Wolf Pups in the Bullseye

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By Professor Victoria Sutton

September 01, 2024

Companionship between humans and dogs is one of the strongest animal bonds we have as a species. If you are one of the 44.6% of households in America who owns a dog, take a look at it right now if it is beside you, and although it may have been bred to look very different now, you can imagine its ancestral roots reaching to the wolf.

The wolf has walked beside us since the beginning of time (at least for 15,000 years) and we have learned to live with it. We share its values of protecting home and family and caring for family members, the old and the young. Wolves are also very social and build dens to house the entire pack. Yet our species’s dominant killing power is undisciplined and often unleashed against them to the point of complete extermination. All this despite our early bonding.

The wolf has a historic relationship with Native Americans in origin stories and oral histories. The Ojibwa are one of the most closely associated tribes with the wolf. Part of their origin story says the wolf is their brother. They were told:

“What shall happen to one of you shall also happen to the other. Each of you will be feared, respected, and misunderstood by the people”

Other Native tribal traditions hold that man and wolf separated and went their separate ways, so they live still in harmony but separately.

The Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), wrote an op-ed for USA Today, pleading for states to stop rolling back protections for the gray wolf. She could have taken emergency action to stop the killing, but she did not. On February 7, 2024, her department made the determination that the gray wolf did not warrant listing as an endangered or threatened species in the north Rocky Mountains and western United States.

The argument that livestock depredation is the big reason ranchers must kill wolves is little more than a big-bad-wolf fairytale. Wolves killed 148 cows out of 1.6 million cows in the Rocky Mountain region in 2015. The ranchers were compensated for their losses by the states.

There are 14,000 to 18,000 wolves in wolf packs in only 13 states in the United States that have wolf pack populations.

Yellowstone Wolves

The almost complete killing of wolves in Yellowstone National Park was reversed with a highly controversial restocking program that started to restore wolf populations. Visitors come to Yellowstone to see wolves spending millions of dollars on hotels, food and entertainment. A hunter can kill a wolf for about $200. Clearly economics and use of public resources is minimized for the emotional war against the wolf.

The ecological imbalance from removing wolves results in an overabundance of elk and deer that overgraze. This overgrazing includes debarking trees until they die, fall over into the riverbank and silt no longer held by the live roots of the tree washes into the river, killing fish and other river wildlife. You may recognize this story if you have ever read A Sand County Almanac (1949) by Aldo Leopold where he specifically condemned the removal of wolves. The government of New Mexico was under the mistaken belief that killing all the wolves and making deer and elk plentiful would result in better hunting. The land could not support the overabundance of deer and elk. Leopold recommended reintroducing wolves to bring the land back to better balance, yet it remains highly controversial in New Mexico. This story about wolf removal was also the basis for his “land ethic” that formed the basis of western environmental ethics:

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Somehow we have forgotten the lessons of Aldo Leopold and National Parks.

In Yellowstone, the states surrounding the park are ready with their guns and dogs the moment a wolf leaves the perimeter of Yellowstone. Yet another example of jurisdictional problems with wildlife management. The wolf reintroduction plan for Yellowstone National Park is one of the great successful conservation stories of America (where we fixed something we broke).

Somehow we have forgotten the lessons of Yellowstone.

Torturing a wolf in Wyoming costs only $250

The story of the drunk Wyoming-ite who used his dogs and snowmobile to run down a female wolf, torture the near-dead wolf in a local bar afterward, then kill it afterward outside of the bar became internationally known. The cruelty shown by Cody Roberts, the perpetrator, was penalized by a fine of $250 for possessing live wildlife. Yet, no animal cruelty charges were brought against him, and it is now some four months since the torture occurred. Admittedly, the Wyoming Department of Fish & Wildlife could have sought harsher penalties of $1000 and a year in jail for this crime according to interviewees, but they opted not to do so. The official statement from Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, April 16, 2024 was:

. . . For over one hundred years, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has successfully managed Wyoming’s wildlife. Wyoming has proven itself to be the gold standard in wildlife management. This incident perpetrated by one individual does not represent a failure in wildlife policy or management.

. . .We’re satisfied that every tool we have available was used, and used to the best of our ability. The Department has acted with transparency and in compliance with Wyoming law.

Animal cruelty statutes would have been more appropriate here, but in the face of international outrage, Wyoming is satisfied with their cruel reputation of condoning wolf torture with a reasonable price tag for the degenerates who wish to torture wolves.

This is not the story I want to write because it is about the worst of humanity. The fact that it is conduct sanctioned by the federal government even called the “gold-standard in wildlife management” raises the culpability to the highest level of moral failing in Wyoming.

This government has lost its way.

Idaho passed legislation in 2021 to reduce their wolf population by 90%! This includes one million dollars toward this killing spree and almost any means of killing is legal. This includes the cornering and killing of wolf pups in their den.

In 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services killed eight wolf pups in their den, to the shock of a nearby school where the wolf pack had been followed and studied by the students over a twenty year period.

The Federal Governance of Wolves

In 2020, a federal judge ordered the restoration of the gray wolf to the Endangered Species List. 

In February 2024, the U.S. Department of the Interior found that the gray wolf in the Northern Rocky Mountains region and western U.S., did not warrant either endangered or threatened statuses under the Endangered Species Act.

On April 30, 2024, the U.S. Congress passed 209-205 a bill introduced by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), to remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List as endangered or threatened. The legislation even defied the federal judiciary to review their action. This section 3 might make this entire section unconstitutional (unless there is a savings clause in the legislation.) The “separation of powers” doctrine of the Constitution does not allow Congress to act and then say their act cannot be judicially reviewed.

Yet, the gray wolf (canis lupus) is still on the endangered species act list as either endangered or threatened in various states and regions, so delays may be inevitable and the gray wolf will have another day.

Idaho, too, has lost its way.

The federal government has been complicit in this lack of ethical behavior and reasonable conservation. Politics of anti-wolf lobbyists and coalitions like hunters and ranchers in the western United States have driven this extermination policy balanced by litigation and the threat of litigation from conservation special interest groups. But the federalism problem, which works really well except when it doesn’t, has allowed states to kill wolves despite federal laws that protect them due to states’ jurisdiction over its own property. Without the cooperation between the federal government and all the affected states with wolf populations, the conservation program is in trouble. This cooperation can be put into law with a state-federal-compact approved by Congress. Otherwise, the survival of the wolf may depend on them learning to avoid crossing into hostile jurisdictions, which hardly seems reasonable.

To read more articles by Professor Sutton go to:  https://profvictoria.substack.com/ 

Professor Victoria Sutton (Lumbee) is a law professor on the faculty of Texas Tech University. In 2005, Sutton became a founding member of the National Congress of American Indians, Policy Advisory Board to the NCAI Policy Center, positioning the Native American community to act and lead on policy issues affecting Indigenous communities in the United States.