Becky Kramer, The Spokesman-Review
The state of Washington has hired an internationally known wildlife-conflict specialist to help defuse tensions over the state’s expanding wolf population.
Francine Madden is the executive director of the Human Wildlife Conflict Collaboration, which also works in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Houston-based nonprofit tries to resolve conflicts that arise when protecting animals such as lions, leopards and elephants leads to clashes with local communities.
“This is not just about wolves,” Madden said Thursday, noting that wildlife controversies are often symptomatic of bigger political, social and economic fights. “Anywhere I go in the world, I see those same conflicts.”
Madden was awarded an $83,000 contract by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to prepare a report analyzing the level of conflict over wolves in Washington. She’ll also work with the 18-member citizen Wolf Advisory Group, which provides input to the state Fish and Wildlife Commission on wolf management, and other stakeholder groups to help them find common ground.
“This issue has become so polarized that it’s difficult for us to move forward with managing wolves,” said Dave Ware, the department’s policy lead on wolves.
After being exterminated in the 1930s from hunting, trapping and poison, wolves are recolonizing Washington from packs in Idaho and British Columbia
Wolf recovery has been a success from a biological standpoint, with at least 68 wolves confirmed in the state last year, Madden wrote in her report. But in the interviews she conducted with more than 90 stakeholders – including ranchers, environmentalists, hunters and wildlife managers – many voiced concerns about the increasing polarization over wolves’ presence in Washington. She also heard misgivings about how the state is managing wolves.
Madden’s report noted that public support for wolf recovery slipped from 75 percent in 2008 to 64 percent last year in statewide surveys.
Thousands of people contacted the Department of Fish and Wildlife after the agency took action to kill wolves preying on livestock in 2012 and 2014. Some thought wildlife managers should have tried more non-lethal deterrents to prevent the attacks; others thought managers didn’t act quickly or forcefully enough to protect ranchers’ sheep and cows.
Madden’s report also lists Spokane’s competing billboards with pro-wolf and anti-wolf messages as an example of escalating public discord, along with the poaching of three Washington wolves in 2014.
Madden got into the wildlife conflict field about 20 years ago when she was a Peace Corps volunteer working at a national park in Uganda. Mountain gorillas were leaving the park, raiding crops and attacking people in nearby villages. To keep political support for protecting gorillas, conservation groups realized that human-gorilla conflicts had to be resolved.
“With complex conflicts, your identity or maybe your way of life is threatened … and the other party is perceived as the threat,” Madden told members of the Wolf Advisory Group during a Thursday meeting in Spokane.
She said she uses reconciliation techniques developed after Rwanda’s civil war to help different factions build trust and engage in respectful dialogue. For the conflict resolution process to work, real solutions have to emerge, Madden said. Mushy compromises that don’t meet stakeholders’ needs aren’t effective in the long run, she said.
Jim Unsworth, director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, said he’s hoping Madden’s work can help people with different viewpoints find areas of agreement. The Wolf Advisory Group can be a leader in that effort, he told group members, who include representatives from local governments, sheep and cattle producers, environmental groups and hunters.
“If you can speak with one voice, you can be a powerful influence on policymakers,” he said.