Wolves, Laws and Parochialism

David Cassuto

I would like to say a few more words about the so-called “State Sovereignty Wildlife Management Act and its stated intent to strip wolves of all Endangered Species Act protections.  While I have no reason to assume this bill will pass (are you listening, Congress?), the fact that officials elected to national office could propose such a thing underscores much of what’s wrong with, well, with everything.

As an initial matter, wolves pose little threat to people.  In the 230+ year history of the United States, the number of wolf attacks can probably be counted on one person’s fingers and toes.  The number of fatal attacks is far fewer.  Wolves do, however, sometimes eat livestock.  Since their reintroduction (emphasis on re– introduction because they used to live there until we exterminated them) into the Northern Rockies, ranchers have raised a royal ruckus because they occasionally lose animals to wolves.  Rather than treat this as a cost of doing business, ranchers argue that the wolves’ existence constitutes an unwelcome intrusion into the natural order of things.  This despite the fact that the wolves used to inhabit the region in far greater numbers than the 1700 or so that currently exist there and that ranching (and the factory farming that it supports) has caused widespread damage to the region’s ecosystem.          

Others complain about wolves preying on elk because it makes hunting (by humans) more challenging.  Let’s think about that for a moment.  First, there is no shortage of elk in the Northern Rockies.  Second, wolves, an alpha predator, help control the herd in ways that are both natural and ecologically beneficial.  Yet, we have hunters complaining that the wolves, who hunt without the benefit of anything except their bodies and who need the elk to survive, make it too hard (and consequently less fun) for recreational  hunters to shoot the elk with high-powered rifles.

Then we have the recent court decision finding that the Endangered Species Act requires that the wolf population be managed as an integrated whole rather than in a state-by state hodgepodge.  Sensible though this might seem, it nonetheless has added to the outrage. The combination of all these complaints combines with the entrenched bias against wolves that has existed since time immemorial to trigger unfortunate legislation such as HR 6485.

But the problem is not just with this bill and this animal.  It has to do with rampant indifference to anthropogenic impacts on the natural world and a willingness to sacrifice animals, climate, ecosystems, oceans and most anything else for short-term human gain.  The Endangered Species Act was and is one of the few outwardly directed laws ever enacted in this country.  It explicitly subordinates human activity to the preservation of threatened and endangered species and their habitat.  And that generosity of spirit has endangered the law itself almost from the moment of its passage.

I would like to believe that we are evolving as a society and becoming more sensitive to environmental issues and to humanity’s role within the biosphere.  I would like also to believe that lawmakers will respond to the increasingly urgent need to protect our threatened patrimony and strengthen rather than gut our environmental legal regime.  But, sadly, I believe none of those things.