Wolves have been vilified

Oregon Wild and the Sierra Club team up to set the record straight on wolves.

Gray wolves have a way of igniting fierce debates. How anyone feels about the species often has less to do with the role wolves play in the Oregon landscape and more to do with identity politics. In the ongoing culture war, wolves are often collateral damage.

Still, even those jaded by years of controversy over the species must have been surprised by some outlandish comments made by Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation President David Allen printed in The Bulletin on Jan. 7 (“Predator, Protector — As costs mount, some researchers point out benefits”).

Despite the fact that only a small population of approximately 30 wolves currently roams Oregon’s backcountry, Allen thinks it all too much. To quote the story: “To keep wolf populations controlled, (Allen) said, states will have to hold hunts, shoot wolves from the air and gas their dens.”

Aerial gunning and poisoning? Pardon us, but this isn’t the 1930s.

In one of the greatest environmental tragedies in United States history, wolves were nearly wiped out from the lower 48. In Oregon and neighboring states, government-sponsored bounties incentivized trappers to kill every wolf they could find.

The wolf extermination was carried out to rid the landscape of native predators — then thought to be a nuisance to a growing livestock industry. Today, we know better. For nearly 40 years, the Endangered Species Act has helped to prevent extinction and rebuild populations of wildlife threatened by development. Wolves, reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, have expanded to occupy historic habitat in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and — recently — California.

As the Bulletin article mentioned, scientists have documented a cascade of benefits to the surrounding environment resulting from the returning wolf population. As a keystone species, wolves balance the landscape and help species ranging from elk to aspen fill their proper role in the food chain.

Not mentioned in the Bulletin article is the positive impact wolves have had on local economies where they have been reestablished. A 2006 University of Montana study showed that the Yellowstone area benefits from $35 million of economic activity related to wolves every year. As the world learns of Oregon’s wolves through the amazing travels of OR-7 — a radio-collared wolf who has traveled more than 1,000 miles from northeast Oregon all the way to the California/Nevada border — we can expect a similar bump in wolf tourism activity.

So then, why are extreme voices calling for the re-extermination of wolves? Contrary to media headlines, not all ranchers and hunters buy in to the myth of the “big, bad wolf.”

In fact, conservationists at Oregon Wild, the Sierra Club and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation share a common heritage. Back in 1974, elk hunters concerned about the destruction of roadless areas were among Oregon Wild’s founders. Likewise, the Sierra Club has many hunters in its membership, and supports the conservation of healthy game herds and their habitat. Today, the overwhelming majority of hunters support conservation, and wish to see America’s wildlife heritage preserved.

Similarly, not all of the ranchers that manage the 1.3 million cows in Oregon view wolves as evil incarnate. It’s a good bet that those who have looked — with a more clear-eyed view of wolves — at the numbers and realized human thieves and weather are far bigger threats to their livelihood than wolves. To date, fewer than 30 cows have been killed by wolves in the 10 years that the species has returned to Oregon. That, compared to the 55,000 that die every year before they even reach the slaughterhouse.

With wolves, old myths die hard and antiquated ideologies persist. It’s taken us 50 years to shift our mind-set from extermination to tenuous acceptance, and it will likely take another 50 years for Oregonians from all backgrounds to embrace the return of wolves. In the meantime, we should all remember that wolves are just another animal trying to make their home in Oregon.

Steve Pedery is Conservation Director for Oregon Wild and David Stowe sits on the executive committee of the Juniper Group of the Sierra Club.