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Suzanne Asha Stone was a college intern at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1995 when wolf-reintroduction coordinator Peter Fritts took her into the woods of Idaho. Under his tutelage, Stone had been learning to count wolves by imitating their howl. She tilted back and let out her howl into the northern sky.
It was interrupted by gunfire.
Someone had mistaken Stone and Fritts for a wolf pack. As FWS tried to reintroduce the gray wolf to the heart of ranching country in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, even the sound of wolves was enough to send bullets flying. Bumper stickers appeared labeling wolves the "original state-sponsored terrorists," former Idaho Gov. Phil Blatt (R) threatened to call the National Guard to block biologists from bringing wolves over the border, and Stone says she frequently feared for her safety.
After 13 years of federal management, there are approximately 1,500 wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, and FWS has found they no longer face an imminent threat of extinction.
In February, FWS announced that on March 28 responsibility for wolf management would be transferred to the states. Many feared that the bitter struggle over wolves would resume as ranchers seized the opportunity to try to wipe wolves from the map.
But while the transition has brought old wounds to the surface, the ferocity of the wolf wars has tempered.
"I guess there's a place for wolves in Montana," said Jeremy Seidlitz, executive director of the Montana Cattlemen's Association, adding, "so long as they're managed properly."
Wolf advocates are making concessions, as well, including affirming the ranchers' right to shoot wolves that attack livestock on private property -- or even, as a last resort, on public land -- and have established funds to compensate ranchers for livestock lost to wolves.
The state plans reflect the uneasy truce. In order to keep FWS from reassuming control, the federal government requires state agencies in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to preserve no fewer than 10 breeding pairs, but all three state plans set the minimum at 15, and Idaho is pushing a proposal to raise it to 20.
In Montana, wolves are classified as trophy game without a hunting or a trapping season and can be killed only when harassing livestock. In Idaho, wolves can be killed when harassing livestock and during a hunting season with a permit. Wyoming's plan creates a zone in the state's northwest where wolves are protected except during hunting season, but in the rest of the state they are categorized as predators and can be shot on sight without restriction.
"There are people who would literally want wolves everywhere and people who don't think they should be there at all," said Wyoming Game and Fish Department spokesman Eric Keszler. "As the agency managing wolves, we need to make sure it stays somewhere in the middle."
But nobody is entirely satisfied with the current arrangements. Stone, who survived her FWS internship and is now a wolf conservation specialist with Defenders of Wildlife, says that sound science indicates that the minimum for breeding pairs is insufficient to ward off extinction.
She is particularly concerned about Wyoming, where wolves are treated as predators, and thus can be killed at any time for any reason, across 88 percent of the state. "We put in so much effort to reintroducing wolves to the area, and to have people running them to exhaustion on snowmobiles and then shooting them is painful and it's unsustainable," she said.
She noted that wolves spread over large territories and will most likely spread out of the trophy zone, where they are protected.
Keszler defended the Wyoming plan, saying that 90 percent of the wolves lived within the protected zone, which he said was the only area of the state with suitable habitat. "The minimum isn't a target, it's a warning" he said. "If we get to that minimum, it's a sign that we need to change the way we manage wolves."
Compensation plans critical to recovery
The disputes over wolves have in part calmed because steps have been taken to reduce the economic burden on ranchers.
Ranchers figure that their average loss per head of cattle to depredation is $1,000, Seidlitz said, but programs have been established that compensate ranchers for cattle that they can prove were killed by wolves.
Defenders of Wildlife has been compensating ranchers for depredation losses since 1987 and will continue to do so in the era of state management. "I don't think we would have [wolf] recovery without compensation," Stone said. "It softened the blow for ranchers and tipped the scales toward recovery."
U.S. Sens. John Barraso (R-Wyo.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have introduced a bill that would provide federal matching funds for state compensation schemes as well as cover the costs of measures such as guard dogs and fencing to provide protection from wolves.
The bill appeals to ranchers and wolf advocates alike. "Compensation is fair," said Josh Tewalt of the Idaho Cattle Association. "It was a federal decision to reintroduce wolves to the region, and so they should cover some of the costs."
Stone approves of the bill but wants its language to emphasize that the funding is for non-lethal deterrents to depredation. "We certainly don't want federal funding going to killing more wolves."
But Jim Magagna, head of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, says that while the financial compensation helps, wolf depredation is still a bitter pill to swallow: "I never felt good when I lost cattle and was compensated, because I was raising cattle to put in the market and provide food for the American people, not to be eaten by wolves."
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