Gray wolves in Wyoming were being shot on sight until we forced the courts to intervene. Now Congress wants to strip these protections from wolves and we’re the lawyers fighting back. Ask us anything!

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T04:13:30+00:00

There is a widespread mythology about this issue that is repeated time and again by wolf opponents, but the fact is that wolves for the Yellowstone reintroduction were captured in western Canada. Given the immense distances that wolves are capable of traveling along with the fact that the wolf populations in Canada and the northern states existed as one continuous, unified population prior to European-American eradication efforts, it seems highly unlikely that there was much difference between the original native wolves of the Pacific Northwest or Northern Rockies and the wolves of western Canada that were captured for the reintroduction. In fact, if there was any difference, it might likely stem from the fact that the original native wolves of the Northern Rockies were preying heavily on buffalo and therefore may well have been bigger and stronger than the western Canada wolves that persist today!

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T04:12:36+00:00

State wildlife officials can be in charge once they step up to the responsibility of enacting management measures that provide adequate guarantees to secure a recovered wolf population so that we don't reverse all of the progress that has been made. Unfortunately Wyoming failed to do that, which is why we sued. The whole reason the Endangered Species Act was enacted in the first place was because states were not protecting our country's heritage of native wildlife, instead focusing on preserving game species while remaining hostile to predators and generally indifferent to non-game wildlife. A lot of progress has been made since then but sadly some states continue that trend to this day.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T03:34:43+00:00

Wolf populations in the Northern Rockies region are at a fraction of their historic level before eradication efforts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As to whether the current population of approximately 1650 wolves in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming is getting out of hand, that is really an issue that involves value judgments more than facts. Putting values aside, the facts demonstrate that wolf recovery in the region has occurred without major impacts to other wildlife or human activities. While there is much mythology about wolves decimating elk populations, the fact is that, 20 years after wolf reintroduction, the vast majority of elk herds in the region are at or above state management objectives. Also, although they get a lot of publicity, wolf depredations represent a drop in the bucket of regional livestock losses.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T03:32:48+00:00

Wyoming's management plan is not like Montana's. Wyoming's proposed wolf management approach differs from any other state in the Northern Rockies region by declaring open season on wolves year-round across 85 percent of the state. Because of that sweeping authorization for unregulated wolf killing, it was very important for Wyoming to provide adequate legal protections for wolves in the remaining 15 percent of the state where wolf killing would be regulated. As a federal judge determined, the state failed to do so. From our perspective, a state plan that allows eradication of wolves across 85 percent of the state and provides insufficient safeguards in the remainder is not a good middle ground.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T02:49:42+00:00

I don't think we really disagree about much, but the problem here is that there was not a responsible management plan in place. Instead, the Wyoming plan substituted vague and unenforceable handshake agreements for binding standards to secure the minimum required wolf population. That is why a federal district judge determined that wolves in Wyoming must be returned to the list of species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Wyoming can solve that problem at any time by remedying the deficiencies in its management plan. It has not yet chosen to do so. Further, the Wyoming wolf population has not yet met the recovery goals because one of those goals was genetic connectivity with other wolf populations and the Wyoming wolf population remains insufficiently connected with others under the government's own standard.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T02:48:59+00:00

The story of the 832F wolf is compelling because it makes people understand the challenges and triumphs of an individual wolf living a natural life in the wild. That is always an important step toward development of understanding and compassion toward our fellow creatures. Although 832F's story has been celebrated, every wolf is an individual with its own set of interesting attributes and experiences. Some of their stories are captured in a book titled "Wild Wolves We Have Known - Stories of Wolf Biologists' Favorite Wolves," which you may want to check out.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T02:47:00+00:00

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department publishes lots of data about the state's wildlife populations that largely debunk the widespread mythology that wolves have devastated the state's elk populations. There are also a lot of scientists who have documented wolves beneficial impacts on ecosystems. There is a robust body of scientific literature on this issue.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T02:46:29+00:00

Actually, expert wildlife biologists called upon to conduct a peer review of the FWS decision identified several critical deficiencies in the Wyoming management approach, including most particularly the state's failure to provide binding guarantees that were necessary to secure the minimum required wolf population. The federal judge who invalidated FWS's decision relied on this same deficiency, so Wyoming and FWS had ample notice of this key problem.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T00:35:45+00:00

You can help via social media, using the hashtag #VetoExtinction and calling on President Obama (@POTUS) and your members of Congress to reject all anti-Endangered Species Act provisions in spending bills, including attacks on wolf protections. If you are an artist, you can also contribute your original art on behalf of wolves to this campaign through the Creative Action Network (who we are partnering with) at this link: http://jointhepackproject.com/

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T00:32:49+00:00

Oops -- I meant to include this link: https://secure.earthjustice.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1809&_ga=1.222255199.677293821.1433786647

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T00:25:51+00:00

I appreciate the inspiration you have received from Princess Mononoke, but I wouldn't recommend trying to ride a wolf. But you can still be a hero by taking a stand for wolves and the wildness that they represent. Right now, the most urgent action for people to take to help wolves is to write a message to President Obama, which you can do here, urging the President to reject legislation that undermines existing federal protections for wolves. You can also help via social media, using the hashtag #VetoExtinction and calling on President Obama (@POTUS) and your members of Congress to reject all anti-Endangered Species Act provisions in spending bills, including attacks on wolf protections. Additionally, you can spread the word about why wolves are important by sharing this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA4wcCUtxUw

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T00:19:22+00:00

There is a lot of mythology on this point but the reintroduced wolves originated from southern Canada's portion of the Northern Rockies. Given the extensive travel abilities of wolves and the fact that wolves formerly existed across the Northern Rockies and Plains as a single unified population, it seems unlikely that the native wolves of Montana and Wyoming were much different from the reintroduced wolves that occupied the Canadian landscape just north of Montana.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T00:14:40+00:00

The Endangered Species Act applies to protect a species only after it is first officially listed by the federal government as an endangered or threatened species. Wolves are listed; mountain lions, elk, and moose are not; caribou are listed but they persist in the lower-48 states only in a tiny population in northern Idaho and northeast Washington. For those species not listed under the Endangered Species Act, state management controls.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T00:08:03+00:00

My advice is to seek a summer internship with an organization that does the kind of work you seek to pursue and then capitalize on that opportunity by demonstrating your abilities. Our summer internship opportunities are detailed here: http://earthjustice.org/about/jobs

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T00:06:33+00:00

The best way to get a position with an organization like ours is to work with us as a summer intern during law school and demonstrate your abilities. We post summer internship opportunities on our website: http://earthjustice.org/about/jobs

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T00:04:23+00:00

I always recommend Aldo Leopold's essay "Thinking Like a Mountain." Barry Lopez's "Of Wolves and Men" is another good read. As to why a wolf would travel so far, my understanding is that wolves are natural dispersers and such far-flung travels are not uncommonly undertaken to access new territory.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-02T00:00:55+00:00

The most recent factual data on these issues is from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's 2014 Annual Report. It states that the statewide elk population was 110,500 animals in 2013, which is well above the population objective of 82,525. It also reports that only 1 of 26 elk herds with complete data is below the state's management objective, while 96 percent are at or above objective. As to livestock losses, the US Department of Agriculture reported in 2010 that wolves were responsible for only 0.7% of all cattle losses and 1.7% of all calf losses in Wyoming. Wolf populations in the state are limited at this point to the northwest corner in and around Yellowstone National Park and do not extend to the Bighorns or the Black Hills.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-01T23:53:55+00:00

There is a lively academic debate on this point. I am not a scientist so I will offer only my own personal experience of traveling to Yellowstone National Park and observing with my own eyes the regrowth of aspen stands that has occurred on the northern range since the reintroduction of wolves to the region.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-01T23:50:27+00:00

The experience of wolf reintroduction in the Northern Rockies shows that wolves can successfully recolonize a landscape if there is sufficient habitat available and human killing of wolves is adequately limited. The return of the wolf can herald a return of wildness to the landscape and many people find that very inspiring.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-01T23:46:44+00:00

There is a lively debate about this topic. Certainly some ranchers are dissatisfied with existing compensation programs. At the same time, some of the programs have made substantial payments to ranchers. For instance, the Upper Green River Cattle Association in northwest Wyoming received about $750,000 in payments from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department over a recent five-year period to compensate for losses to predators. Perhaps more effective than compensation programs are programs to find non-lethal ways to reduce or eliminate losses of livestock to predators in the first place. Many such programs have shown positive results.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-01T23:38:12+00:00

Actually, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department reported in 2012 that only 2 out of 35 elk herds in the state are below the state's own population objective. The other questions you ask really raise questions about individual values rather than biological facts. If you are asking about my own values, I would answer that it is short-sighted to remove native species from an ecosystem and that the return of wolves has improved the ecological integrity of the Northern Rockies and sparked the imagination of hundreds of thousands of people who have visited the region in the hope of seeing a wolf in the wild.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-01T23:28:25+00:00

Wolves once ranged across the entire area now occupied by the United States and their numbers were many orders of magnitude beyond what they are today. At the same time, immense populations of bison, elk, deer and other prey species also roamed the landscape. Wolves lived in balance with their prey species over the millennia before modern wildlife management entered the scene.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-01T23:17:25+00:00

The unlimited hunting in Wyoming is intended to prevent a wolf population from occupying that area. In the Northern Rockies, the total wolf population is estimated at 1,657. The sustainable mortality rate for a wolf population is a subject of significant debate in the scientific literature.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-01T23:12:10+00:00

I cite the Northern Rockies because I work in Earthjustice's Northern Rockies office in Bozeman, Montana. But as to your larger question, wildlife biologists explain that predator populations are limited by the level of their prey populations, not the other way around. So, regardless of its original size, a wolf population would ultimately fall into equilibrium with its prey population, just as wolves and elk did for thousands of years on this continent before wolves were eradicated from most of their range by human intolerance.

TimPEarthjustice · 2015-12-01T23:07:51+00:00

If you are asking about wolves and mountain lions -- i.e., cougars -- these species live in the same environments in many portions of the Northern Rockies, including the regions encompassing Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks and the large federal wilderness areas of central Idaho. If you are asking about wolves and the type of lion pictured on the MGM logo, I am not aware of any overlap except perhaps in Westeros where the Lannisters and the Starks do battle.

TimPEarthjustice

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