THE HIDDEN VICTIMS OF WAR: For wolves, the culture ‘war’ is extremely deadly
The Montana governor shot Wolf #1155 likely in the head to preserve the pelt for mounting, even though #1155 was radio-collared for the purpose of scientific research.
CASSIDY RANDALL: In February 2021, a black wolf wandered across the border of Yellowstone National Park in Montana. Called 1155, he wore a radio collar that park biologists fit him with three years before. When he left the safety of the park, 1155 was what biologists call a “dispersed male,” leaving his pack to travel alone in search of a mate. As a descendant of wolves reintroduced in 1995 to Yellowstone and Idaho’s Frank Church-River of No Return wilderness, he was playing out a role in a success story three decades in the making: to ultimately restore wolves to their former range from which they’d been exterminated…
It’s unclear when, exactly, 1155 walked onto Robert E. Smith’s private ranch 10 miles north of the park. Director of the conservative Sinclair Broadcasting Group (the biggest owner of television stations in the country), Smith is a major donor to Republicans in the state, including giving thousands to newly elected Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte’s campaigns. Smith’s ranch is managed by Mike Lumley, vice president of the Montana Trapper’s Association, who was aiding Gianforte in his long quest to kill a wolf. The pair had set a trapline on Smith’s property, and 1155 walked right into it, triggering metal jaws to close on his foot and keep the wolf trapped.
It’s also unclear how long 1155 lay caught before Gianforte, presiding over the frenetic session of a citizen Legislature that meets for a mere four months every two years (in Helena, a four-hour drive from Smith’s ranch) arrived to kill him. According to Montana law, trappers are required to check their traps at least every 48 hours to avoid leaving animals to suffer unnecessarily — a requirement the governor would have been familiar with, had he taken the required certification course all hunters are legally bound to take before killing a wolf.
Later, Gianforte would say that he was already in the area, although one Montana reporter speculated how serendipitous it was that after weeks of waiting, the governor happened to be nearby when a wolf wandered into his trap; that perhaps Lumley had discovered 1155 and called Gianforte to let him know this was his chance — although law also states that trapped animals must be killed or released immediately upon finding them. Timeline aside, Gianforte shot 1155 — likely in the head to preserve the pelt for mounting — even though 1155 was radio-collared, and almost certainly knowing researchers have typically invested thousands of dollars in the animal for the purpose of scientific research
In Montana, violation of hunting rules can incur a fine of up to $500 and a stripping of hunting privileges. But the state’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) agency — overseen by the governor — handed Gianforte only a written warning for trapping 1155 without certification. The governor mostly stayed mum on the incident, until reporters ambushed him at a press conference, where Gianforte called the lack of certification a “slight misstep” and called the kill “a tremendous honor.”
“That he got off with just a warning was a slap in the face to all ethical sportsmen,” says Tim Roberts, who’s on the board of the Montana Wildlife Federation, a conservation organization in the “radical middle” that advocates for managing wolves with a sense of responsibility and fair chase. “Governor Gianforte already had it in his mind that he was going to annihilate wolves in Montana”…
The episode opened the floodgates in a state where many people have elevated a long-standing hatred of wolves to dogma… He took office toting a questionable environmental record, having sued his own state in 2009 to block longtime public access to the East Gallatin River from his Bozeman mansion. And he’d just shot a collared Yellowstone wolf to show he would do what he pleased on the hunting issue, research and rules be damned.
GOP lawmakers took full opportunity to strike a heavy blow in the West’s century-old wolf wars. By the end of the session, Gianforte had signed new laws that would extend the wolf-hunting season by several weeks; allow night hunting on private land with artificial lights, thermal-imaging tech, and night-vision scopes; neck snaring and the use of bait to hunt and trap; and increase the kill limit to 20 wolves per hunter.
And the kicker: Montana joined Idaho (which recently allocated $1 million for efforts that lawmakers there say could wipe out 1,300 of its estimated 1,500 wolves) in allowing monetary compensation to hunters for each wolf killed — what many call a bounty. Now, in the two states where American taxpayers spent $30 million to reintroduce wolves, anti-wolf organizations are legally paying hunters to kill them. The assault threatens the West-wide recovery the U.S. began 30 years ago — all because wolves are a socially charged political football used to appease a certain electorate, with the actual science on their contribution to the natural world often left on the sidelines…
But this is where wedge issues can come in handy politically. Once a proudly purple state, Montana swung red for many of the same reasons as the rest of the country: in part due to the perception in rural America that the Democratic Party is disconnected from low- and middle-income and non-urban people, and — in a state where more than three in five people identify as hunters — out of growing fear that liberals will infringe on Second Amendment rights.
“Hunters, for years, get all spun up on Second Amendment issues, and they give the Republican Party a fair bit of latitude on wildlife issues, because they feel more strongly about the Second Amendment,” Vermillion says. “The governor and Legislature are listening to a small but vocal minority when they make these decisions on wolves, and there are a lot of other Republicans who aren’t going to stand up on it because it doesn’t really matter to them”. SOURCE…
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