October 18, 2019
by Maximilian Werner
Timber wolf. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
Wildlife Services likes to pat itself on the back for offering the occasional workshop on non-lethal strategies for preventing predation by wolves, but the fact is that the agency’s destruction of wolves shows no sign of slowing. There are several reasons for this, although in the context of Montana’s wolf management it’s hard to use the word “reason” with a straight face, if only because the word generally denotes logic. And logic is not a word that comes to mind when I look at how wolves are being treated in Montana and elsewhere in the West.
Last month WS aerial gunned an entire pack of seven wolves north of Centennial Valley after the wolves killed a longtime sheep herder’s livestock guard dog. Any thinking person is going have some serious questions about this, including why an experienced rancher would put his dog in this situation. In the words of one land manager I talked to, it was a death sentence. By what logic did the WS agent decide that it was appropriate, justified or reasonable to kill an entire pack of wolves, especially when the livestock producer created the situation that led to his dog’s death?
Based on my past experience with WS’s destruction of the Price-Peat pack in 2017 (again for what any objective analysis would attribute to operator error), the answer would likely not withstand even basic scrutiny. Montana cannot count on WS, or even Fish, Wildlife and Parks (an agency that has effectively been bullied into ceding all responsibility to WS) for leadership.
Leadership has to come from progressive ranchers who are willing to call out poor husbandry and help their neighbors live up to their potential as ranchers and stewards. Otherwise the lowest common denominator will continue to dictate coexistence efforts, and that is a loss to us all.
