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?