An outline of a talk given by Jim Beers on 13 April 2013 at The Spokane (WA) Citizen’s Alliance
for Property Rights’ Fundraiser, “Wolves and Water.”

by Jim Beers

Background
In 1973 federal officials passed The Endangered Species Act. Almost immediately wolves in “most” of the Lower 48 States were “Listed” as Endangered.

“Listing” as either “Endangered” or “Threatened” meant and continues to mean that;
a.) The federal government seizes all legal authority and jurisdiction over a “Listed” plant or animal species, subspecies, races, populations, (imaginary) population “segments”, and even the previously unknown “distinct” population segments. This seizure is nearly always at the expense of the authority and jurisdiction enjoyed and retained by State residents and their governments under the US Constitution for almost 200 years.
b.) Federal government authority and jurisdiction has grown to be understood as the right of the federal government to:
1.) Protect any existing “Listed” plant or animal segments;
2.) Authorize federal bureaucrats to “take” (control or forbid any activity) of any portion of any private property they declare essential to said “Listed” plant or animal segment without compensating the owner;
3.) Designate any and all currently occupied, recently occupied, or claimed to be occupied historically (since 1492 AD) Habitat (actually chosen geographical locations whether “Habitat” exists or could ever again exist) where the “Listed” plant or animal segment occurs; could potentially occur; or is a convenient surrogate for other federal, environmental, or other organizations’ (think UN, Agenda 21, World Wildlife Fund to Greenpeace, Sierra Club, HSUS, and a host of anti-hunting, anti-logging, anti-grazing, anti-ranching, anti- public land management and use, et al) agendas. In the case of wolves, for instance, entire states were so designated and remaining states are steadily incorporated by federal protection for expanding wolf packs by “zones”, releases and other bureaucratic chicanery.

Wolves
When wolves in the Lower 48 states were “Listed” in 1973 under this most recent Endangered Species Act there was an indeterminate but small number of wolves breeding in and occupying Minnesota, Montana, and probably Idaho. I say, “indeterminate” because wolves are notoriously hard to census and those wolves were for the most part unprotected under state laws that treated them like the destructive (to game animals, livestock, dogs) and dangerous (to children, the elderly, and even large healthy men like a recent Saskatchewan attack on a young man and even an attack on a Russian sawyer running a chainsaw by a rabid wolf) predators they are. Had this wolf management protocol under state authority been maintained (no federal “Listing”) such remnant wolf populations would likely still exist plus Minnesota moose hunting would still be allowed for a robust (no longer) moose herd; Montana and Idaho elk and moose hunting would not have been decimated; thousands of hunting dogs and pets would have lived long lives for the benefit of their owners; numerous public land grazing allotments would have been maintained; ranching costs and livestock losses would not be the threats to rural America they have become; and a long list of social and economic ills would not be plaguing an expanding portion of the Lower 48 states.

Wolves were never and are not now in any “danger” of extinction. Recognizing that wolves:
1.) Have always been very difficult to quantify beyond “too many” and “haven’t seen many lately”.
2.) Have been allowed to exist generally in great abundance in the more remote parts of the globe.
3.) Occur mostly in countries where money for and interest in counting wolves is lacking to say the least.
4.) Occur largely in countries where gun ownership is forbidden; governments are reluctant to spend precious dollars on wolf controls and therefore (like federal, state and wolf-enthusiast organizations) low-ball wolf population estimates and wolf damages as much as possible for all manner of self-serving reasons from maintaining gun controls to avoiding having to spend large and recurring amounts of government funds for mostly rural communities in remote areas.
Recognizing all this, when the US federal government declared wolves “Endangered” in the Lower 48 states in 1973, there were at least 2 million and as many as 5-6 million wolves throughout the world.

Asia (minus Russia and with little Siberian information) had and has at least 1 million wolves. A Russian biologist from Magadan in Eastern Siberia in the early 1990’s told me at lunch in Brussels, Belgium that Siberia had “4 to 6 million wolves since the Soviet Union collapsed but only 2 to 4 million under the Soviets”. The reason he gave for the difference was, “Under the Soviets necessary wolf control was coordinated with Army helicopter gunship training. Local wolf specialists identified areas where wolves were creating problems and winter gunship training was also winter wolf control. Under Russian government today there is no money for helicopter fuel and little military training.”

Alaska has (had?) 5,000 to 15,000 wolves. Canada has (had?) around 60,000 wolves. North Africa has (had?) a thousand or more wolves. The Middle East had at least a thousand. Add in Greenland and Europe and you have at least another thousand or two.

Consider also that wolves breed with and produce viable puppies with all dogs, coyotes, dingos and jackals, and suddenly you are not just seeing an animal in great abundance and no jeopardy worldwide but also an animal that is, well, a mongrel; literally as unique in the world wildlife as a basset hound is from a Doberman. While the Endangered Species Act was sold to Americans as necessary to save bald eagles, giraffes and elephants; the wolf truth is that it is “saving” an animal that:
1.) Is not only ubiquitous worldwide.
2.) Is not only dangerous to humans.
3.) Diminishes big game like elk and moose, livestock from cattle and sheep to reindeer, and dogs of every stripe.
4.) Is merely the largest form of other closely related animals with which it has always successfully interbred. Increasingly dead wolf/coyote/dog carcasses used in prosecutions of suspected wildlife violations can ONLY be identified by sophisticated, expensive and often suspect DNA labs paid for by bureaucracies with their own wolf agendas reporting that it is mostly wolf/coyote/dog DNA or some exotic mishmash of DNA from these similar animal cousins.
5.) Spreads over 30 deadly and debilitating diseases and infections that kill humans, livestock, wildlife, and pets. Rabies, Brucellosis, Deadly Tapeworms, Anthrax, Mad Cow Disease, Distemper, Foot-and-Mouth, Neospora caninum (causes abortion), Chronic Wasting Disease, Plague, and Smallpox (a returning fear today as a terrorist weapon) are a few examples of the infectious dangers from wolves that eat everything, infect each other, regularly investigate home-sites and settlements, move in groups, cover large distances routinely, and are thus efficient vectors not readily susceptible to control when dangerous outbreaks occur. This aspect of returning wolves to settled landscapes was ignored by “scientists” and bureaucrats that continue to ignore and downplay this very real negative result of their efforts as I speak.
6.) Costs enormous amounts of money to collar; monitor; live-trap; relocate; protect from outraged and harmed rural Americans; defend from lawsuits; baffle rural persons about regarding ineffective non-lethal controls; and generating childish wolf nonsense about wolves “balancing the ecosystem”, restoring nature, attracting rural recreationists, and not being a threat to humans.

Since 1973

The 1970’s and 1980’s were periods of Endangered Species/federal government growth. Abundant alligators were “Listed” to attempt unsuccessfully to destroy the alligator hide and meat industry. Abundant, but infinitely varied snail darters were “Listed” to stop one dam and subsequent dams on the Tennessee River. Spotted owls were “Listed” to stop logging in the NW and Red-cockaded woodpeckers were “Listed” to do the same in the SE. Sea otters, already protected totally under the Marine Mammal Protection act were “Listed” under the Endangered Species Act as they were stocked and protected to over populate West Coast waters where they destroyed abalone fisheries and as they were released into SE Alaska where they caused great harm to fisheries and other marine life. Through this period Wolf Working Committees, Federal/State Wolf Teams and other such groups made Wolf “Plans” for “restoring” wolves in the Lower 48 states. In Minnesota, protected wolves increased in numbers, spreading into Wisconsin and Michigan, and then began straggling into Illinois and along the Mississippi River down into Missouri.

The first overt federal introduction of wolves consisted of a release of “Red” wolves on a federal National Wildlife Refuge in coastal South Carolina in 1987 from a federal kennel that was (and continues to be) “raising” them. The DNA reports of large amounts of dog and coyote DNA in “Red” wolves were downplayed. Today they are still protected and exist mainly on two North Carolina National Wildlife Refuges from which they occasionally straggle into Virginia and Tennessee. Federal reports of currently 100 wild “Red” wolves are largely guesswork as the “wolves” interbreed with and are often killed by East Coast deer hunting dogs that run in packs and since the red wolves rarely run in packs and are more solitary like coyotes in Eastern woodlands, they are vulnerable. Hunters and rural animal owners as well often kill these wolves that are mistaken for coyotes that then go unreported for a variety of reasons.

The Washington, DC political climate became unfavorable to wolf introductions in the early 1990’s as big game hunters and livestock groups realized what was being planned and lobbied seriously to deny funding for any future wolf introductions. They watched (unbelievingly) as Minnesota wolves increased to threaten cattle, deer and moose. Then they saw the determination of federal bureaucrats and environmental extremists to begin federal efforts to establish wolves in the Carolinas that clearly portended future wolf introductions intended to spread wolves like wet ink spots all over the West, Southwest and Midwest.

The 1992 Presidential election ushered in an Administration in Washington that sent clear signals with appointments and policy changes to USFWS, USFS, and BLM that proposals to introduce and spread wolves (along with other extreme environmental schemes) were priorities. By the time the wolf introduction proposals were converted into Budget Requests to Congress, the Party (of the President) that had controlled the US House of Representatives for 40 years was worried about public reaction to emerging environmental extremism maybe losing their control of the House of representatives in the coming 1994 midterm elections. Requests by USFWS for funding were denied and when the other Party did win the midterms and take control of the US House in 1994, the chances of getting the millions needed to introduce wolves into the NW (Yellowstone Park) and SW were considered nil.

In 1995 and 1996 USFWS managers secretly “diverted” or (more properly “stole”) $45 to 60 Million from excise taxes that according to law could only be used by state fish and wildlife agencies to restore and manage their (i.e. state) wildlife. The money was then used by federal bureaucrats to trap Canadian wolves and release them into Yellowstone National Park (a legally unique federal property where NO state laws or authority apply) from which they were expected to and did begin spreading outward. This theft (for which no one was held accountable) was verified by a General Accounting Office Audit Report and subsequent testimony to the House Natural Resources Committee.

Today the descendants of those wolves number in the thousands and are established in at least seven states and exploring others as they expand their numbers. Their horrendous effects on human safety, livestock, big game, rural communities and rural families is no longer a matter of debate. Consider how 300 “Mexican” wolves descended from 5 wolves in 25 years is a “success”, while lawsuits to stop wolf hunts because they “threaten pack social order and reproduction” are taken seriously by courts. The even greater harm of their role as vectors of disease, infections and other maladies is only beginning to become apparent as the veracity of state and federal bureaucrats, University “scientists”, and even veterinarians is increasingly questioned and challenged as a result of their obfuscations, ignorance or both about the disease aspects of these far-ranging and highly susceptible carriers of all manner of deadly maladies. Thousands of pet dogs, hunting dogs, herding dogs, and watchdogs have been killed and maimed by wolves as their helpless owners and terrified family members suffer irreparable losses and trauma for which no one is responsible. Government excuses about wolves being necessary, native, or “here first” do nothing to counter the deep antipathy this generates for government and bureaucracy.

The thing to take away from this theft of scarce dollar resources from state wildlife management programs for state residents for federal wolves destroying state wildlife resources however, is not that federal political appointees are crooks, or that federal bureaucrats are generally willing to do whatever will gain them promotion or a bonus, or that federal thieves go unpunished and receive higher offices. The startling thing (to me) to take note of was and remains that not one State Fish and Wildlife Director (each of whom lost “their share” of the stolen $45 to 60 Million) asked the Congress or the President or even the perpetrators to replace the money! Why?

In 1995, USFWS began capturing wolves in northern Canada, importing them without required documentation into the US, kenneling them in Yellowstone National Park while they “adjusted” and then releasing them in the Park to environmental media “Huzzahs” and the great detriment of elk and moose in the Park and to the great dismay of big game, hunting, livestock and dog owners, and rural residents (especially children and the elderly) in surrounding states as the wolves have increased and spread.

In 1980, according to myth, “the last five known Mexican grey wolves” were captured by USFWS in Mexico and a captive breeding program begun for this “critically endangered subspecies” in the US. (NOTE: Anyone believing that Mexican wildlife information about any, much less a hard-to-count critter shot and despised by local subsistence-level residents, animal is such as to know there are only five left or that they are “on the brink of extinction” is a candidate for purchasing the Brooklyn Bridge.) By 1998 there were 300 such wolves in the federal government kennel to be used to “reintroduce” them into the Arizona/New Mexico border region. These Mexican wolves have been a disaster for ranchers, rural kids, dogs, and rural life in Counties along the Arizona/New Mexico state line. It has been so bad that a “Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties” has been dealing with the wolves along with exemplary Sheriffs cooperating both with adjoining County Sheriffs and Sheriffs in Counties in adjoining states. Consider the formation of a Coalition of Counties from adjoining states cooperating to oppose federal oppression and to create vertebrae for state government to assist state re4sidents and not federal bureaucracies. These wolves have decimated livestock operations, actually put ranchers out of business and caused at least one alleged suicide. The wolves are notorious for hanging out in rural yards and shadowing children at bus stops such that rural bus stop cages, where kids wait for busses or are dropped off, provide parental confidence as to their kids’ security until they are picked up or after they are dropped off.

What we have learned about wolves.

1.) Federal law enforcers and bureaucrats threaten and intimidate rural residents with methods and threats worthy of city cops in poor neighborhoods riddled with gangs to the effect that any attempt to harass or kill any wolf except in the case of a legally-provable ongoing attack on a human will result in imprisonment, a stiff fine and possible loss of property, voting rights and any future gun ownership or possession rights.
2.) State bureaucrats are fully complicit with and cooperative in the wolf introductions, the wolf mythologies, denial of losses, and the complete dismissal of any local objections. State bureaucrats shrug that it a federal law and then tell others that the rural objections are merely the imaginings of rural bumpkins with ancient and unfounded animosities and faulty educations.

3.) Federal offers to “Return Wolf Management to State Governments” are travesties designed to make state governments and state taxpayers maintain what federal bureaucrats have wrought. Besides the fact that perpetual Federal “requirements” for things such as populations and distributions, scarce state wildlife funding for wildlife management for residents is diverted to federal and environmental extremism purposes such as further diminishing hunting and fishing, and the extreme costs of collars, satellites, “investigations, lawsuits, ineffective non-lethal “control” nonsense, etc. for the wolves.

4.) When federal wolves descended on western states, federal/environmental extremists “promised” to “compensate” livestock losses. That was all a sham. Documenting and “proving” losses was never sufficient and always questionable. This was merely a ploy to tickle urban supporters fancy and discredit grumbling ranchers and rural residents while wolves became established. As state were “given” wolf management authority by federal overseers, once again, state bureaucrats this time, promised “compensation” for losses to wolves. The result was there was never enough money even at first as wolf predation was limited. Once again it was simply a ploy to maintain urban support and marginalize rural residents that were usually a political minority in most states anyway. In the early years of wolf presence, the “compensation tango” was never anything but a ploy to delay anti-wolf actions until the wolves were established. Once established, the ability to pay “compensation” for wolf damages (even absent sequester and enormous debt) was about as real as government “compensating” all property owners whose property was taken without compensation under ESA auspices or “compensating” all the inevitable rural damage that is unmentioned but will inevitably result from government schemes to release and protect “free-roaming” buffalo in rural communities similar to initial wolf-release sites. That is to say, the ability to pay compensation is nil.

5.) The Northern Yellowstone elk herd went from 20,000 to less than 4,000 today as a result of wolf releases and the former abundance of elk and elk hunting in Idaho has similarly become a thing of the past. Moose are absent in any real numbers from a growing portion of the Intermountain West and moose hunting is no longer even allowed in Minnesota. The impact on hunting opportunities, hunting revenue to states, hunting revenue to rural communities, rural safety for kids hunting, camping, fishing or walking alone and unprotected even in their own yards has been disastrous. When one young man reportedly was asked why he did not use his gun to shoot wolves that were threatening him, he answered to his dad, “I was afraid ‘they’ would put you in prison”.

6.) Livestock operations from Minnesota to the western mountains have become more expensive and more stressful for owners where wolves are present. Profit margins shrink and livestock weights plummet while losses to injuries and death increase. Livestock behavior becomes more dangerous and aggressive, disease threats increase and an American understanding of why Asian herds and flocks are small and constantly tended where wolves are present, grows.

7.) Human safety is a very real concern. The wolves dumped in Yellowstone have been expanding into an environment of protection and limited competition in a food-rich environment. Mexican wolves are somewhat confined to mountain valleys and deserts where food is less available but sufficient thus causing quicker and more widespread habituation endangering rural residents. Great Lakes’ wolves have expanded out into a food-rich environment with unlimited food available in surrounding areas in the states south of them. Human attacks have been understandably rare during this expansion process. Despite assurances from bureaucrats and their allies about wolves being no threat to humans, rural residents must keep in mind;
- Early American accounts of wolf attacks and wolf-caused deaths are abundant (see WOLVES OF NORTH AMERICA by Stanley Young).
- Historic and current accounts of wolf attacks throughout Asia are extensive and numerous (see Will Graves’, WOLVES IN RUSSIA).
- European history and British Isles history contain extensive accounts of attacks, deaths, and costly counter measures against wolves up to and including costly long-term campaigns to exterminate of all of them.
- Since the wolves were introduced into Yellowstone, a young man was killed in Saskatchewan by wolves, a school teacher was killed in Alaska by wolves, a young Canadian woman was killed by coyotes in an Eastern Canada Park, and as I write this a woman was recently attacked by a wolf on a Manitoba highway as she stopped to render aid to a car on the side of the road.
- Since wolves were introduced into Yellowstone, dozens of Asians (whose governments keep them disarmed by the way) have been reportedly killed from Siberia to India to Armenia and Georgia. Unreported attacks and injuries no doubt exceed those numbers if history is any indication of such matters.
- Satellite tracking has shown wolves explore human residential areas routinely at night and forays into suburban and urban areas should be expected as wolf numbers and distributions saturate surrounding rural area. Moscow and St. Petersburg attest to such common behavior and the need for quick lethal control by police when wolves begin invading urban fringes.
- Containing disease and infection outbreaks like Anthrax, Foot-and-Mouth, Brucellosis, Mad Cow, Rabies, Hydatid (tapeworms) disease cysts, Neospora caninum, and smallpox is infinitely more difficult and perhaps impossible where wolves are present.

8.) Federal and state promises and goals regarding population levels, “Experimental” populations, benefits of “Native” Species, desirability of wolves in the environment, costs, and assurances of no harms are not worth the paper they are written on. Federal and State bureaucrats cooperate with environmental extremist organizations to compose lawsuits, tweak regulations, and purchase the best “science” money can buy to mold those promises and words like play dough to suit their own purposes and to take advantage of political opportunities much like current gun control activities.

9.) Lies about wolves proliferate as the wolves themselves increase:
- “Wolves can be controlled by hunting seasons”. Despite being notoriously difficult to hunt and even when more efficient trapping is employed, state annual hunting quotas (generally 10-15% of claimed - i. e, lowballed population counts – wolf populations take no more than proven annual population takes from other hunted mammals designed to decrease winter food competition and stimulate reproduction to maintain or decrease the hunted animals. Reducing wolf populations requires aerial hunting and experienced shooters taking 50-7% of the wolves present for several years. To keep their numbers reasonable requires 30-40% taking annually thereafter. The costs are prohibitive and American private land ownership combined with non-cooperation from federal land managers makes consistent future “management” unaffordable and unlikely.
- Wolf population “estimates” are the sole product of state and federal bureaucrats with other agendas. Wolves are unpredictable as to locations, wolves become aware of low-flying planes and avoid them, weather, census transect “adjustments”, “allowances” for visibility and weather, and statistical “analyses” and “adjustments all allow state bureaucrats to report low wolf populations to assuage rural residents and to maintain the “need” for more and continual wolf protection.
- Explanations of game animal losses have been either denied or credited to climate change or (as Park Service uniforms say) “they are all staying in the backcountry” which translated means they have disappeared.
- The time-worn, expensive and incorrect assertions that non-lethal wolf controls (fladry, electric fences, translocation, taste aversion, 24/7 herders, guard dogs for large or dispersed flocks and herds, etc.) are consistently effective are simply, like promises of “compensation”, something for urban environmentalists, teachers and media persons to point to while those rural folks being harmed are worn down and eventually give up. Wolves, like coyotes and dogs simply learn and adjust to such parlor-room tricks and illusions quicker than a dog in an electric fence seeing a deer run through his yard.

10.)State and federal politicians are little or no help. Urban-oriented politicians passed these laws and fund the federal bureaucracies to get and maintain re-election support from unaffected urban constituencies. Rural-oriented Congressmen are outnumbered by urban-oriented Congressmen (see the infamous Red/Blue maps after the last two Presidential elections) but frequently sellout to urban interests in the name of “cooperating” with Party aims or to garner support for important Committee assignments. US Senators no longer represent their state’s government, their state’s authority, or their state’s interests. US Senators (increasingly since the passage of the 17th Amendment 100 years ago) represent the changing bloc of voters they need in the state to continue to get re-elected. For instance a Senator can pass a Wilderness Bill that harms many rural voters in his state in order to gain money and support from the World Wildlife Fund and The Wilderness Society who in turn help him identify some other state voting bloc like parents of Parochial school kids that would appreciate government school bus access and in turn replace those rural voters enraged about the impact of the “Wilderness” Declaration.

Governors and State Legislators are too often lured by “free” federal funding to do things for which they can take credit. Also, they often need urban voting blocs that more often than not numerically control state politics. While there are some exceptions, the majority of federal and state politicians either cheers wolves or merely pays lip service at best to solutions acceptable to rural constituencies.

Wolf Policy in the Future

Wolves are growing in numbers and wolves will continue to spread into more states. If the past has anything to teach us, it is that:
- Federal politicians are more difficult to influence or replace than are State politicians. Likewise, State politicians are more difficult to replace or make be responsive than local or County officials.
- Federal politicians will not change soon, thus amendments to or repeal of unjust federal laws or any defunding of federal bureaucracies are unlikely.
- State politicians, like their federal cousins, tend to face Party and Caucus alliances that require policies that get and maintain urban/environmental constituencies. This is particularly evident in states like Minnesota (Twin Cities), Oregon (Portland/Eugene), Washington (Seattle) and even Montana where University voting blocs hold enormous sway. Ironically, a state with little or no (except gazillionaires around Jackson) anti-rural constituencies, like Wyoming, is the one state that was “gifted” wolves and then said no thanks and fought for years to get a small wolf protection zone around Yellowstone and the Jackson area and a wolf-predator no-tolerance zone over the rest of the state.
- As long as federal politicians get re-elected as currently, state politicians that want to be federal politicians one day will emulate and support this system.
- Federal bureaucrats and federal bureaucracies are firmly opposed to any limits on their current or future power. Their regulation-writing power and cooperation with extremist groups formulating lawsuits will continue unless stopped, but by whom? Their power makes them the first among the alliance of state agencies, hunting and fishing organizations, outdoor writers, and the entire range of radical groups from Defenders of Wildlife and HSUS to Greenpeace and the subsidized land control group like TNC.
- State wildlife agencies, like their federal cousins, have become staffed with anti-hunters, anti-grazers, anti-loggers, anti-private property, anti-animal ownership, anti-natural resource management and use ideologues. They hope one day to either move up to or retire to employment by one of the alliance members mentioned above. They increasingly depend on federal funding and federal cooperation and favor for their jobs. They increasingly look more to Washington bureaucrats than they do to the people of their state for guidance and support. Remember how I mentioned how NOT ONE state wildlife agency director (actually at the behest of their Washington Lobby Group) ever asked for the federal government to replace the money stolen to further the wolf introductions? That phenomenon has only grown worse.
- Radical environmental organizations exert their influence through any government office or official they can control. Only those officials that you control can be depended on to help you with resolving matters like wolf impacts on you, your family, and your way of life.
I submit that all of you harmed and threatened by wolves are like gun owners. You are challenged by powerful forces committed to stripping you of any rights relative to the spread and protection of wolves. Reason, Constitutional guarantees, personal safety, historical facts, cooperation, compromise, biology, right and wrong: all mean nothing. You are faced with ideologues that will stop at nothing to make you live as they want and they believe they can brainwash your children to join them in making you subservient to their demands. They are committed to destroying the rural America you know every bit as much as the gun control crowd will not rest until they have confiscated and destroyed the last gun in non-government hands. Call it a hidden agenda or unintended consequence; the end game, your demise, is the same. Either you fight it with all you have or it will crush you.

So, where does that leave us? In a world with self-serving politicians and bureaucrats joined with Non-government organizations intent on increasing wolves and all that means to rural Americans, I suggest that we must look to Local elected officials to protect the unalienable rights and Constitutional guarantees we properly expect from our government.

Some Ideas for the Future

When I mention Local elected officials, I am referring to our County Commissioners, County Supervisors and our Sheriffs. Time and experience with wolves is showing that these elected officials are vital allies under present conditions to obtain the best solutions for resolving wolf problems. This is not to deny other approaches in the courts or with the assistance and cooperation of any of the more reliable federal and state elected officials and bureaucrats.

While each state’s laws are different and each state’s political climate is different, there is much going on in states like New Mexico and Montana that point to progress and potential approaches offering hope for the future. County officials, especially in areas of high federal land ownership have watched revenue-sharing, payments-in-lieu-of-taxes, jobs and their economic tax base all dwindle as federal actions have disabled them. Logging shutdowns, grazing allotment closures, Wilderness Declarations, Road Closures, federal Preservation District and Scenic Area Declarations, Permit Requirements, and elimination of uses from firewood gathering to mushroom picking in addition to federal wolf and grizzly protections are but a few of the ways that unchecked federal power is diminishing local governments. The time when these governments accept whatever the federal government demands has long since passed.

Consider some long-standing County authorities in certain states. Some Midwestern Counties have Weed Boards that notify landowners that they must control certain designated weeds growing on their property. If the owner fails to control the weeds, the Weed Board sends in a contractor to control the weeds and then sends the landowner the bill which if unpaid results in a County lien against the property. Are not wolves and their control like weeds?

In Virginia where there are robust deer populations, Counties determine whether dogs may be used to hunt deer; whether shotguns or rifles may be used to hunt deer; whether slugs or buckshot or both may be used to hunt deer; and even how many and what kind of deer may be taken annually. The state wildlife agency is not large and they see their job as supporting County residents as retirees replace farms or complaints about dogs chasing deer through yards or rifle bullets hitting a house or a desire for bigger bucks or more doe deer call for adjustments for changing local conditions. As upsetting as that is to Midwest and Western state agencies that think of themselves as supreme within the state as federal bureaucrats do within the nation, it not only works well for deer, it is an example of the role state and local government should fulfill regarding their state resident’s needs and desires. Are not wolves like those deer that depend on County sufferance for their existence and management?

In Montana County Commissioners are working together with neighboring County Officials and in larger County groups to obtain some say in the presence and densities of wolves to be tolerated in their County. They are also becoming more involved in the Coordination Process wherein County officials become stakeholders and participants along with state officials in all federal proposals and actions that concern their County.

New Mexico County officials and Sheriffs work together to document wolf damage and incidents to use in state presentations and when dealing with federal bureaucrats. They are doing such a good job that federal and even state bureaucrats avoid them and are reluctant to work with them. One County has hired a wildlife investigator who documents and reports on what is turning out to be hundreds of wolf events by the reportedly tiny number of wolves in that area. These records are proving invaluable as time goes on and state legislatures are confronted with demands for wolf problem resolutions by Counties whose primary responsibility is health, safety and welfare of its residents. This is resulting in authorization to keep the state wildlife agency out of the process that has historically shielded the federal government from local objections. As mentioned earlier several Counties in New Mexico and several Counties in Arizona have formed a “Coalition” to address such mutual problems and the search for workable solutions.

Some of the things emerging from local involvement are to always use a tape recorder when dealing with state and federal wildlife bureaucrats and always carry cameras, calipers, a ruler and even a plaster cast kit as when you encounter predator signs or bureaucrats.

Counties can pass and enforce Ordinances with the cooperation of their Sheriff. Deputies can report incidents and complaints.

Counties can explore getting more authority to regulate the presence of wolves and responses to their depredations. Methods of take, periods of taking, allowable circumstances to take are but a few of the areas where Counties can be heard.

Proposed wolf introductions (as proposed recently across bands of Arizona and New Mexico as well as in Colorado and Southern Utah) can be more effectively opposed and stopped (as W Texas did recently) when Counties are involved and able to participate fully.

Counties can force state government to consider more equitable distribution of wolves demanded by federal law and federal bureaucrats. For instance, a federal demand for a state to maintain 100 wolves in the state of ten counties should be met as 10 in each County and not 100 in four Counties or 25 in each of the four. Wolf levels above ten in any County could be controlled by County-authorized hunters or contractors with a revenue generator attached where feasible.

Restrictions on killing marauding or threatening wolves could be lifted when County control levels are breached as they will always be without effective and persistent controls. For instance, just as dangerous dogs threatening kids can be killed instantly, wolves threatening especially kids or the elderly should be liable to the same penalty without endangering the life, liberty or property of County residents or visitors.

County officials could arrange for complete and instant information sharing with all state bureaucrat and federal bureaucrat wolf censuses meetings, or communications concerning wolves. Such a state regulation or law could eventually create penalties for any obfuscation or hiding of state activities or data.

County officials could begin informing County residents of what is going on and what their elected Local officials (the ones closest to them and therefore the most vulnerable to voter wrath and accordingly most responsive to voter interests and problems) are doing.

Consider using baits and trail cams to document wolf packs and locations. Explore County Coalitions to influence any state commitments or responses to the federal government regarding the numbers or distribution of wolves. Define conditions wherein County residents can kill wolves and when County officials can enact wolf controls..

Explore redefining state fish and wildlife agency authority over wolves. State fish and wildlife agencies were not formed upon statehood. Their authorities and responsibilities were and are specifically granted in state legislative authority and are therefore perfectly amenable to amendment and redefinition. State agency roles could be to simply write regulations as desired by each County and approved by the Governor and/or Legislature. Despite all the hand-wringing about wolf “hunting”; the issue before you is never-ending wolf CONTROL. Protection and unlimited food mean dense wolf populations and dense wolf populations mean more danger to humans, more dead dogs, less feasible animal husbandry, less hunting and recreation, and less stable rural communities. “Hunting” (i.e. taking 10-15% annually merely stimulates wolf productivity just as it does to big game animals. “Control” means taking 50-75% annually for 5 or more years and then 30-50% annually thereafter. When you “hunt” or “control” in isolated locations, the result is a steady influx from surrounding locations that defeats your purposes. If you must live with wolves, you either control them or they will control you. Control necessities force understanding and consideration of such emotional matters as aerial hunting, year-round taking, not tolerating any threats from wolves, trapping, snaring, denning (killing litters), dangers to uncontrolled dogs, hunting with dogs, and all the claims about wolf “social structure”, wolf benefits, inhumane methods, etcetera, etcetera.

These are not easy issues, but the forced wolf introductions leave no room for compromise.

The possibilities, like the potential benefits to rural America, could be startling. A safer County environment for all residents and visitors, more profitable animal husbandry operations, safer dogs, better and safer hunting, more recreation potential, more visitors, a healthier economy, more County revenue, more say in other issues that affect the County in states and a nation changing in dangerous ways, and last but not least a crop of Local officials that might get elected to state office from which the best proven performers might even go on to Washington where their experience might begin the reforms so badly needed by us all.

Forums like we have here today are an important step in discussing the unmentionable consequences and alternatives before us. The wolf issue has evolved in a period of silence and disbelief as conditions have worsened. For instance, the gun control laws recently passed in Colorado and Connecticut are obviously intended to depress gun and ammunition sale dramatically in those states. In addition to the Constitutional aspects and the diminished ability for self-protection; what about the unmentionables? By reducing gun and ammunition sales in a state, should such states still participate equally with other states in the annual federal excise taxes that are so vital to most states fish and wildlife operations? As hunting by licensed hunters becomes less common as a result of gun laws, who will control and pay to control increased deer, bird, etc. depredations on private property and agriculture? As hunting diminishes, so does state wildlife agency license revenues: will state taxes be raised to replace them or will they simply diminish accordingly?

The time for silence and wishful thinking about wolves is past. They are here, they are spreading and their effects are no longer deniable. The immediate challenge is controlling them where we live, work, and raise our families. Either we stand together and fight to protect ourselves, our families and our communities or rural America. Compromise is not an answer. The place to begin the fight is with and through Local elected officials willing to carry out difficult interfaces with state and federal governments and to enact governmental changes that protect rural America on behalf of its residents. If the Bloombergs and Emmanuels can lead their Counties to continue to defy a very specific and guaranteed 2nd Amendment Constitutional right, Local County officials working with and through fair-minded elected State officials can obtain equity for us in what has too long been a one-sided battle.

Jim Beers
13 April 2013

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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. You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to: jimbeers7@comcast.net