Public opinion began to shift with the birth of the modern environmental movement, and in 1974, wolves were among the first animals to receive protection under the Endangered Species Act. But by the time wolves were reintroduced to the Rocky Mountains in the 1990s, the animal had become a pawn in a proxy war over American values. One portion of the country saw a chance for atonement for a desecrated wilderness and the promise of a restored ecosystem. Another — big game hunters and livestock producers — saw wolves as a threat to their livelihoods. Protected by federal law, the wolf became a vessel for their larger resentments about governmental overreach.
In his memoir “Wolfer,” the trapper-turned-government-wolf-biologist Carter Niemeyer recounted seeing an Idaho sign in the 1990s that read, “Kill all the goddamn wolves and the people who put them here.” The more polarizing wolves became, the more their fate got caught in volleys of partisan legislation. In 2020, the Trump administration decided to remove wolves from the Endangered Species Act, and four months later, Wisconsin authorized wolf hunting during breeding season. Within three days, 218 wolves had been killed, and before long, conservative state legislatures throughout the West were allowing hunters to shoot and kill wolves with impunity. Ed Bangs, the biologist who led wolf recovery in the Northern Rockies for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told a journalist that the slate of wolf-hunting legislation was all “about making snowflakes cry.”
Today an estimated 6,000 wolves live in the lower 48 states, occupying less than 10 percent of their former territory, much of which has been divided by highways and suburban developments or put in service of cattle and crops. But according to a 2014 study by the Center for Biological Diversity, the United States could support almost 10,000 wolves. Environmental activists hope to see populations rebounding around the country: the Mexican gray wolf in the Southwest, red wolves in the Southeast and the gray wolf throughout the Rockies and Great Lakes. As apex predators, wolves can influence entire ecosystems, and their return would offer benefits for both humans and the environment — accomplishing everything from reducing car collisions with deer to increasing ecosystem resilience in the face of a changing climate.
Still, activists have met resistance from the livestock producers and farmers who see wolves as a threat to their animals, aware that the predator’s habitat is not only rugged mountains but also the lower elevations where they follow prey in colder months. By helping to shoulder ranchers’ costs, conservationists have won supporters in unexpected places.
One rancher, Ted Birdseye, who, for a few years, had more confirmed dog and cattle losses from wolves than anyone else in Oregon, became the first in the state with a five-foot-tall 7,000-volt electric fence around his property to protect his livestock from wolves and other predators. The fence was funded with federal grants and state wolf compensation programs, as well as crowdfunding from supporters of an environmental conservation group. Livestock producers like him are more likely to tolerate wolves — and much less likely to shoot, shovel and shut up, as the saying goes — when they receive support for effective deterrents.