Editor's note: The USDA data on which this graphic was based covered the entire United States. Only five states have more than 200 wolves and experienced wolf predation on cattle. In these states, the percentages of wolf predation in 2010, compared with total losses from all causes, are as follows: Minnesota, 3.13%; Montana, 2.86%; Idaho, 1.96%; Wyoming, 1.76%; and Wisconsin, 0.97%. Photo courtesy of the Sierra Club.
Did you know that nation wide wolf predation on cattle is only .2% of all cattle deaths? Did you know, in a much more narrow search, in these states, the percentages of wolf predation in 2010, compared with total losses from all causes, are as follows: Montana, 2.86%; Wyoming, 1.76%; and Idaho, 1.96%? But despite Idaho’s minuscule wolf problem, a bill requesting $2 million of to federal taxpayer currency to kill up to 500 Idaho wolves is making its way to the House floor.
This isn't necessarily problematic for residents of Idaho or the lawmakers proposing the bill. Idaho’s wolf population was taken off the endangered species list in 2011, and the population is seen to be “thriving” at nearly 700 animals. As long as the species doesn't fall below 150 animals, when the species will once more be classified as endangered, Idaho won’t have to get federal regulators involved. For this reason lawmakers want to make it clear it is ‘not a wolf extermination bill.’
This bill speaks to Idaho’s ability to show the rest of the US it is autonomous; it is not responsible to anyone—or anything—outside of Idaho. Idaho legislature (and the interest groups who pack their pockets) ignores both science and policy like the Environmental Protection Agency of the 70s. The trophic cascade, or the ecological food pyramid, needs these wolves to sustain a healthy environment for both wildlife and humans. Before the wolves were reintroduced to the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem in 1995 there were various ecological issues that spurred from their eradication. Organisms that were lower on the trophic cascade populate the environment more rapidly than predators on the top. The wolf eradication resulted in unsustainable elk populations that depleted the vegetation in and around Yellowstone National Park (YNP). This affected all wildlife within the ecosystem, and negatively affects both tourism and economic operations on private lands. Tourists went to national parks to see beautiful, majestic wildlife and scenery, not the desolate desert it became. Also, elk populations—with little options for food in YNP—had to find their sources elsewhere. The movement of elk from the park to private lands led to widespread ungulate disease like brucellosis affecting cattle operations.
What this bill really speaks to is the power of unregulated, unfettered capitalistic intentions. Corporate interests that sway state legislators undermine the democratic process to promote short-term economic interests, ignoring long-term regret and least-risk management. The battle for public lands focuses on promoting deliverables (economic resources that can be exploited). Elk populations are promoted in an unsustainable manner for outfitting operations by focusing disease treatment on buffalo (ignoring scientific studies), and drafting bills, which promote the “war on wolves” mentality.
While the world depends on ecological sustainability, this bill represents the political game that western constituents and politicians are playing with real, living and breathing beings. This bill reminds us who runs our public lands. Public lands of the west clearly belong to the stockmen and sportsmen. Until we develop stronger regulation and produce independent results from uninterested contractors this problem will remain a masturbatory guise for private interests to produce short-term economic gains with little thought about the overall health of the immediate casual nexus.
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