Wanted . . . Dead or Alive?
The Debate Over Wyoming's Wolves and Bears: Finding a Balance when Values Come into Conflict
by Molly Absolon
 In December 2004, 300 people crowded into the Holiday Inn in Riverton, Wyo., many bearing cardboard buttons on their lapels showing a grizzly bear behind a picket fence under the statement “No Griz In My Backyard.” A meeting in Dubois that same week brought out similar numbers and equally hostile rhetoric about bears being bloodthirsty killers that jeopardize the safety of children.
The topic of large carnivores like grizzly bears and wolves polarizes communities in Wyoming. People are quick to call those who disagree with them everything from misguided to untrustworthy or even evil. On the surface this battle is over the animals, but underneath there is something else going on.
“Everyone in the Yellowstone region focuses on the biological matters,” says Tim Clark, president and founder of the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative in Jackson. “But we are really locked in a social phenomenon and we can’t see our way out.”
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s (WGFD) 2004 Grizzly Bear Occupancy Management Proposal drew a record 17,542 written comments in 2005 (beating out the previous record-holding report on gray wolves). The tone and content of these comments tend to reflect the commentator’s place of residency, according to the department. Approximately 5,000 of them came from Wyoming residents. These people said “not in my backyard” and were distinctly “hostile” toward bears. The remaining 12,000 or so were from non-residents and, in general, supported expansion of grizzly bears into all appropriate habitats.
This resident, non-resident divide can be further defined into a kind of New West, Old West split. On one side are what Clark and his colleagues call, in the book Coexisting with Large Predators: Lessons from Greater Yellowstone, the “Old West localists” or individuals who have lived in Wyoming for generations, many of whom are linked to agriculture or outfitting and who typically share a deep distrust for the federal government.
The other side is the “New West.” This label refers to people who have moved here in the last 30 years or so; are less likely to be dependent on the land for their livelihoods; are not culturally and historically linked to the landscape the way localists are; and have a strong spiritual, ethical and recreational tie to the outdoors and wildlife.
In the middle is a no-man’s land. Currently, both sides seem to believe that moving into this middle territory would require unacceptable losses to their way of life and their worldview. As a result, the issue has become so contentious, many groups, including the Wyoming Outdoor Council, are struggling with how to engage in the debate in a positive, solution-oriented way. Ironically, polling data indicates that the two sides share important common values including the desire to protect Wyoming’s wildlife and its ranching heritage. The question is what do you do when these values come into conflict?
Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em?
“Why is the livestock industry paying for something that they don’t want? Something that is a 100-percent detriment to their business?” asks Jon Robinett, the manager of the Diamond G Ranch in the Dunoir Valley near Dubois.
Robinett believes the agricultural community is bearing the bulk of the cost of coexisting with carnivores, and he is not alone. Repeatedly ranchers point to the losses they suffer from running livestock in the presence of large predators.
This argument is countered by the fact that these losses are statistically insignificant to the state’s livestock industry as a whole. But tell that to someone who runs cattle or sheep around wolves or bears. The impact on these individual ranchers—particularly those who run their animals on remote public grazing allotments in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem—are real and can be substantial.
Wolves have also earned a reputation as elk and moose slayers. Most elk herds in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are at or above state game management objectives, however, Yellowstone’s Northern Elk Herd has declined since wolf reintroduction. Numbers have fluctuated from 10,287 in 1990-91, to 19,359 in 1993-94, and back down to less than 9,000 in 2003-04. Scientists attribute this decline to drought and hunting, with wolf predation being “compensatory” or limited in its effect.
But people who believe wolves are affecting elk numbers disregard these findings. They claim there is a conspiracy and “the feds” are lying about the impacts of wolves on wildlife to advance their agenda. The Montana-based Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd hired their own researchers and have come out with a report that blames wolves for the herd’s decline. People also dismiss Joel Berger’s finding that moose are dying not from wolf predation but from starvation in Grand Teton National Park (see Frontline, Fall 2004). Wyoming’s petition to delist wolves, approved in July by the Game and Fish Commission, openly criticizes the existing science. Even Senator Mike Enzi has jumped on the bandwagon and said, “The increased threat of wolves in Wyoming is having a major impact on the state’s livestock and wildlife populations.”
Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says, “Once wolves were reintroduced, everyone started seeing everything through ‘wolf-colored glasses’ and anything that changed in the ever-changing scheme of nature became wolf-caused, not in reality but in people’s minds.
“Much of this comes down to mistrust of the government. People believe we just lie.”
This mistrust runs deep. People claim that the wolves aren’t even the right kind—that the animals brought in from Canada to reestablish populations in Yellowstone are a different, larger species than the ones that originally inhabited the area. They accuse organizations like the Wyoming Outdoor Council of seeing only the positive aspects of wolves and bears, of being hoodwinked by a federal conspiracy that shoved wolves down the throats of the unsuspecting American public.
But there are some areas where the science is less debatable. Wildlife biologists agree that predators are integral to the health of the ecosystem; that they help maintain balance in big game herds; move animals around to alleviate overgrazing; and can contribute to a cascade of events that improve the range, encourage biodiversity, and in general make for a healthier, more sustainable environment.
A recent study on the effects of predators on local ecology appeared in the August issue of Ecology magazine. The research shows compelling evidence that the presence of wolves around Banff National Park in Canada has had a profound influence on the ecological health of the area. Where there were wolves, there were beaver ponds, willows, aspens and songbirds. Where the wolves were absent, beaver ponds were replaced by meadows, and songbirds gave way to sparrows. Aspen and willow stands were old and were not regenerating because of heavy grazing by elk.
In Yellowstone early evidence also shows support for this phenomena, which is called a “trophic cascade.” Since wolf reintroduction, willows and aspens have begun to regenerate in Yellowstone’s Northern Range; beavers have returned to the area they abandoned years ago; and there are reports of more songbirds in the Lamar Valley.
Carnivores also bring in important money from tourism, which is Wyoming’s second largest industry. A number of outfitters cater to people who specifically want to see bears and wolves. People buy photographs and paintings of the animals and sport T-shirts bearing their likeness. They go on wolf-watching trips and travel to Yellowstone during the winter in unprecedented numbers to see the packs. As much as $20 million in annual eco-nomic activity is linked to wolves alone.
How Do We Coexist?
Within the context of this polarized debate, it is becoming increasingly clear that people living around Yellowstone have to adapt to bears and wolves whether they like it or not because the animals are here to stay.
Todd Graham, who manages the Sun Ranch in the Madison Valley in Montana just 25 miles from Yellowstone National Park’s northern border, seems to be having success coexisting with predators.
“When I was hired, my boss told me that he wanted me to run livestock with wolves successfully,” Graham says. “At that point I was living in Lander, Wyo., and I’d never even seen a wolf.
“Well it just so happened I went to a dinner party in Lander and met a Masai man who was in town visiting. We started talking about how his family ran livestock around predators in Kenya.
“I learned three things that evening. First, keep a strong human presence around your livestock. Second, keep your livestock tightly bunched together. And third, move the livestock around a lot… That’s what we do here on the Sun Ranch. It’s an interesting blend of thousands of years of Masai traditions and good range science.
“Knock on wood, but in my three seasons, we haven’t had any predator losses,” Graham says.
Graham’s methods require a substantial commitment to be successful. The ranch received a grant that pays for someone to sleep out at night with the cattle. They use portable electric fences to move the animals around and keep them bunched. Ranch hands actively haze wolves, shooting them with rubber bullets or cracker shells.
“There is definitely a big emotional cost,” Graham concedes. “You lose some freedom. Someone has to be here tied to the ranch to keep an eye on things all the time. But it seems to be working. We have ‘good’ wolves around here now. Wolves that are afraid of people.”
The loss of freedom or control that comes with living with predators seems to permeate opposition to wolves. It also affects people living with bears.
“Fear is a big, big element of why this issue is so polarizing,” says Chuck Neal, a retired ecologist with the U.S. Department of the Interior who has written a book about his 30-year study of the animal (See “Wyoming’s Grizzly Man,” facing page). “But the fear factor is way overblown. I can testify to that after repeated encounters with bears.
“Another reason is plain old-fashioned selfishness. People have been going about their business for over 100 years. They see carnivores as a constant obstacle, and they don’t want to have to alter their behavior.”
This issue has come to a head in Wapiti, Wyo., where a growing number of people are moving into grizzly bear habitat to build their dream homes.
Sharon Miller, a former Wapiti resident says, “People want to live outside of town to experience the ranch or country life. But they also want to bring town amenities with them like dogs, cats and flimsy garbage cans. They want to feed the birds and plant fruit trees, but all that stuff attracts the bears that are already living there.
“Honestly, why would a bear go out of his or her way to get natural food when he or she can just raid your garbage can or eat your tied-up dog? Why look for blueberries in the mountains when you can eat apples on someone’s trees?”
“People relate to bears,” says Tom Reed, the author of Great Wyoming Bear Stories. “But they don’t think about the reality of living with them. Lots of people—especially new people coming to own a piece of wild Wyoming—haven’t learned to change their behavior to accommodate being in the bears’ home. We want to have it all.”
The Changing West
Wyoming is evolving rapidly and much of this change is taking place in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as new people move in, buy up ranches and bring in different viewpoints. From 1990 to 2000, Teton County’s population grew by 63 percent and Sublette County increased by 22 percent. Ranching, while still important symbolically for the state, currently accounts for less than 3 percent of its total economy. Many ranches are now owned by outsiders who don’t need to make money from their operations. Multi-generational ranching families are becoming increasingly rare.
In Coexisting with Carnivores, the authors write, “The more drastic the change, the more people struggle to adapt and the more firmly they cling to their worldviews. Personal meaning, dignity and feelings of empowerment are rooted in these worldviews.”
Changing peoples’ worldviews may be asking too much, therefore, but changing personal habits appears to be essential to coexisting with large carnivores. The challenge is how to ask for change without threatening an individual’s sense of self.
Who Gets To Tell Whom What To Do?
Few people will actively say they hate wolves or bears. Most acknowledge respect for the animals, and their symbolic value is evident wherever you see them used as team mascots or as the name of a motel, a landmark or an ATV model. Where people draw the line is over the issue of control.
“I should be able to step out my door and shoot [predators] if they are harming my livestock,” says Travis Lucas, the manager of the Spear S Sheep and Cattle Company in Lander and a former outfitter in the mountains around Dubois. “We should have the ability to control things. If we catch a predator in the act we should be able to do something about it.”
As Lucas and others see it, the issue is about private property rights, individual liberty and state’s rights. At its roots, it is a question about who gets to tell whom how to do things, and in Wyoming—where individual freedom is paramount—that is a hot topic.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The Wyoming Outdoor Council believes bears and wolves have important value both ecologically and symbolically. However, we also recognize that it is challenging and expensive to run livestock in their presence. Furthermore, we acknowledge that there is a real cultural divide between those who support predators and those who do not. We need leadership and commitment from both sides to listen and respect each other if we are ever to make progress. The Wyoming Outdoor Council seeks to provide that leadership and look for solutions that protect the things Wyoming people value: wildlife and our ranching heritage.
“Speaking for myself I have a lot of respect for predators,” says Jeremy Prine whose family has run a guest ranch near Dubois since the 1940s. “I think it is pretty neat to live in a place where you aren’t the top of the food chain, where it is wild. There aren’t a lot of places like that left in the world. But I don’t run livestock.”
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