Viewpoint: State cherry-picking data to eradicate wolves

Jay Mallonee

As a wildlife biologist, I’ve studied wolves in the wild for over 30 years, mostly in Montana.  Since Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MFWP) took over wolf management from the federal government in 2011, management policies have become increasingly more aggressive toward wolves.

Recently, the state passed legislation and modified hunting guidelines to eradicate wolves from Montana. They are one legislative session away from accomplishing their goal. Therefore, it is no surprise that MFWP now proposes to kill half of the state’s wolf population next hunting season.

Over the years, scientists, myself included, have reviewed MFWP wolf population data and confirmed in our published peer-reviewed scientific papers that MFWP has never been able to demonstrate they can accurately count the number of wolves living in the environment. Their current claim is 1050 wolves, although this number is dubious at best, given the lack of scientific protocol necessary to collect accurate data.

Nevertheless, MFWP wants to kill up to 600 wolves.  From a scientific perspective, such poor management techniques have severe environmental consequences.

All apex predators, most especially wolves, are known to affect the entire ecosystem through trophic cascading.  A trophic cascade is a natural process where a change at one trophic level, i.e., predators, affects multiple levels below them in a food web.  It’s a "top-down" effect and wolves can help decide what diseases are expressed, increase water quality and biodiversity, etc. A number of studies in Yellowstone National Park have provided specific examples of how the trophic cascading effects of wolves affect every level of the food web they are associated with.

This process involves an eloquent complexity that maintains healthy ecosystems because wolf packs interact, directly and indirectly, to form regions of packs. Therefore, their trophic cascading effects are widespread. Wolf management destroys the continuity of this process by killing entire packs. Even killing key individuals, such as a leader, can cause packs to disband and disrupt the wolves’ cascading effects. By default, wolf management causes environmental degradation. Killing 600 wolves is a really bad idea when it comes to the conservation of ecosystems.

However, Montana wolf management is a political and financial machine unconcerned about maintaining environmental integrity. Although FWP has always claimed they use science when creating policy, their current Montana Gray Wolf Conservation and Management Plan is missing a great amount of scientific information and contains improper and/or incomplete conclusions.

They cherry-pick scientific studies that fit policy agenda rather than using the latest science to create true conservation polices. The result is an implausible management plan to eliminate wolves based on making money from hunting permits and catering to a segment of the public that is bigoted and hateful towards wolves. Consequently, FWP believes that eradication is a viable management tool. This sets in motion the degrading of natural processes that all of life depends on for survivability, including humans.

If the general public wants to keep their wolves they will have to fight for them. People must become much more active by sending MFWP their comments, phone calls, emails, letters, organize protests and rallies, and to cooperate with each other and push this momentum forward. Otherwise, the result will be continued environmental destruction and the loss of one of the most highly evolved and consequential species on earth.

Jay Mallonee is president of the nonprofit Wolf and Wildlife Studies and conducts research on the behavior of wild wolves and their pack dynamics.