Wolves: What to Do

When you hear the word wolf what is the first thing that comes to mind? A voracious killer that will kill you just to see you die? Or, a cute, harmless dog that resembles your family pet? Or a mammal like all of us trying just to survive on this land, where certain groups of people want them eradicated? Wolves need to be kept in our ecosystem for generations to come and not go back to the times where the massive eradication of wolves was not only accepted, but encouraged by the federal government.

According to Montana writer Douglas Chadwick in his 2010 National Geographic story, "Wolf Wars," in 1926 when the last wolves were killed in Yellowstone National Park, the local elk populations, kept rebounding and overgrazing key habitats. This created a large, non-hunted mass of elk, that eliminated riparian areas and removed healthy grasslands for other animals to graze on and/or hide from predators in. With a number of elk that large it then becomes unhealthy, unnatural and unmanageable for the local authorities to handle. But as the wolf was reintroduced in the park and, "with a nearly unlimited meat supply, Yellowstone's new wolves rapidly multiplied." The new wolves created a healthy ecosystem by eliminating the sick, weak and old animals, thus allowing the other populations to become healthy.

Wolves are also crucial for the western economy in the form of revenue from national parks and tags for hunting. In the 2013 wolf season, FWP reported 230 total wolves were harvested, 143 hunted and 87 trapped in Montana, totaling more than half a million dollars in revenue for the state. In Yellowstone National Park, guided wolf tours totaled over five million dollars in revenue and allowed for a chance to see non-hunted wolves in their prime hunting conditions.

The Washington Residents Against Wolves (WARAW) says that, "It's unfair that northeastern Washington takes the brunt of livestock kills and big-game impacts from wolf recovery while western Washington remains unscathed and resistant to lethal control of wolves."

It is, but then again, life is unfair. It is the people from northeastern Washington's choice to live where they do and when you choose where to live, you also choose to deal with the wildlife, the people and anything else the area has to offer. Because they choose to live there, they choose to deal with those problems.

So now, when you're asked what you think of when you hear the word wolf, is your mind still drawn towards the stereotype Big Bad Wolf? Or, of a creature that's trying to survive in a world where they are often wanted dead, but are trying to survive?

When wolves were eradicated it was not just the wolves who suffered, it was the entire ecosystem in the northern United States that suffered. Is this how you want future generations to remember us, as the people who ruined the ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest and left it for others to take care of? Or as the people who fixed it so that future generations didn't have to? It's your choice. Choose wisely.