A Wolf Dialogue

by JIM BEERS

Dear XXXX,

I will try to be succinct here and give you comments on your notes and questions. As to referring you to studies with data, predation studies suffer enormously from the following:

1. Beginning in the 1920’s when early biologists and writers witnessed the “disappearance” of American wilderness to farms, ranches, towns and roads there arose among nearly all wildlife biologists, save for those actually involved in the day-in/day-out control of predators, a somewhat sacred myth that “predators do not control prey species”. This reflected a somewhat subconscious wish that all the wolves wouldn’t be exterminated and that hopefully there would be a place left for cougars, coyotes, and grizzly bears as well as black bears in the coming “Metropolis” engulfing America. This myth that was mentioned when I was a student at Utah State in the early 1960’s was being trumpeted at the more “progressive” (and expensive) wildlife schools like the U of Wisconsin and Cornell. During this period increasing numbers of predator studies began with this assumption and were conducted under professors (many wanting desperately to avoid the characterization of “gamekeepers” creating fish and game for the hook and bullet) by students in search of careers and future prestige dependent on professorial recommendations.
2. Since the 1960’s, predator studies have become reports with hidden agendas. The Endangered Species Act; the advent of federal Marine Mammal Protection (not management but protection period); the Wilderness Act (reserving land and resources not for human benefit but for the resource itself meaning a peculiar human interpretation of why those resources exist and by who and how they would be controlled); and a host of other quasi-religious governmental goals from EPA control of “ALL waters of the US” to growing amounts of lands under federal controls from outright purchases to easements. Responding to federal ESA grants, federal cost-sharing with states, and the reality of how “Endangered” spotted owls, Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (extinct for over 60 years), Smelt, Salmon, Flyctachers, etc. furthered the goals of dam removals, farming suppression, hunting elimination, fishing closures, irrigation reductions, woodlands control, project-killing, etc. --- the role of wolves, grizzly bears, and cougars emerged as one of the better tools to do all of the above. Although, not “Endangered” in any way, cougar protection in CA, cougar hunting methods (the efficient ones) restrictions, and total cougar protections (as either “Native” or Non-game or “protected”) are cooperative efforts (state-fed-animal rights lobby) to make cougars ubiquitous like wolves are being made in order to make rural America more amenable to government control. Wolves make ranching more impractical, justify more federal authority over state governments, reduce hunting (and hunters), reduce state wildlife MANAGEMENT income, push aside any local government authority, and generally extend federal and animal rights control over rural Americans beyond mere “Critical Habitat” falderal for critters like San Joaquin Kit Foxes or American Crocodiles (very local and few in Florida) that don’t spread like wildlfire. Knowing human nature as I am sure someone in a position like yours probably does, ask yourself if you were a veterinarian (serving folks that “love” animals) or a University professor (your goal being grant funding, graduate students, tenure, prestige, etc.) or a state wildlife biologist (your goal being future pay, retirement, bonuses and maybe a federal job), or a federal bureaucrat (your goal being more power and money) – what would your studies say about something that all the folks controlling your future wanted to hear? The answer is you would grind out, either mindlessly or with malice aforethought, the sort of stuff you repeat below. How would you counteract it? Who could be quoted? What study is not biased? Who else could someone like you believe?
3. As wolves spread (from here on I won’t bore you with further background) there has arisen the need for “counter-biology” to refute what ranchers, hunters, dog owners, rural parents, rural governments, rural residents, recreationists see with their own eyes. You have asked about such claims below and I will do my best to comment as lucidly and understandably as I can. Wolves are what they are. There is no “they always do this and they never do that” pat answer to their behavior or effects. They are very adaptive. They and their “kissing cousins” with whom they breed successfully (i.e. coyotes, all domestic dogs, dingos and jackals) are circumpolar and found on every continent save Antarctica. Far more than deer or canvasbacks et al, wolves wander far and wide and exhibit a very wide range of behaviors and thus a very wide spectrum of effects. In other words, taking wolf studies per se and accounting for the biases mentioned above requires a large “dose of salt” and an open mind. This is particularly true of the “99%” out there that look with childish abandon at the words of these “experts” and their “science” (that is the basis for abusive laws) that do everything from “take without compensation” to explaining the deaths of humans caused by these predators as the fault of the human victim.

My Comments are interwoven with your questions below:

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The benefits of wolves on the ecosystem seems to hinge on these points:
1—Wolves prevent overpopulation of deer and elk herds so that herds are kept at proper levels for habitat.
Hunting has been more than adequate for this for the past century.
ANSWER: This canard is absurd on its face. Who defines “over” population? The rancher that wants no deer or elk? The hunter that wants “more” deer or elk? The rural resident that wants more vegetation (wild and domestic) surviving winter feeding? The urban resident of the North Shore of Chicago? The head of “Defenders of Wildlife” or HSUS”, etc. in Washington, DC?
We are all fond of talking about “Balance” as in the “Balance of Nature” or the elk being in “balance” with their habitat but what are we really saying? We are saying those guys want “more” and those guys want “less”. We are saying we prefer willows and aspen along some streams to elk and deer hunting or prosperous rural communities. We are saying, “my vision, not yours.”
Absent human interference (be it European Stone Age wanderers, Innuits, Apaches, or Englishmen fleeing their ancestral homes) elk, deer, rabbits, foxes, bears –the whole shebang – vary in numbers, densities, and locations for varying periods of time due to weather, predation, fires, available food, disease, and other etceteras. When man (i.e. all of the above) is present, man strives to insert a modicum of stability into the chaos for his own benefit. The longer he does this and the more he learns and the more tools he includes in his “toolbox” – the more stability, meaning the more benefit for himself and his society accrues from increased environmental stability.
While trying to avoid sarcasm, who can believe that wolves feeding on deer and elk (the assumption above) do anything but grab what they can, when they can? That they will kill and eat them until they leave or get so low in numbers that the wolves shift to other foods except when they can kill deer and elk? That the numbers of deer and elk left over time will be “enough” for annual hunts or for elk-watching or for tourism? That there will ever be more than only a few deer and elk left since wolf numbers will increase until there is no food left and that they will shift back onto deer and elk if they begin to recover? Remember here that today the wolves never have to leave, only shift to… livestock, dogs, garbage, pets, kids, old folks, etc. like the do in Asia and elsewhere. What has the resulting number of deer and elk left in wolf country to do with any local interests or human benefits from deer and elk? Honestly, I am amazed every time I have to explain this one.
2—Wolves keep elk from over-browsing riparian areas, which has several beneficial effects to associated fish, mammals and plants.
This argument seems valid in Yellowstone National Park, but in few, if any, other places. What do you think?
Shortly after wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, elk avoided river bottoms. Willow growth along streams and rivers began making a recovery, after years of over-browsing by elk. Beaver began to re-colonize areas of the park where willow was recovering, in turn creating wetland habitat for a number of other specialist species of plants, insects, amphibians and birds. The shade along the streams provided cooler water that is needed by juvenile fish. This effect is known as a trophic cascade, where a change affecting one species higher up the food chain indirectly affects those lower down.
ANSWER: This is an example of “after-the-fact” biology. Like the “before-the-fact” biology that searches for a species to use as a weapon to stop a dam or forest management or hunting: “after-the-fact” biology searches for warm and fuzzy changes that appear later to offset cries of anguish from those hurt or destroyed by the governmental action.
If Yellowstone is now some long-sought Nirvana with aspens, shade, willows, insects, and amphibians in abundance; why for the past 100+ years didn’t the vaunted National Park Service “manage” (i.e. maintain lower elk numbers and densities with “sharpshooters”, hunters, contractors, birth control, and all the other stuff recommended by suburban residents concerned with deer superabundance today) the elk to this suddenly wonderful end? These effects and their relative importance (to humans, or the Yellowstone “environment”) are trifling changes made into mountainous results of an otherwise catastrophic (to hunters, ranchers, rural economies and state governments) venture.
3—Wolves have a positive economic impact on communities by bringing more tourist dollars.
Again, this benefit seems unique to Yellowstone, if it even applies there.
It has been estimated that wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone benefits the local economy by some $23 million each year. This doesn’t take into account big reductions in hunter visits to neighboring communities because of lower elk numbers. Several outfitters in the Gardiner, Montana area have gone out of business, and small businesses there have felt a negative impact from fewer hunters. Communities all over Idaho have felt a similar effect, with out of state hunters staying away.
ANSWER: Right from the get-go, this “economic benefit from wolves” claim surpasses other such claims like the benefits of strong leaders like Mugabe, Hoxha, and Pol Pot in both its fantasy and chutzpah. To destroy the Billions of annual dollars generated for local economies, local governments, state governments, etc. (we are talking here about ALL the western and Great Lakes’ states where wolves are taking hold and are slated to take hold) and then claim that all that loss of fall/winter rural revenue is replaced by counting someone that thinks they saw a wolf (as Yellowstone does in its surveys) while vacationing anyway is crazier than the guy that killed his mother and father and then threw himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan.
Even if there are some San Francisco couples that might travel to Idaho to “see” or “hear’ a wolf (and on each count of such a couple existing or of ever finding or hearing a wolf) the money they (all wolf aficionados) drop wouldn’t be 2% of what thousands of hunters would spend every year (before the game disappeared). Whenever you hear someone claiming this, like listening to some carnival barker, keep a close eye on your wallet.
4—Wolves help keep deer and elk populations healthy.
?True or False: Wolves prey primarily on the weakest animals, ensuring that only the stronger, more fit individuals survive to reproduce.
In Yellowstone National Park, necropsies of elk killed by wolves showed that the wolf-killed cow elk averaging 14 years of age (Mech et al. 2001). Bulls on the other hand averaged 5.4 years old (in their prime). Necropsied remains revealed that many of the animals killed by wolves have age-related infirmities, such as arthritis, disease, injuries or severely depleted fat reserves. (Mech 1970, Stahler et al. 2006)
A scientific paper in the Journal of Wildlife Management, comparing the severe winter o 1997 versus the mild winter of 1998:
ANSWER: First of all those wolves in Yellowstone reported here (‘97/’98) were only a very few since they had only been released there three year before. So a few wolves killing an abundance of elk that had not been exposed to wolves for over 50 years was exactly like letting your German Shepherd loose in a sheep pasture for a month or two. Is anyone really surprised that elk have “arthritis, disease, injuries, or severely depleted fat reserves” at any time? Does anyone really think that, unlike all other animals including man, there are elk that are “perfect” specimens, much less that there herds of such animals?
Remember what I said previously about chaos when man is absent and growing stability when man coexists with wildlife? Those elk were being “managed” on a sustainable basis by adjoining states for bulls that were sought by hunters. I am supposed to be surprised that the first cows killed were “14 years of age” or that the bulls were “5.4 years old”? Wolves kill healthy animals. They often avoid animals that appear sick (do you think that might be a time-tested way to survive?) While we are on this, like the rest of us, wolves like veal and will kill pregnant cows and eat the fetus only. Wolves will kill a lot of animals at once (winter yards, pastures, peninsulas, etc.) given the opportunity and eat only a mouthful or two. Wolves no more “prey on the weakest animals”, than they “never attack humans” or stop killing prey at some imaginary point when they realize that “overpopulation” is suddenly eliminated.
calf:adult ratios of kills, 2:33 versus 17:23;
mean age of elk killed, males 6.1 years, females 15.2 versus males, 4.8, females 13.0 years.
Hunting also helps keep deer and elk populations healthy. Hunting dollars area a major source of money for habitat improvement and biological studies, which in turn help maintain healthier herds. Hunters' harvest can be limited through numbers of licenses issued, bag limits, length of seasons, and specification of sex of the animal harvested. Thus, only the surplus of an ungulate population is generally hunted. If the need arises that an ungulate population needs reduction, it is easily accomplished by allowing an "any sex" hunt and increasing license numbers. Wolves do none of the above.
?True or False: Wolf predation differs from human hunting mortality, primarily taking the young and old, rather than the largest and healthiest animals.
ANSWER: False. That is nonsense. Wolves take what they can, given the opportunity. Hunting takes a predetermined number of certain kinds of individuals from certain areas to attain a specific goal determined by the consensus of local communities based on experience and human benefits. Comparing the two is like comparing the take of salmon by seals and sea lions with the sport fishing take of salmon. One is chaos with only losses for humans while the other is stability with only benefits for humans. I leave it to you to decide which is which or which is “healthier”.
Why would it be good to kill off the older animals? How does it hurt a herd to have sick or weak animals?
ANSWER: You tell me. What is “good”? Do you want more of the animals or less? Do you want hunting? Do you want to minimize depredation? Do you want to maximize “viewing”?
What is “sick or weak? Sick with what? Weak, as in young or pregnant females? What does it mean to “hurt a herd”?
Wild animals, like domestic animals, can and do serve many purposes. Human owners and local communities supported by state governments are the place for such decisions in the overall context of the US Constitution. This time-tested and national system has been turned on its head and, when thought through, is being used to further jeopardize our national construct, especially in rural America.
5—By reducing elk numbers, wolves reduce forage competition between livestock and other ungulates. This gives a wider range of plant-eating animals a better chance of surviving. Is there any significant, practical evidence of this?
ANSWER: Of course there is, right before your eyes, only you don’t see it. Will the wolves that killed off the Yellowstone moose and elk ignore any deer that might move toward the vacated habitat? Are you kidding?
Is there ANY example of cattle grazing allotments being expanded on US Forests or BLM land because elk and moose have been decimated by wolves and the grass and forbes are exploding? How about more sheep where the elk and moose are decimated? In fact, the exact opposite is true. Simultaneously, wolf decimation of ungulates coincides with closed allotments, higher losses to grazers, and less and less game animals for hunters. Is there anyone associated with this carnage looking to “increase” ungulate survival or somehow create human benefits? Again, the opposite is true.
Ask yourself how some killing machine like wolves can “increase” the things they eat, be they wild or domestic? While this might be true for a very short period when they first re-enter an area after a long hiatus (true in Yellowstone but soon, no longer true in the Lower 48 where everything from garbage cans and dogs to livestock will maintain them ad infinitum), once established and when left in any significant densities, they will eat what they can, when they can with the only limits being their hunger and the availability of prey.
In areas where there are elk, they force the elk to move around and to be on guard. This is good for vegetation, because without the fear of being eaten, elk will ravish one area before moving on. Is this ever really a problem except in Yellowstone? Even in Yellowstone?
ANSWER: Whatever the number of elk, they are going to eat what they must to survive. You are back to the value judgment “good”. Since when is it always damaging or “bad” for some ungulate to graze or browse an area hard at certain times of the year? You use the word “ravish” as in some encounter with Sabine Women. Grazing or browsing is, like the overall amount of money, not a zero sum game. Certain areas at certain times of the year generate more diversity or more of some desirable species when “ravished”. The barren, muddy, depleted stream imagined where pre-wolf elk retired for the summer is often a far cry from reality. Ask yourself, even where the stream changes like you imagine due to elk “being on guard” (??) and moving “around”; to what end is the imagined benefit? More fish to catch (in a National Park?) Better places to camp (where wolves and grizzlies increasingly threaten hikers and campers?) “Knowing they are there” as you sip Chardonnay in a condo overlooking Central Park? Because they “belong there” or “were there first” as in imagined there before Columbus or as was probably there when only Asian invaders (not European ones) were there or when no one was there?
6-- Wolves affect the population and distribution of smaller predators.
In the absence of wolves, coyote populations expanded across the U.S. Where wolves have recovered – in Yellowstone National Park, for example – coyote numbers initially shrank by 50 percent.
Fewer coyotes results in fewer domestic sheep kills by them.
A study from Oregon State University found that restoring wolf populations can help the Canada lynx by shrinking the number of coyotes, thus leaving more showshoe hares for the lynx to eat. Canada lynx, which has been in decline for decades, was listed as threatened in 2000.
Reduced coyote populations, due to wolf presence, could increase the numbers
of some midsized carnivores such as skunks and red fox (less competition from coyotes).
Studies have found positive trickle-down impacts on ground-nesting birds, lizards, rodents, marsupials, rabbits, scallops and insects.
In Yellowstone National Park, some midsize carnivores (weasels, marten and badgers exist at robust levels. Whereas, others (fishers, wolverines, red fox, lynx, bobcat and otter persist in low numbers.
ANSWER: Scallops?? And you want “more” of any of these animals because? Anyone telling you that you can tinker with all these animals to some overall harmonious end is wrong. For centuries man has strived for stability regarding the most desired species with growing success. The recent (50 year) concern with maintaining all extant species is admirable and practically achievable in association with extended human benefits from management. Accommodating all species is a vast and never-ending job that, frankly, we are going about all wrong. To assume that such overall ecosystem tinkering even in the vaunted Yellowstone or in the growing “Wilderness” Areas will achieve this stable place where ALL species reach an optimum over time is a fairy tale sold as “science”
7—Wolves provide food for other animals that feed on wolfkilled carcasses.
Unlike mountain lions and grizzly bears, wolves abandon their prey (usually elk, deer or moose) once sated, leaving leftovers for ravens, eagles, magpies, coyotes, bears, wolverines and other small mammals and birds, down to beetles and flies.
Ravens, in particular, frequent wolf kills in large numbers, flying in close association with wolves even before the prey is down. A Native American saying insightfully notes that the wolf acts as the raven’s tooth and the raven as the wolf’s eye.
Research suggests that, because wolves make carrion available to other species during increasingly mild winters, these predators may buffer the effects of climate change and, thus, allow scavengers more time to adapt to (or seek alternatives for) otherwise negative impacts from altered climate.
ANSWER: Who can argue with 1. Climate change, 2.Native American “sayings”, or 3. Wolves leaving “leftovers”? This is some more of that “after-the-fact” biology. If you believe in climate “change”, you probably believe only more powerful Central government is the answer and anything I say will be dismissed. Suffice to ask, were there “enough” “ravens, eagles, magpies, coyotes, bears, wolverines and other small mammals and birds, down to beetles and flies” before wolves were brought back to the Lower 48? Do you have any idea what has been and is being destroyed so that we might have “more” “ravens, eagles, magpies, coyotes, bears, wolverines and other small mammals and birds, down to beetles and flies”? It’s like trading Kentucky for Uganda.
8—Wolves reduce the prevalence of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk populations.
Idaho F&G: To date, there is no evidence that CWD is present in free-ranging deer or elk in Idaho. Extensive close contact is likely required for transmission to occur, therefore, high density populations, such as artificial feeding sites or game farms, are at higher risk if infected animals are present within the population.
Brucellosis-- Infected cattle, elk and bison can transmit Brucella abortus abortus during abortion or birthing events. Other animals in the herd can acquire the infection through contact with infected reproductive fluids or tissues (aborted fetuses, placentas, fetal fluids) or through infected milk.
By reducing prey numbers, dispersing these animals on the landscape, and removing sick animals, wolves also may reduce the transmission and prevalence of wildlife diseases such as chronic wasting disease and brucellosis. The extent of such an impact, however, remains to be seen. So far, it is based exclusively on results of simulation modeling because of the current lack of overlap between CWD and occupied wolf habitat.
One line of reasoning says wolves can help by reducing sick animals' lifespans, in turn limiting the amount of time they can spread infections.
What do you think?
ANSWER: Tell a lie often enough and people will believe it.
CWD is present in wild deer in Wisconsin and they have lots of wolves. Wolves can transmit CWD, just look at the laws restricting the movement of carcasses and trophies from infected areas. Wolves can get it from domestic animals as well as wild animals. A winter wolf getting it or brain fragments in its fur, etc. can carry it from one winter yard to the next or from one pasture to the next. Similar places at the same time of the year are likely to have the sort of food you got at the last one. Wolves figured that one out eons ago.
Brucellosis (called undulant fever in humans and with which I was strickened with as a teenager) is transmitted by all canids (it was thought I got it from my dog) as well as ungulates. How can wolves killing and eating sick animals not spread the disease to others they bite or to places (feces, saliva, etc. on vegetation) they frequent? Like CWD, sick animals are often and at first not apparently “sick and weak”.
Wolves don’t “disperse” these infected animals, they kill and eat them. Then they spread what the prey had.

9-- Wolves reduce predation by other livestock predators, such as coyotes, feral dogs and mountain lions, through competition with those predators.
The return of the wolf returned the coyote to its role as a mid-level predator. Wolves will kill coyotes and outcompete them at kill sites.
Coyotes prey heavily on pronghorn fawns. Since wolves returned to the landscape [in Wyoming], pronghorn populations have increased in northern Yellowstone as a result of declining coyote populations and densities. Pronghorn are rarely part of wolf diet, due to the sheer speed of adult pronghorns.
This may reduce the number of sheep depredation episodes by coyotes that accounts for the “overwhelming majority” of all sheep kills by predators
ANSWER: So wolves reduced coyotes in Yellowstone. Tell the sheep and cattle producers where there are no wolves now to get wolves and coyotes will go down, pronghorns go up, and it “may reduce the number of sheep depredation episodes”. What are the people that believe this stuff smoking?
In fact, significant reductions in coyotes may not always happen. Substituting a 100-140 lb. predator for a 35 -45 lb. predator is no bargain in any event.
As to pronghorn population explosions, hungry wolves can, just like their little cousins, learn to kill pregnant pronghorn ewes and lambs just like coyotes. Coyotes don’t really “run down” too many adult pronghorns and actually a pack of wolves could probably learn a trick or two and bag an adult or two pronghorn when hungry quicker than one or two coyotes. Finally, consider the fact none of those pushing the wolves want any more pronghorn hunting anyway, in fact they want none. This is just grist for “naychur” shows on TV.
10-- Wolf kills are good for the soil.
?True or false: Wolves do not eat sick animals unless forced to do so.
Example: A Conservation Officer for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) found a moose with brain worm. Brain worm completely destroys an animal's instinctive and natural behavior. This moose had wandered out on a frozen lake in winter and was slowly starving to death. Wolves came by, checked the moose out and went their way. Tracks in the snow verified it. They did not kill it even though it would have been extremely easy to do so.
ANSWER: Of course it is TRUE. They were (in their innate sense of life purpose) leaving it for “ravens, eagles, magpies, coyotes, bears, wolverines and other small mammals and birds, down to beetles and flies”.
As I said previously, often when wolves sense an animal is sick they will avoid it. At other times they do not know and can leave the kill with all manner of infections and diseases (30-40 at last count) that they can carry in their meanderings far and wide as they poop, salivate, roll on the ground, shake their fur, bite, lick, and track their way (often with infectious material in the hair between their toes, etc.) for miles each day through yards, pastures, schoolyards, parks, trails, roads, woodlands, campgrounds, outbuildings, kennels, and even front porches. Besides, who can doubt a Conservation Officer (especially one from Minnesota)? I may questions vets and profs and bureaucrats but a Conservation Officer more often than not, won’t lie.
Jim Beers (Once both a State and Federal Wildlife Enforcement Officer.)
2 March 2012

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This article and other articles written by Jim Beers since January 2009 can
be found at http://jimbeers7.blogster.com (Jim Beers Uncommon Sense)

Articles by Jim Beers written from March 2006 to January 2009 can be found
at http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)

Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting at jimbeers7@comcast.net