Wolves Delisted Today

The whole Wolf reintroduction thing is a curious experiment. I’m still trying to figure out why? I mean, why reintroduce something after you eradicated it once already? Is it Guilt,  perversion, money? Personally I have no problem with having a few Wolves around as long as I don’t have to compete with them for something to eat. I don’t raise stock so thats not an issue, if I did I would obviously be looking out for my stock.

The thing that I have problems with is the bureaucracy and more importantly the money that could be going to use somewhere else. Wolves are beautiful animals, they invoke images of the wild, the consummate roaming predator and barometer for the quality of the landscape they inhabit but…

Look at some of the figures put together by Wolf researcher L. David Mech for the Wolf program in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. This doesn’t even include the cost of reintroduction, this is just maintenance. It’s safe to assume that the cost of putting them back in the greater Northern Rockies ecosystem will cost at least the same. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has admitted that wolf recovery will cost at least $12 million, but that figure may be low, and it certainly does not reflect the costs of full wolf recovery in the West. Nevertheless, this still comes to $40,000 per wolf and is an enormous expense for a species that is not biologically endangered.” (Source) And finally from the same source- “Montana biologist Dr. Charles Jonkel (1987) has raised an interesting question regarding wolves. He has wondered if the money and political capital being spent to reintroduce wolves into Yellowstone and central Idaho might not be better spent on preserving wolves and wolf habitat in other parts of North America. How much time and money will be spent to put 100 or so wolves in Yellowstone? Dr. Jonkel has suggested that those same efforts, if redirected, could perhaps save thousands of wolves in other areas—places where wolves presently exist, but where development threatens their continued survival.”

Or, spend it on conservation easements, clean up a few rivers, build some new schools, fix infrastructure, find alternative energy sources, the list goes on and on. The Wolves in Canada, Alaska, hell the upper peninsula in Michigan are doing fine.  In case no one has noticed, the large herds of wild animals, namely Bison, and the prairie wilderness they inhabited in the lower 48 states have been gone for over a hundred years. Today, wild animals and the wilderness exist as little islands in the lower 48. What’s left over is a hodge podge of humanized landscape. What the hell is a healthy Wolf pack supposed to do, stay outside the fence and eat gophers?

Now, I’m wishing I’d become a Wolf biologist, or a government trapper because I could have a decent paying job with benefits and run around chasing wolves for the rest of my life. Or, a lawyer, which side I’m on doesn’t really matter, either way I could make an obscene amount of money and buy a nice ranch (Wolf free of course) in Jackson or Bozeman and hang out with Ted Turner or Dick Cheney (watch that muzzle, Dick).

If I was a rancher I think I would just start raising Wolves because apparently they are worth more than cows. The governments subsidizing the reintroduction, maybe once the “market” is flooded with Wolves they will pay me not to raise them?