Animal Cruelties

This is just some of the havoc blinkered "rewilding" advocates have unleashed on the rural West, through wolf reintroductions and other initiatives aimed at rebuilding populations of large predators in modern landscapes that simply can't sustain them. These efforts are ushering-in a new round of human-animal conflict that isn't good for people or for "protected" animals. 

Here you have a sheep rancher who's been trying to keep the wolves at bay, literally, by working within the system, who can't count on the system's help when federal wolf packs begin decimating his herd. Adding insult to injury, you also have a typically-fanatical wolf advocate, in blame-the-victim fashion, callously arguing that the rancher (who has been denied access to wolf tracking data kept by the state) ought to have known better than to put his animals in harm's way. Finally, lastly, you have government predator controllers, with a clear justification for taking action against the rampaging pack, who are cowed into submission, and call off the hunt, as soon as the howling of the lunatic fringe is heard. 

Thus you have, in microcosm, a story repeated too often since Washington began forcing wolves down the West's throat, with the heartfelt support of east coast editorial writers, non-Western politicians and animal worshipers of various stripes -- none of which have to deal directly with the consequences when these feel-good science fair projects go awry.             

We need less romanticism and more realism in how these efforts are pursued, since it's impossible to recreate conditions in the "New West" that perfectly mimic those in the "Old West," except perhaps on a relatively modest scale in very remote locales. Pushing things too far is itself a form of animal cruelty, since it's the "protected" species that arguably suffer most when these rewilding experiments run amok.

Necessary Measures

A lot of howling will be heard and some fur may fly over a budget deal rider that removed federally-reintroduced wolves from the endangered species list. But in this case the ends really did justify the means.

This science fair project gone mad shows that the Endangered Species Act is hopelessly broken -- that it's just a playtoy in the hands of litigious nature-worshipers. Western states can't continue to operate under a wolf-related regulatory regime that changes almost month to month, based on the latest court ruling or judicial whim. Wolf numbers have grown far beyond the original goals, yet a de-listing was impossible to get. And impacted states are perfectly able of manage the packs in a responsible and sustainable way, without federal meddling. But the law is impossible to reform or repeal, so extraordinary measures were in this case warranted.

Using a legislative rider isn't an ideal way to set things right, admittedly. But an unworkable law and unreasonable people pushed us to this point.

Can't You Just Hear the Howling Now?

One lesser-known provision of the shutdown-averting budget agreement will remove reintroduced federal wolves from the endangered species list, ending a long-running battle that not only highlighted the absurdity of one of the nation's most powerful environmental laws, the Endangered Species Act, but showed how a lone agenda-driven federal judge can hand down dictates that tie an entire region in regulatory knots. I may not condone the means, but I loudly applaud the ends, since we can't have one activist judge and a gaggle of radical greens standing in the way of common sense and sound science forever.

It's a shame this couldn't be done legislatively, but a much-needed repeal or overhaul of the ESA by Congress just isn't in the cards, given the lobbying clout of Environmentalism Inc. The West shouldn't have to live in a perpetual state of regulatory conflict and uncertainty, with listing decisions seemingly changing on a monthly basis, just because Washington can't muster the courage to overrule arrogant judges, address the law's glaring flaws or bring an end to this impasse.

I can almost hear the howling this will generate in certain circles. But at this point, it's music to my ears.

Fur May Fly Over Federal Bait and Switch

Imperial Washington has some states on the verge of rebellion. They’re acting out in various ways. Some are taking ObamaCare to court. Others are challenging Washington on firearms and emissions controls. One state, Arizona, is bucking Uncle Sam on immigration enforcement.

But what, one wonders, will be the breaking point? When will all the neo-federalist saber-rattling -- all the talk of the 10th Amendment, the 17th Amendment, nullification – cross the line and become in-your-face defiance? What state, what governor, will take this resistance movement the next step, and force the seemingly-inevitable showdown, by just saying "no" to Washington?

I think the breaking point may come in a relatively unexpected place, on a relatively obscure issue -- wolf reintroduction.

The history of federal re-wilding efforts involving gray wolves is too convoluted to detail here. But the program's statistical success, instead of quelling the controversy, is actually bringing the conflict to a fresh boil, as Wyoming, Idaho and Montana fight for a federal de-listing decision they think science and the original program benchmarks support. One federal judge in Missoula thinks otherwise, and recently reversed wolf de-listing at the behest of green litigants. Frustrated states, feeling betrayed by what they view as a bait-and-switch, seem on the verge of open rebellion. There is talk of states refusing to enforce federal wolf protections, in the face of an escalating number of conflicts between man and beast.

The fight over wolves has from the beginning been a states' rights dispute, but it's becoming more obviously so every day.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat who gained and maintained popularity in the Cowboy State by standing up to Washington on a range of issues, precipitated the most recent conflict, by declining to strictly follow federal dictates on how states should manage the booming number of reintroduced wolves. It was that lack of uniformity, across the 3 states most impacted by the re-wilding effort, that served as the pretext for a recent re-listing of the animals by a federal judge in Montana. That reversal of a widely-applauded de-listing decision angered many and reignited the conflict.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter's announcement that his state will no longer pay compensation for livestock kills by wolves, his bitter accusations of promises broken by the federal government and his evoking of Idaho's "sovereign right to protect our wildlife" from wolf predation, seem to move us a step closer to a showdown -- one that's fueled by the powerlessness Westerners feel living in Washington's long shadow.

Some are hoping to get relief by working the issue in Washington, but that's a fool's errand, if history is any guide. Environmentalism Inc. has a lot of lobbying clout inside the beltway. It has turned back any and all attempts to reform, temper or tweak the Endangered Species Act. Non-Westerners in Congress don't understand or don't care about the law's impacts out here. Getting Congress to intervene on the side of common sense seems like mission impossible. State legislators also are talking strategy, but what they can do about any of this is questionable.

Legal avenues to relief remain open, but fickle federal judges and conflicting and contradictory rulings make coherent policymaking nearly impossible. Today the wolves are listed, tomorrow they're not. Two days later, some robed dictator in a federal courthouse, interpreting an inflexible and unworkable law, is pushing policy in another direction. Public lands policy-making through judicial edict helped create this jumbled mess: no reasonable person looks there for the answer.

All this, along with the frustration that comes from feeling betrayed, and the fact that wolf recovery benchmarks keep shifting, has people in wolf-impacted states in a very rebellious mood, with some at the grassroots pushing for a non-compliance or open defiance. The old joke about adopting the "Triple S" approach to wolf management -- shoot, shovel and shut-up -- is now told in less jocular tones. A sagebrush rebellion is being reborn. Wolf management is becoming a states' rights issue, setting the stage for a test of wills.

How Washington would police the far-flung federal wolfpack without state assistance is unknown. It probably lacks the resources and manpower to do so. Would President Obama sue states to force compliance, or dispatch the national guard to babysit federal wolves if states refuse to comply with a court order? That could precipitate quite a showdown -- perhaps even bigger than what's happening in Arizona -- given the anti-Washington mood that prevails.

No one relishes the thought of such a confrontation, but unless something soon gives -- either the states or the feds -- that seems to be the path we're walking. On this issue, wolf-impacted states feel as if they've given all they can, and more. For every inch they've given, a mile has been taken. And if the fur must fly, it might as well fly over this issue.

The Trojan Cat

Diabetics beware: reading this editorial in today's Denver Post could have you reaching for the insulin.

Not sure what it is about endangered species that leads to the suspension of all skepticism among journalists. Hand them a pretty picture of a "majestic" Canada lynx running free in Colorado and they go weak in the knees. Then all we hear from these supposedly hard-bitten cynics is goo-goos and ga-gas. Not once in this 500-word gusher do the larger implications of lynx reintroduction get a mention, though the cats already are having significant adverse impacts on how public lands are managed in Colorado.

The reintroduction is a success story, of sorts, if you ignore the fact that Canada lynx are, technically-speaking, an invasive species (much like the gray wolves released in the Northern Rockies are invasive), along with the fact that Colorado marked the southernmost boundary of their historic habitat, meaning that they never exactly flourished here. But like the "successful" reintroduction of the wolf, it can complicate life for the rest of us -- something that the Post doesn't mention.

Before Colorado volunteered to be part of this experiment -- based on a promise that we wouldn't have the regulatory hammer lowered by the feds if the experiment worked -- anyone claiming that a ski resort couldn't be expanded, or a forest trail improved, because of "lynx habitat" would have been laughed out of the room. No lynx, no habitat, no problem, in short. Federal land managers would have to dream-up another excuse to say "no" to something.

But that's no longer the case in Colorado. With a colony of the cats now firmly established, "lynx habitat" now becomes a credible catch-all excuse to block this project or that one. It's a regulatory Trojan horse, which Colorado invited in, rather gullibly. And like the defenders of Troy, we'll now pay a heavy price for that gullibility.

Moving Target

Ever wonder why there are so few endangered species success stories? Could it be because federal agencies and green groups keep moving the goal posts on what constitutes species recovery?

The federal wolf reintroduction program offers a good case in point.

Hunting for Sanity

A long-overdue culling of the federal wolf pack has begun in Idaho. Robert Millage of Kamiah was the first lucky hunter to turn in a tag, bagging an 80-pound female with a .243 rifle in the northern part of the state. "I guess it was the luck of the draw," Millage humbly said.

Though what he did was perfectly legal, and something that's necessary if the size of the burgeoning federal wolf pack is to be kept in check, Millage himself then became a target -- of loose-screw wolf-worshipers who live in a world of Disney-inspired nature fantasies, where man and beast happily coexist. But so it goes in the Rocky Mountain wolf wars. The only thing more vicious than wolves killing sheep is humans fighting over wolves.

If I seem to take delight in the kill, don't get me wrong. I'm not some bloodthirsty, kill-everything-that-moves nut, or a woodsman out to rescue Little Red Riding Hood. It's just that Idaho's wolf hunt signals the triumph of sanity over insanity, reason over unreasonableness, in the decade-long debate over how "wild" the "new West" can be. It means that against long odds, and an army of screaming green weenies, Western states are poised to begin responsibly managing wolf packs that were foist upon them by Washington against their will. And not a minute too soon, given the growing toll these animals are taking on Westerners.

From a recent edition of The Idaho Statesman:

"Kathy Konen has lost guard dogs to wolves in the past, but nothing prepared the Dillon (Montana) rancher for the killing of 120 buck sheep on their ranch last week. "They were in the sagebrush, on the creek bottom — just all over the pasture," Konen said Thursday during a telephone interview before heading up to check cattle. "It's a terrible loss to our livestock program . . .

. . . The total included 82 confirmed kills and 40 carcasses that were classified as probable kills, including some that had been eaten by bears. The attack occurred on private land the Konens own. "That's a lot all in one incident," Sime said.The sheep were just killed and yet the carcasses were almost all intact, Konen said. "They didn't eat what they killed, most of them were just brought down," she said. "I don't know whether they were teaching their pups or what."

It's not the first attack that the Konens have had this summer. They lost 26 sheep to wolves in the same pasture in July, she said. After that attack FWP authorized federal trappers to remove three wolves that had been observed in the area. Trappers shot and killed a gray coated wolf and shot another black one that got away but was believed to be mortally wounded. The third wolf, another black one, got away."

Here's another recent wolf kill story, in this case from Oregon. Such reports used to be rare. Today they appear regularly.

I'm not anti-wolf. I'm not opposed to "re-wilding" efforts when and where they make sense. But the federal wolf reintroduction program has gone from a laudable success to a looming menace, with wolf populations -- which are spilling over state borders and increasing by 20 percent per annum -- growing unmanageable. Livestock kills are steadily rising. Federal workers are running around the countryside, trying to babysit the animals. The effort to restore some textbook "natural balance" teeters in some places toward imbalance, as the wolves begin to eat their way through elk and deer herds. The "experiment" has gotten out of hand.

But rather than acknowledge a success and be reasonable, wildlife advocates have fought every effort to bring some sanity and discipline to the re-wilding effort. States have had to fight to get wolves delisted, fight to win the right to manage the animals, fight for the right to hold hunts. As program benchmarks have been reached and exceeded, animal activists have shifted the goal posts or attempted to change the rules, as in New Mexico and Arizona, where backers of the less-successful effort to reintroduce Mexican wolves (that's another blog post) are trying to end the three strikes rule on livestock-killers.

States that have (sometimes reluctantly) done their parts to make this effort work are now feeling double-crossed by animal advocates, who keep changing the rules of the game. I know most environmentalists are hopeless pessimists. But surely some of them must have given thought to what might happen if wolf numbers grew larger than what's practical in today's more densely-populated, heavily-recreated "new West."

Surely they knew that wolves would at some point have to be managed, just as deer, elk, bear, cougar and other species are managed, in order to keep the populations healthy while minimizing human-animal conflicts. Surely they don't really believe that managing the pack opens the door to another "war on the wolf," or that the feds would passively stand by as the states wipe the animals out?

This is the moment that separates reasonable and responsible wildlife advocates from the environmentally retarded and the complete kooks. And it's clear that the kooks are setting the agenda.

The Spokane (Wash.) Spokesman-Review had a balanced editorial on the subject, which included the following points:

"The hunting period opened Tuesday in the first two of Idaho’s 12 wolf management zones, and although more than 11,000 tags were sold, only three animals had been taken as the weekend approached. That’s hardly a slaughter, and it’s no indication that the impressive gains of the past 14 years are likely to be reversed.

Consider that the restoration effort began in Idaho with the import of 35 wolves. By 2007, the population was about 650; it’s now up to some 1,000. Federal authorities say that the wolf population throughout the Northern Rockies has exceeded the law’s goals every year since 2002.

Now that the animal has been delisted and its management turned over to the states, the law requires that the population be managed to stay above an absolute minimum of 100 animals with 10 breeding pairs, although the feds would start talking about relisting when the numbers dropped to 150 animals and 15 breeding pairs.

Even if all 220 allowed wolf kills happen this season, the surviving wolf numbers will be well above those figures, and Idaho officials know from experience that if they get careless in their duty, the feds won’t hesitate to step back in."

"It’s not the hunting that needs to come to an end now," the newspaper concludes, "it’s the litigation."