’s a $64,000 question
right now,” Fascione said.
Defenders is not planning legal action, but Fascione says the entire
incident illustrates the need to have a management plan in place to deal
with those situations when they come up. “It’s very clear the wolves are
not going to stay in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming,” she said.
And on that point, all sides agree. But there is little other common
ground, something that threatens to turn the debate away from biology. And
if politics rules the day, common sense may be the first casualty, Bangs
said.
“The time to start talking is before emotions are running high,” he
said. “Before the symbolism and the rhetoric gets people all riled up.”