Delisting endangers wolves
In a case of predator turned prey, rampant hunting puts the northern Rockies' gray wolf back on the endangered species list six months after it was removed.
DANIEL, WYO. — It's hard for ranchers here to figure how it came to this -- again.
After railing for more than a decade against the federal government for reintroducing gray wolves to the region, after finally winning the battle to get the animals taken off the endangered species list, what went so wrong that Washington stepped in last week to protect the wolves all over again?
It began near here in this high-altitude chaparral. No sooner were gray wolves delisted in March than sportsmen in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming began locking and loading. Wyoming officials declared 90% of the state a "free-fire zone." Hunters from around the state flocked to rural Sublette County to bag a wolf.
Rancher Merrill Dana, 57, saw the results right away. Hunters aboard snowmobiles chased wolves across the early spring snow on his sprawling ranch. "The first morning it was opened up, they killed three up here," he said. "Trespassers. We didn't even know they were up here until we heard the snow machines."
Dana said he has been offered as much as $2,500 for permission to hunt wolves on his land. He refused.
As with many ranchers here, there is no love lost between Dana and wolves. He was mad the interlopers hadn't asked permission to hunt. "I wanted people I know to get them," said Dana, who was among a hunting party that eventually killed a 110-pound male.
Through the early summer, an average of a wolf a day was being killed across the region. In all, at least 130 animals died since the delisting, or nearly 10% of the wolf population in the northern Rockies. Then, on July 21, a federal judge stopped the hunt. Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service capitulated and began the process to relist wolves.
"People overreacted," said cattle rancher John Robinette of Dubois, Wyo. "I don't think the policy was intended as: 'Go out and see how many wolves you can kill.' "
Robinette has lost cattle, horses and dogs to wolves. Even when the wolf was listed, he had a rare federal permit to shoot any wolf he saw on his 25,000 acres. But he said he was convinced that giving everyone that right would lead to needless and reckless slaughter.
"People went out all over the state shooting and bragging about it and putting pictures in the paper," Robinette said. "This is what I dreaded this spring: that someone would go out and get a bunch of pups out of a den and get their picture in the paper. It was going to draw unwanted attention."
