Wolf Nation

by Brenda Peterson

  “To me, sustainable farming is all about working with nature, not against it,” Elizabeth told me, her expression intent. This is a farmer who is up many nights birthing calves. She’s had to educate herself in veterinary skills because the closest vet is an hour’s drive away. She’s also a mom who tries to teach her sons about farming.

  “When we’re out building fences or moving cows and we’ll hear a coyote howl or see raccoon tracks in the mud, I always tell my boys that producing food doesn’t mean you have to eradicate all the wildlife around you. Instead, we welcome wildlife here. Coyotes keep rodent, rabbit, and groundhog populations down, which also benefits our farm.”

  “So coyotes are the main predators in Virginia?” I asked.

  Elizabeth nodded, “There is really nothing more upsetting to a rancher than having our livestock killed by predators, so I understand wanting to kill off wolves. As a cattle farmer myself, I also imagine it’s hard for ranchers to hear people who don’t make their living off the land calling for a return of the wolves to the wild.”

  Elizabeth paused thoughtfully. “But in the East, where my family raises cattle, we simply have to take a different approach from the mass slaughter of wildlife.” She leaned forward, her dark eyes reflecting a characteristic enthusiasm. “Instead, our strategy is to protect our livestock from predation. We don’t leave our cows way out in the woods or out in the furthest pasture during calving season. We bring our cows closer to home to protect them.”

  “But what happens if you lose a cow to a coyote?”

  Elizabeth sat back and considers this for a while. Her tanned face fell into an attentive stillness. “Well, if a wild animal makes a kill, then we know we’ve been slack and have to reevaluate our management strategy. In the last fifteen years we’ve never killed a single wild animal.”

  “That’s really impressive. What do you think about the wolf-recovery issues here in the West?”

  Elizabeth frowned and shook her head ruefully. “Western ranchers who graze on public land—something we don’t have the luxury to do in the East—have come to have an entitlement attitude, giving all farmers a bad name.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, if we have to work hard to protect our livestock while western ranchers use land subsidized by taxpayers and then demand that public agencies use public money to kill off wolves rather than tightening up their own management strategies—then clearly they’ve moved from being so-called cowboys to standing in the welfare lines.”

  “Strong words from a fellow farmer.”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “Strong words because farmers are straight-talking people. We tell it like it is. The bottom line is that western ranchers can also learn to take more responsibility for protecting their own sheep or cattle. It’s just part of the job.”

  More and more ranchers and farmers are understanding and implementing what Elizabeth’s farm models—active protection of their livestock from predators. In my home state of Washington wolves are still on the Endangered Species List, and there is the hope that in the far West we will, as Elizabeth said, do it differently, more sustainably, and less acrimoniously from the endless wolf wars of the Rockies.

  IN 2015 the Pacific Wolf Coalition reported that one hundred thousand West Coast residents joined 1 million citizens from across the country to urge the federal government to maintain federal protection for gray wolves.

  “Washington has the best wolf management plan in the West,” notes Conservation Northwest’s Mitchell Friedman. “We don’t want wolves to be just another divisive urban-rural, green-brown issue,” he added. Friedman wants to use dialogue between ranchers and wolf advocates to build “a sense of community around doing the right thing so we can have recovered wolf populations and healthy wild ecosystems right along with successful ranches and agricultural production.”

  Friedman takes part in the collaborative work of the Wolf Advisory Group, which includes sportsmen, ranchers, and wolf advocates. In Washington, Oregon, and California, ranchers are learning nonlethal ways to protect their livestock. They hire range riders and don’t graze their sheep near known wolf ranges. Ranchers can sign an agreement with Washington wildlife officials to practice “conflict avoidance.” This collaboration offers participating ranchers daily radio-collar alerts to signal when wolves are near grazing livestock.

  Washington rancher Sam Kayser, who pastures his cows on public land, explains that he’s working with the state to adapt to wolves. His ranch is one hundred miles east of Seattle. When wolves killed one of his cows in the summer of 2015 Kayser told the Capital Press, the West’s ag website, that “he still believes his cattle can coexist with the returning predators.” Kayser is not a wildlife advocate; he’s a realist. “I’m not excited about it,” he says of wolf recovery, “but it doesn’t matter whether I’m excited. We’re stuck with them. I want to think there’s room for all of us out there.”

  Kayser’s cattle ranch is in Central Washington near wolves known as the Teanaway pack. Of the six wolves in this family, three were fitted with radio collars. Three times a day these collars transmit the wolves’ location to Kayser’s veteran range rider, Bill Johnson. The Teanaway pack is still protected by the federal Endangered Species Act because it ranges in Western Washington. Shooting these wolves, even if they prey on livestock, is not allowed. So the ranchers have to learn nonlethal alternatives. Necessity does become the mother of invention—and if not acceptance, tolerance. Range rider Johnson has been protecting Kayser’s five hundred head of cattle since 2011. On one of his patrols he stopped to check out scat and noted that the wolves had dined on elk, rodents, and robin’s eggs. Not livestock. Johnson’s work is partially supported by Conservation Northwest. As a professional range rider, Johnson now considers himself prowolf.

  Jay Kehne of Conservation Northwest explains, “Wolves bring up so many emotions on all sides. We wanted to find that middle ground and work with ranchers to give them the best possible tools for nonlethal deterrence.” Some of those deterrents include bright flashing lights, sirens, stun pistols, barking guard dogs, and red, flapping strips of cloth called “fladry,” which seem to frighten off wolves. One of the most effective ways to ward off wolves is simple: remove carcasses so as not to attract any predators. In Washington a new facility is being built where ranchers can drop off dead livestock for composting.

  Range rider Johnson credits the wolves for their keen intelligence. “It doesn’t matter where we run the cattle—the wolves have a way of knowing.” They don’t appear to be afraid of him on his horse as he keeps vigil over the herds. Johnson’s and others’ range-riding work uses the timeless tactics of any cowboy or shepherd—human protection. Move cattle for grazing and to avoid possible wolf presence. Every morning Johnson checks the computer for radio-collar signals from the wolves. Working with his well-trained border collie, Nip, Johnson protects the cattle from probing wolf packs.

  Washington State fully compensated Kayser for his loss of this one cow. “I appreciate that, and that’s the way it should be,” he says. “I shouldn’t have to carry the financial burden for the public getting to have wolves.” More wolf depredation may occur, but “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Kayser concludes, “So far we’ve been successful. But we have enough habitat for the wolves we have.”

  In the summer of 2016 Washington hosted nineteen wolf families, which included ninety wolves with eight breeding pairs. Conservation Northwest has contracted to hire five more range riders throughout the state, but although they can protect livestock from wolves, they can’t protect wolves from illegal hunting. Sadly, within a year after wolves killed Kayser’s calf, a poacher killed the alpha female of the Teanaway pack.

  Fellow ranchers have accused both Kayser and Johnson of selling out because Kayser has signed the agreement with the state to work together to adapt to wolf recovery. Kayser protests this accusation. “I call B.S. on that. To me the goal is coexistence.”

  ALTHOUGH A VERY VOCAL and histori
cally dominant minority of antiwolf ranchers, who have thus far determined wildlife policies, still have much influence, new demographics challenges their power.

  Our changing American identity will profoundly affect how we see other top predators. By the year 2020 “more than half of the nation’s children are expected to be part of a minority race or ethnic group,” says the Census Bureau. Whereas 72 percent of Baby Boomers are white, Americans born after 2000 are only 50 percent white. Hispanic populations will triple by 2050, and Asian and African American numbers are also growing. As the United States grows more diverse and urban, our politics and policies concerning public lands and wildlife will change.

  In another shift, there are now as many Millennials (those born between 1982 and 2004) of voting age as Baby Boomers, and they are only 56 percent white. Millennials are “the most educated, the most diverse, and one of the most liberal generations ever.” This demographic is also “the largest generation in American history.” This is the generation of Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, people who value authenticity and integrity in candidates for political office, a collective voice well schooled in social media.

  An interesting note is that while few Millennials label themselves as “environmentalists,” they are, in their politics and preferences, the most environmental generation ever. They support sustainable companies, and solar and wind energy, and approve of stronger governmental regulation. In fact, Millennials are open to more and bigger government involvement in everything from food labeling to humanely raised meat and dairy to conservation. Millennials eat less meat than previous generations and are more active in local, grassroots green organizations. Two-thirds of Millennials believe that human-caused global warming is real and that climate change needs to be addressed; only 25 percent believe that the United States should expand oil, coal, and natural gas production. This so-called Green generation bodes a different future for both conservation and animal welfare. As one Millennial writer noted, “Environmentalism and modern, urban lifestyles are not mutually exclusive.… I’d argue that Millennials have begun to shed the mindset that having concern for the future of our planet and species is specific to environmentalists alone.”

  A Millennial I interviewed in North Carolina on wildlife issues exemplifies this new generation’s broader reach. Courtney is in her late twenties, slender and amiable but with a welcome dark sense of humor. She has written essays published in The Huffington Post on everything from pets to chronic anxiety. She met her husband, Isaac, while both were interning at a dolphin-research facility in the Florida Keys. As a child Courtney wanted to be a dolphin trainer, so spending her summer days with dolphins was a dream come true. Like many of her Y Generation, Courtney suffers from asthma and intense food allergies; she’s had to study food labels and is hyperaware of both air pollution and dangerous additives in foods. After graduating college with a degree in psychology, Courtney was the director of Student Services at a medical arts college in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and she now works at a local nonprofit teaching life skills to socially challenged kids, like those with autism or developmental disorders.

  “I struggled with social skills as a child,” Courtney told me, “but thankfully my parents recognized this and placed me in a program where I could learn them.”

  With her vivid bright blue eyes and easy laughter, it’s hard to imagine that Courtney ever had any difficulty with “social skills.” But there is an edginess to her admittedly droll and ironic take on life. She is a chronic sleepwalker and has a recurring nightmare that she is “sleeping on a pile of puppies who need rescuing.”

  Like Courtney, giving back and community are two of the major themes of many of these globally minded and hyperconnected Millennials. Check out any Instagram, Facebook, or Tumblr page, and you’ll find calls for everything from pet adoption to river restoration to protecting endangered species. Courtney loves all animals but is allergic to most dogs. Her husband presented her one day with a nonallergenic labradoodle puppy named Henri. Chocolate colored with curly hair, Henri is one of the most personable canines I’ve ever met, her black eyes eerily human. Courtney and Isaac used their dolphin-training skills to raise Henri to be so socially gifted that she is now an official therapy dog. Courtney brings Henri to elementary schools to help kids learn how to read, and Henri is equally embraced by enthusiastic and grateful elders at a local senior center.

  When I interviewed Courtney, her labradoodle was leaning against my knee, gazing up at me with an almost unsettling attention. Although Henri is certainly domesticated, she has the alertness and intensity of her Canis lupus distant cousins.

  When I asked Courtney what she thought about wolves being restored to their former ranges in America, she replied, “I really support wolves being returned to their homes and former territories. We’ve taken so much out of the wild—why not try to restore wolves and other animals to where they belong?”

  I asked Courtney what she thought about the controversial efforts to restore the red wolf, the most highly endangered wolf of all, to North Carolina—the only place in the world where red wolves are not extinct. North Carolina once had an engaged wolf recovery program, but the federal agencies charged with their reintroduction have recently abandoned efforts to release captive-born red wolves into the wild. Conservation groups are filing an emergency petition and suing the USFWS to save a red wolf population that is going extinct on their watch.

  As we talked about this sad decline in red wolves in her state, Courtney said, “I only hope we can give them the space and respect they deserve. I live in a city, but it’s good to know that wild animals are still surviving in my homeland. Maybe my children will one day hear or even see a red wolf in the wild.”

  WE MAY NOW BE WITNESSING the last days of ranchers, hunters, and farmers dominating public lands and wildlife management. In fact, livestock grazing on federal lands has decreased over the last half century—from 18 million foraging acres in 1953 to only 8 million in 2014. Ranchers’ influence in politics is also shrinking. This doesn’t, however, mean the transition and evolution of our American lands and identity won’t be turbulent and troubling. Or violent.

  One of the new battlefields emerging is between the states and the federal government over control of public lands. State campaigns to “take back” public lands and resistance to federal wolf recovery programs are inexorably linked. That struggle is embodied in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon’s high desert in January of 2016 by militants crusading against federal “ownership” of those remote 187,757-acre public lands. The militants were an offshoot of an earlier protest by Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy because the feds had removed his cattle from public lands after Bundy refused to pay long-overdue grazing fees. Bundy’s sons staged the Malheur wildlife refuge occupation.

  In that bleak, midwinter wilderness militant protesters cut down trail signs with a chain saw and burned them. They confiscated a USFW vehicle and threatened violence. Patrolling the remote visitor center, heavily armed men in cowboy hats guarded the wildlife refuge on horseback waving an American flag, while others held up signs reading, “Take Back Oregon” and “BLM—Another Intrusive, Tyrannical Government Entity Doing What They Do Best ABUSING POWER & Oppressing the Backbone of America.” (BLM is the Bureau of Land Management.) Are these angry protesters really the “backbone of America”? Does their cause reflect our true American character, or are the protesters a fringe group, a throwback to the past? Whatever the answer, they certainly represent the confrontations ahead over public lands and wildlife management, especially in the West.

  The wildlife refuge takeover revealed several old and new twists in a states vs. feds battle. An irony that the occupiers seemed to miss when they proclaimed that Malheur was “taken illegally by the federal government” from the “more than 100 ranchers and farmers [who] used to work this land” is that the refuge stands on ancestral land still sacred to the Paiute tribe. Their ancestors lived on this land nine thou
sand years ago, but the federal government forced them off their land after signing the treaty of 1879.

  In knee-deep snow the tribe was loaded into wagons, and “they literally walked our people, children, and women off our lands,” said Paiute tribal council member Jarvis Kennedy. The two-hundred-member tribe still struggles to get by in this isolated Oregon landscape that is especially desolate in winter. In Kennedy’s view, if his tribe were trying to take over the wildlife refuge, “We’d be already shot up, blown up, or in jail. They are white men. That is the difference.”

  One of the most vivid reactions to the Malheur antigovernment occupiers came not from tribes or politicians but from wildlife advocates—especially birders. Conservationists have long cherished Malheur as a mecca for its multitudinous bird life—from great horned and barred owls to elegant ibis, from western snowy plover to white heron. The Malheur Wildlife Refuge is “home to 320 species of birds and 58 mammal species” and a birders’ delight, according to veteran birder Noah Strycker, who spotted 50 species of birds at the refuge in one day.

  An outraged letter from a longtime birder, “Warning from the Birding Community to the Terrorists in Oregon: We’re Watching You,” went viral and spawned a #takebackmalheur campaign. The letter called out the Malheur occupiers and claimed “your decades of constant poaching of protected wildlife around Malheur and other wildlife refuges, national parks, national forests and BLM lands has been well-documented.” The letter also pointed out that “Wildlife photographers and wildlife/bird watchers now number some 40 million people in the USA and feed many rural western economies with our tourism dollars” and promised that “we are watching you and our years of birding photography have made us endlessly patient and determined.”