Wolf Nation

by Brenda Peterson

  Did it matter so much if we lost track of OR7 and his family? Now the family was called the Rogue River pack because of their den in southern Oregon’s Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest. OR7’s family might be much safer without alerting us to his presence. And even if we lost radio contact, OR7 was now fully wandering our imaginations. About the time OR7 found his mate, a quasi-documentary film by Clemens Schenk, OR7: The Journey, opened to wide acclaim. Employing a captive wolf as a stand-in for OR7, the film follows his harrowing journey. The film includes insightful interviews with wolf biologists and wolf advocates, like ex-trapper and author Carter Niemeyer and wolf advocate Oliver Starr, the “Kosher Cowboy.”

  Starr’s grandfather owned a ranching empire of fifty-four thousand head of cattle in Colorado. Starr told me that he believes his grandfather “rolls over in his grave every time I use the W word.” In Starr’s decades studying wolves he’s realized, “We’ve never really seen wolves. They are like a vestige of a civilization that has been shattered.” Echoing Alaskan wolf biologist Gordon Haber, Starr credits wolves with their own culture and concludes, “Everything I see in a wolf’s behavior is just like how you’d expect a person to behave.”

  In the film Starr points out that we are still mostly “appeasing” ranchers in our wolf-management policies. “I come from a family with a cattle background, but agriculture has had an incredibly dominant position in decision making, particularly in the Western states.” Ranchers need to learn to coexist, Starr advises, as wolves now return west. If the practices of a rancher are the reason his animals are easy prey, those practices need to change. If a particular wolf is preying repeatedly on livestock, Starr would see—only as a last resort—nonlethal removal. But, he concludes, “Generally speaking I’ve seen the shoot-first-try-something-else-never approach. These guys are used to calling in Wildlife Services and getting a helicopter to come in and take out a whole pack,” Starr pointed out. This kind of lethal solution doesn’t work. It actually makes things worse in the long run because the surviving wolf family is destabilized and fragmented, so wolves increase their attacks on livestock. “We’ve been killing coyotes for a hundred years plus,” Starr says. “There are more coyotes now than ever before. We don’t solve the problem by messing with nature.”

  Another voice in this fascinating film is writer George Wuerthner, who emphasizes that grazing on public lands is a privilege, not a right. “None of us have a right to damage public lands and resources that everybody else enjoys. If you’re going to graze on public land, you assume a certain amount of risk, including any losses that might result from predators.”

  OR7: The Journey was a hit both in theaters and online. But it was not the only film to follow and find inspiration in OR7s story. A 2016 film, Wolf OR-7: Expedition, chronicles a team of six adventurers who retrace OR7’s trail and “follow in the footsteps of a wolf.” Supported by a Kickstarter campaign and several grants, the team is repeating OR7’s trek by bicycle and on foot. “To be following in the tracks of this particular wolf as closely as we can,” says one of the team members as he trods through snowbanks, “the landscape suddenly became alive in a completely different way.” When they stumble upon the set of huge and unmistakable tracks in the snow, a woman, heavy laden with a backpack, exclaims, “My first wolf tracks!”

  Rob Klavins of Oregon Wild echoes the hope of the expedition team: “Not all wildlife gets a second chance,” Kavins says, “so it’s important that we get it right this time.” This new documentary film takes as its premise “1,200 miles to explore human and wolf co-existence” and already has a strong fan base on Facebook, Twitter, and at its expedition website, OR7expedition.org. One of the team members, Jay Simpson, will write daily blog posts with photos and with interviews the expedition encounters on their trek. “It is only through walking it that anyone can truly understand that journey,” Simpson says. “It’s not a thing you can understand on Google Earth.”

  Along with the films and media coverage, OR7s story also became a children’s book, Journey: Based on the True Story of OR7, the Most Famous Wolf in the West, by San Francisco librarian Emma Bland Smith and illustrator Robin James. With a timeline of OR7’s journey, the book imagines as its main character the child who named OR7. The girl is so inspired by the wild wolf’s travels that she follows him with her class and celebrates him as at long last he discovers his mate. The response of many thousands of children to OR7’s journey is reflected in the success of this book.

  EVEN WHILE WOLF RECOVERY advocates celebrated OR7’s success and his story was reaching a vast and devoted audience, in Oregon things suddenly went backward—bewilderingly fast.

  In November 2015 Oregon’s Fish and Game Commission voted four-to-two to strip wolves from its state’s Endangered Species List. Oregon’s more enlightened and sustainable wolf-recovery policies were again falling prey to politics, not science. In an article I wrote at the time, I posted the grainy black-and-white photos of OR7s first pups in the hope that OR7’s popularity might influence the Oregon wildlife officials. Oregon had been on the cutting edge of wolf recovery but was regressing to Old West bias, and Oregon’s delisting of wolves was not worthy of this usually progressive state. I dearly hoped that perhaps OR7 and his family would migrate back down to California or even up to Washington where wolves were valued and protected, where the New West—for all people and wolves—is still being won. I began to worry that any day I would hear of OR7’s family being hunted down. New research data has confirmed that acceptance decreases and poaching flares up again when wolves are delisted.

  I was not alone in my disappointment. There was a fierce outcry over Oregon’s delisting, not only from wildlife advocates like the Pacific Wolf Coalition but also from scientists who vehemently disagreed with the desilting, asserting that the decision was not based on sound science. University of Wisconsin’s Adrian Treves, who has since 2001 conducted the longest-running study of human tolerance for wolves, wrote, “Oregon’s delisting misses the mark on scientific evidence.” He adds, “I heard from 23 of the 25 scientists opposed to delisting that neither the state nor the commission ever contacted them about their recommendations. Ignoring one scientist might be excusable, but ignoring so many who cited flaws in the commission’s evidence is worrisome.” Citing the real risks that wolves faced in Oregon, Treves reminds the wildlife commission that they “have legal duties as trustees for wildlife to benefit current and future generations.… The health of our wolves reflects the health of our democracy.”

  Again, as with the federal delisting, science was dismissed and politics prevailed. Oregon’s wildlife commission doubled down on its decision, even though it was not supported by the public—twenty-two thousand people wrote letters opposing the delisting, and there is still overwhelming support for wolf recovery in the state. Editorials decried the decision and posted numbers that tell the real story with past statistics: in 2010 there were eighty wolves in all of Oregon and 1.3 million cattle. Total wolf-related livestock kills from 2009 until 2015 were minimal: seventy-six sheep, thirty-six cattle, two goats. Wolves are absent in 90 percent of their historic range in Oregon. They are far from recovered, and this delisting may lead the way to renewed hunting.

  With such opposing science and statistics, the reasons why Oregon delisted wolves are disturbing. It is a commentary on the prejudice that continues to condemn wolves, just when they are getting a fragile foothold in their native territory. It also shows the dominance of the $669 million beef industry. Finally, a fact that cannot be repeated too often is that wildlife commissions are significantly funded by hunting and fishing licenses—one-third of the agency’s revenue in Oregon. In Oregon several of the commissioners listed hunting or big game as hobbies, and another past board member was chairman of the Oregon Hunter’s Association. Until wildlife advocates and nonconsumptive users pay more of their share of wildlife revenue in states, the hunters and ranchers will continue to control the management of wolves and other top predators.

>   In March of 2016 Oregon wildlife officials had issued yet another kill order for OR7’s father, the once-mighty OR4. OR4 was now ten years old, and his age was slowing him down. He had split off from his larger family of eight, possibly because his advancing age led to his overthrow. Also slowing down OR4 was a new mate, OR39, who was so lame that she was called “Limpy.” She may have been pregnant. The pair had two young wolves in their small family.

  “As wolves grow old or if they are injured, they are unable to hunt traditional wild prey as they have in the past,” explained Russ Morgan, the Oregon Department of Wildlife wolf coordinator. This perhaps explained why OR4’s family was believed responsible for the death of six sheep or cows over five months. According to the Oregon state management plan, this predation triggered lethal removal. The sheep producer had been doing his part to protect his animals by using nonlethal strategies to ward off wolves, including guard dogs, midnight spotlighting, hazing, and range riders. The cattleman had adopted other protections: pasture rotation, pasturing cows with their yearlings, and range rider patrols for calving cattle. But it was not enough to keep an aging alpha male and his disabled mate with two young wolves, not yet veteran hunters, from surviving on easier prey.

  Wolf advocates claimed that the livestock producers weren’t required to use colored fence flagging or loud noise boxes known to keep wolves away. “Those things are available, but in this situation they weren’t used,” said Oregon Wild’s Aaran Robertson. “If the agency were more clear on what the requirements were with producers, it would take a lot of the conflict out of this.” The kill order came down even when Oregon’s wildlife officials’ own data shows that in their state wolves are really having no effect on the wild populations of elk, deer, and domestic sheep. This is not science; it is an old blood feud that has flared up again in a state that had once been a model of wolf management.

  In his eulogy for OR4 Oregon Wild’s Rob Klavins wrote, “He never set paw in Salem or DC, but for better and worse, he had more impact on policy and politics than any animal I know of other than Cecil the Lion.” Even Men’s Journal mourned the loss of OR4. In their photo of OR4 his massive charcoal head and golden eyes still show his powerful presence, even though his ruff is graying and his ears are pocked with green plastic from biologists’ tags. Many others eulogized OR4 and his family. The popular wolf blog “Howling for Justice” wrote in its eulogy, “Oregon’s Shame,” that OR4 and his family “represent every wolf who has ever been senselessly killed for the sacred cow.” It grieved for this legendary wolf who had fathered an equally famous son in OR7. Together OR4 and OR7 were the “backbone of wolf recovery in Oregon.” In a final and respectful nod to OR4, the blog concluded, “Instead of Oregon treasuring him for the amazing wolf he was, they filled him full of lead as their final tribute.”

  It is horrific to imagine this master elder of a wolf run down into exhaustion by a helicopter, its loud, metal blades whirring midair, terrifying the yearling pups and parents. Then, the state-sanctioned sniper sights on OR4, his limping mate, and their two pups. Rapid-fire bullets echo in the old forest as the family falls, one by one, their dying bodies close together, as always. “I hope his death raises some serious questions among the public about the way wolves are managed on behalf of special interests,” said Amaroq Weiss. OR4 didn’t just belong to Oregon—“He belonged to the entire world.”

  THE USUAL TENSION between livestock producers and wolf advocates was recently inflamed in Oregon by Governor Kate Brown when she signed Bill 4040—introduced at the request of the livestock industry—to prohibit wildlife advocates from suing Oregon over its wildlife commission’s delisting of wolves as an endangered species. Those wildlife advocates, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Cascadia Wildlands, and Oregon Wild, had sued Oregon’s wildlife commission for delisting wolves prematurely. Governor Brown’s decision declaring her state immune from any further legal action to protect wolves is still highly controversial. Conservationists have challenged Brown’s delisting decision as violating the Endangered Species Act and the separation-of-powers clause in Oregon’s state constitution. If Oregon’s delisting of wild wolves stands, it means that any legal review of wolf protections will be blocked. And it echoes a federal bill now in Congress attempting the same exemption from legal review of any delisting of wolves.

  In her 2015 testimony Amaroq Weiss asked, “Have we ever delisted a species with only eighty-some confirmed animals occupying only 5 percent of Oregon’s total land mass? Can a species at such paltry numbers residing in such a tiny portion of its suitable habitat withstand the whims of politics and the upheavals of nature? The answer is no. Science says no. This Commission should say no.”

  With such regressive politics again putting wolves in the crosshairs, Oregon joins the Rocky Mountain and Great Lakes states in their antiwolf bigotry. Such backward movement doesn’t bode well for wolves in Oregon. If the wolf population increases from 110 in 2016, this legislation may make wolf hunts—especially in northeastern Oregon, where most of the wolves live—legal again. The specter of the Old West now shadows every wolf who calls this state home. And yet the wolves, knowing no such dangerous politics or boundaries, continue to migrate West. “I think it’s inevitable that other wolves will follow OR7 and that general corridor through the state of Oregon,” says Carter Niemeyer, author of Wolfland.

  Ironically, the same spring that Oregon delisted wild wolves, the state’s Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling: domestic dogs were “sentient beings,” not mere property. They likened the act of a pet owner who starved her dog, Juno, to the abuse of a human child, and the pet owner was charged with second-degree animal neglect. Wolves in Oregon, as in all of America, are still considered “property” of the government. Will there ever be a time when we give our wild canines the same respect and “sentience” that we bestow upon those dogs we have domesticated to live alongside us?

  IN THE WINTER OF 2015 OR7’s collar finally died out and his daily signals turned into radio silence. Given the raging wildlife politics in Oregon, it was probably a very good time for OR7 to disappear from anyone tracking him or his family. But in March of 2016 remote cameras again picked up OR7 crossing a snowy field with one of his yearling pups in tow.

  “He appears well,” said USFWS of OR7. And his yearling pups were caught in a time-lapse video romping, wrestling, and playing. The video had almost ten thousand shares.

  OR7 had avoided several other attempts to recollar him, and the wildlife officials were planning to try again later in the spring despite the increased danger the collar would bring. Then came the announcement of a second litter of OR7’s pups. From their scat these two new pups were declared the progeny of OR7 and his same slender mate. This second generation of OR7’s family was greeted enthusiastically by the public and again became front-page news internationally. In other good news, a pair of wolves were spotted just miles away from OR7’s family very near the California border. This “Keno pair” may also have a litter, which would mean possible access and genetic diversity when the Rogue pack yearlings decide to leave their family in search of mates.

  As OR7 and his generations thrive, there is always the concern that Oregon’s delisting of wolves may encourage more antiwolf sentiment. In the late fall of 2016 a three-year-old wolf, OR28, was illegally killed in Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest. A new mother with one pup, OR28 was mated with OR3, from the same Inmaha pack that included the formidable father OR4 and the famous traveler OR7. This poaching of Oregon wolves added to the tally of five other wolves, who were poached or “died under mysterious circumstances.” Oregon Wild noted that “the state’s track record of actually prosecuting wolf poaching cases is pretty abysmal.” USFW, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Humane Society have offered a combined reward of $20,000 for information leading to the discovery of who killed OR28.

  Along with news of OR28’s death, there are worries about the safety of OR7. “Is Journey in Trouble?” asked wolf
advocate Beckie Elgin, who has long chronicled OR7’s life and his Rogue pack family. Citing recent livestock deaths near the Rogue pack’s territory, Elgin noted that so far, OR7’s family has not been implicated in any livestock deaths. But with a growing family of nine wolves and OR7’s increasing age, she says, Journey is “old for a wild wolf and maybe his hunting skills are ebbing.” However, OR7’s family lives in the western part of Oregon, where the federal Endangered Species Act still protects wolves. Ranchers are increasing their use of fladry and ranch riders “in an effort to keep wolves away.”

  Many hope that OR7 and his growing family will migrate to much safer territory in California where wolves are still greeted with excitement. A 2015 Los Angeles Times editorial exclaims, “Welcome back, gray wolf.” The op-ed begins, “Well, hello there, Shasta Pack.” Biologists in California were surprised when not long after OR7 crossed its borders to become the first wolf in that state since the last bounty hunt in 1924, another entire family of wolves was discovered. A breeding pair and five pups were caught on remote cameras as they rested in the summer grass. DNA scat tests revealed the matriarch of the Shasta pack, like OR7, had also originated from the Inmaha family; she had also traveled a long way, migrating from northeastern Oregon. So this new mother in California’s Shasta pack is OR7’s sibling. California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife released a YouTube video of the five charcoal-colored pups playing and tussling together against a backdrop of deep woods.

  In California wolves are protected as endangered species under both state and federal law. “The return of the northern gray wolf is a welcome sign of nature’s ability—and man’s—to change and adapt,” the Los Angeles Times editorial explains as it celebrates the wolves’ return, not by reintroduction “into a hostile environment, but by natural expansion into wild territory.” The distinction is important. California’s wolves cannot be rejected as a federal government overreach into state’s rights. The wolves are repopulating on their own. In June of 2016 the California Department of Fish and Wildlife released a black-and-white photo of a possible new wolf roving around Lassen County. Each new wolf to wander into California is critical to the genetic diversity of wolves. California has declared it illegal to shoot any wolves entering its borders. California’s Fish and Game Commission is working closely with citizen stakeholders to finalize its wolf-management plan.