This is the second installment in a two-part piece about the decision to remove gray wolves from the Endangered Species list in Montana and Idaho.
After the War, there was a lot of 1080 (known to the chemical industry as sodium fluoroacetate) stored in military installations around the US; it was too costly to destroy, so someone came up with the bright idea to give it to the rat-chokers to kill wildlife – and boy, did it ever! From mice to coyotes to eagles, 1080 did the job.
What no one knew at the time was that coyotes are not wolves, even though in some places in the U.S., like Texas, they’re called, “wolves.” Coyotes do not act, think, or behave like wolves.
If a male coyote (known as the “dog”) pairs up with a female coyote, (known as a “bitch”) produces 3 to 5 pups, and protects a territory, that’s just fine and dandy, that’s normal behavior. But if some menace, greater than family or territorial conflict, threatens the coyote, good old Darwin’s ideas kick in. The dogs then run with up to three or four bitches, and instead of producing three or so pups, each bitch gives birth to up to eight young. Instead of one pair protecting a given territory, it’s “every dog for itself and let’s get what we can.”
Here’s the science of all this. In 1964 I was asked by The Defenders of Wildlife to look into the stomachs of coyotes killed by government rat-chokers on Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge in southeast Oregon. While I was looking into stomachs of coyotes killed, I noticed a man not far off looking into some other part of the animals. Turned out he was looking at birth scars on the ovaries of the females. Instead of finding the normal three to five scars, he was seeing up to eight. His conclusion was the coyote was compensating for stress by producing a “surplus” to insure survival. That could also be looked at as “job security” for the rat-chokers.
If we protect the wolf and allow it to continue to expand its populations in Oregon, two things will occur. One, a few will eat livestock. They will, like certain coyotes, be inclined to kill a domestic sheep or calf instead of an elk or deer, a behavior that will continue to give the wolf a bad name. But those wolves that choose to stay in the wild will help keep elk and deer from over-running their habitat and immediately begin to compete with coyotes.
If the Obama Administration can rid itself of the Bush-followers and put that ‘good science” to work, we may just see the wolf as a natural part of the Deschutes National Forest – again. Instead of listening to coyotes yapping, there will be an occasional wolf telling you, “We’re baaaaack,” doing what they once did before we got so confused with who has so-called, “rights” to do what we want to our wild places and wild things, regardless of the consequences.
The Bible I use as a way of thinking about our wildlife heritage is Aldo Lerpold’s “A Sand County Almanac.” Leopold, said to be the father of Wildlife Management, addresses wolves in many parts of his tome, but this is how he thought about the wolf that he and his fellow “sportsmen” shot:
“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes-something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”
In 1954, the Oregon Game Commission (now ODFW) opened a season on all mule deer – including does – in Central Oregon because the deer population was over-running their habitat. Why? There were no wolves to help maintain a healthy deer population, the wily coyotes were on the run, and no one wanted to listen to what Leopold was saying…
Steve Pedery, Conservation Director of Oregon Wild says, “Today, we are just beginning to see a recovery of wolves in Oregon, with a handful of these majestic animals now roaming the forests and mountains of Northeast Oregon. True recovery of gray wolves in Oregon will depend on healthy wolf populations existing in neighboring states. Unfortunately, Secretary Salazar’s decision to reinstate the Bush wolf policy will put these animals back in the crosshairs in Idaho, Wyoming, and elsewhere in the West, and endanger recovery in Oregon.”
I agree!
If you would like to see wolves, close-up, albeit dead and mounted, visit the High Desert Museum soon. You can feel as if you are surrounded by a pack of wolves, and bears as they squabble, coo, chuckle and even cry, and discover your role in these animals’ futures.
Through recorded sound, intimate wildlife photography, groundbreaking field research, and live historical reenactments, gain insight into two of America’s top predators. Chat with live historical re-enactors about settlers who sought to wipe out wolves from the frontier., and learn how this sad effort led to the formation of the state of Oregon.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.
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Unless you have walked in the shoes of those that live in Montana and Idaho, and have in the least sat down with them and listened to their problems they have with these animals, you obviously don’t have a clue! There is a real problem with the overpopulation of wolves in these areas, I hate to see that in Oregon. I for one like enjoying the forests and woods in oregon, I hate to see that all get taken away by the over population of wolves. Wolves travel in packs, how do you defend yourself, your livestock, your family, etc. against a pack of wolves, also if they are wearing collars to protect them from being shot. You really need to listen to the people that live in Montana and Idaho, that have the problem with them. If they are thinking of removing them from the endangered list, obviously there IS a problem!! I just hate to see it in Oregon. But don’t kid yourself, there are wolves in Oregon!!
how many verified accounts are there of wolves killing people in response to Mr Haley
Q: How do you defend yourself & your family?
A: You don’t have to. Not a single human has been killed by a healthy wild wolf in North America during the entire 20th century (or 21st)
Q: How do you protect your livestock?
A: More wolves = less coyotes and less predation on livestock. Domestic dogs kill 700 livestock in Oregon each year, weather, human thieves, illness even more. Even in the states where wolves have “recovered” wolves represent less than 1% of livestock losses.
Q: What about elk numbers in the West and elsewhere where wolves have returned?
A: Well, if you believe the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, elk numbers are up 44% nationally, +66% in MT, +35% in WY, +5% in ID, +322% in MN, +26% in MI, +24% in AK, and from 0 to 110 in WI in the last 25 years.
Just about any study in Yellowstone will tell you that the ecology has changed in ways many didn’t expect, but it’s been pretty much all positive – from more birds of prey to healthier vegetation…and healthier elk populations. Say nothing of the huge increase in tourism $$.
Have you thought of all the other benefits wolves bring to where they are? They keep game on the run, which in turn effects all the other small game, plants and everything else. I do not see all the problems in AK or Canada that ID or MT say they are having. Could it be an increase in HUNTERS in those areas that effect Elk and deer populations. Look at History, no problems with Wolves and Bears untill us White Man came.
It is a clash of civilisations as old as the colonisation of the American west – wolves v humans – and it has entered into a new and more violent phase as two Rocky Mountain states moved to allow the first open hunt in years of an animal that was once driven to extinction.The states of Montana and Idaho are going ahead with plans for an open-season hunt against wolves in September, in which licensed members of the public can take part. http://www.wildlifeworld360.com