Volume six number Two, Two Thousand Ten | summer

Glacier National Park:

100 Years of Inspiration

Are Wolves Here to Stay?

Goodbye Wives and Daughters:
Remembering the Smith Mining Disaster

The Changing Face of the Montana Farmer

Composer Phillip Aaberg Finds His Way Home

 science

PART OF THE
LANDSCAPE
After 15 years, millions of dollars and a raft of lawsuits,
wolves are here to stay. But who will call the shots?
BY SCOT T MCMILLION

S
ome people don’t like it, and they’ve cried a river or 12 about it, but wolves aren’t
going away. After 15 years in the Northern Rockies, they’re part of the physical and
political landscape. Still, some big questions remain. How many wolves are enough?
Where should they live? And who gets to make those decisions?

A lone wolf howls in the Lamar Valley inside

Yellowstone National Park.
THOMAS LEE

22 M O N T A N A Q U A R T E R LY 23
 2009 Montana Wolf Pack Locations
Those uncertainties will be resolved, at least in part, by of the forested western third of the state. Wolves that venture
Peter Molloy, the federal judge who will decide whether to rein- beyond those areas aren’t likely to survive long anyway, given
WMU 1 - N. Fork Flathead Subunit
state the protections of the Endangered Species Act for wolves the unwillingness of humans to share expensive livestock with Copper Falls Kootenai
Candy South
in Montana and Idaho. Lawyers will argue the pros and cons predators. Solomon Mtn Ksanka
Kintla
Thirsty
of the case in a June 15 hearing in his Missoula courtroom, but But the case isn’t just about wolves. It’s also about the Mtn
Calder Murphy
Dutch McDonald
Bear Lydia Lake Livermore Cut Bank
Molloy has already indicated that he is leaning toward protect- nature of the Endangered Species Act and how it is used Mtn
Pulpit Mtn fite Lazy Crk Havre
Smoky Nyack Shelby
ing wolves. around the country. It’s about the way we define wildlife in Twilight
Wolf Prairie
Satire
Ashley
Fire
Great Northern
Cabinet Marias
Still, Molloy has his options. He could rule either way, North America. It’s about promises, both real and perceived. Kalispell fighter
Great Bear Conrad
Glasgow Wolf

WMU 1
McKay Tallulah Point
Pond Quintonkon
and do it quickly, or he could wait for months. It’s about clashing philosophies and it’s about money. A lot of Pk Fishtrap Bennie Hill
Chippy Area Dry Forks
On one side stands 13 environmental and animal rights money. Silcox
Spotted Bear Sidney
Corona Irvine Bisson Redshale
groups, some of them national and some of them regional, who Since wolves were declared an endangered species in Mullan Camas Prairie
Cilly
Great
Mineral Mtn Flathead Alps Falls
want the wolf relisted. They want bigger safeguards for wolves 1974, recovery work in the Northern Rockies has cost $36 Silver Lake
Fairy Basin
Superior Piper Benchmark
Selow Ovando
and maintain that Montana and Idaho haven’t provided them. million in tax money, with another $4 million expected this DeBorgia
Pistol Crk Mtn Arrastra Monitor Mtn Glendive
Quartz Crk Ninemile Crk
They want protected dispersal pathways, so wolves can find year. And that doesn’t include the government’s legal bills, Bitterroot Range Cache Belmont
Lewistown

Crk Landers Mitchell Mtn

new territories. And they want a lot more wolves: as many as the value of lost livestock (about $400,000 in 2009), and the Blue Mtn
Fork
Elevation
5,000 in the Northern Rockies and three times that many roughly $1 million a year the government spends tracking and Fish Crk Big Hole
Welcome
Mtn Sixmile Helena
Miles
Brooks Crk
around the country, according to Defenders of Wildlife, the killing wolves that attack cattle and sheep. Crk Flint Crk City
Ram Mtn Deer Lodge
Gird Point
lead plaintiff. Lake Como East Fork Rock Crk
Lebo Pk

Divide
Mt Haggin
MOVING THE CHEESE
Trapper Pk
Watchtower
Sula
Crk

Bender
Pintler Butte WMU 3 Billings
Colstrip

Table Mtn Bozeman Hardin

Baker Mtn Laurel
Painted Rocks Trail Crk Bear Trap Livingston

The first wolf packs in Yellowstone and Idaho traveled 8-MILE

Hughes Crk Cedar Crk Rosebud
there from the Canadian wilds in stainless steel crates. It was Miner Dillon
Black Mtn SlipNSlide Mill Crk
Horse
Lakes
a controversial move at the time, and wolves remain controver- Prairie Jack Crk Cougar2 Eagle Crk
Buffalo Fk / Slough
Horse Crk
sial today. A total of 66 were released in 1995 and 1996 in the
two areas, both of them teeming with elk and other wildlife.
WMU 2 Black Canyon Toadflax
Hayden
Cougar
Horn Mtn
It didn’t take long for the wolves to get their bearings Ownership Legend
Ownership Legend
Bishop Mtn
and set about their business: hunting, killing, breeding and BLM BLM Montana State Trust Lands Montana
0 State
20Trust 40
Lands
National Park Service Other State of Montana Lands
shaping the behavior and numbers of their prey. Other Federal Lands
National Park Service
Local Government
Other State of Montana Lands
Other Federal
TribalLands Local Government
Miles
As of the end of 2009, there were at least 1,700 wolves in US Fish & Wildlife Service and BIA Lands
Data provided by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; Idaho Fish & Game;
Nez Perce Tribe; Wyoming Game & Fish; US Fish & Wildlife Service; Montana Packs US Forest Service Plum Creek Timber Company
US Fish & Wildlife Service Tribal and BIA Lands
National Park Service; Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife; and Washington Montana Packs Wolf Management Units
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and a few hundred pups likely Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. All other data layers from Montana, Idaho,
Wyoming, Oregon and Washington data clearinghouses.
Other State Border Packs
Fish, Wildlife & Parks

Other private
Private Land Trusts
US Forest Service
Water
Plum Creek Timber Company
Other State Border Packs
were born this spring. Last year, even with hunting seasons Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; 1420 E. 6th Ave, Helena, MT 59620
AnnualProjects/WolfReport/2009 Season - 2/19/2010
Fish, Wildlife & Parks Private Land Trusts
Wolf Management Units Water
on wolves in Montana (73 dead wolves) and Idaho (188 dead MAP COURTESY OF MONTANA FISH, WILDLIFE & PARKS
Other private

wolves), the overall population stayed pretty steady: It grew 4

PHOTO COURTESY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

percent in Montana and shrank by 8 percent in Idaho.

Wolf #10, one of the original 66 wolves reintroduced in 1995, runs off a
recent meal inside the Rose Creek pen.
On the other side stands the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
fish and game agencies in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, the
beef industry, most outfitters and a whole bunch of hunters.
They maintain that with a Northern Rockies wolf population at
1,700 animals and growing, it’s time to prune the pack and to
let hunters do part of that work. Wolves already have filled what
they call “suitable” habitat — in Montana, that means most
When the reintroductions took place, plans called for
delisting when a population of 30 breeding pairs — roughly
300 wolves — had been established for three consecutive
years in the three Northern Rockies states.
The wolves crossed that threshold in 2002 and kept
breeding. Now delisting opponents say the three states need
a minimum population of 2,000 to 5,000 wolves to be viable
over the long term. They cite a pile of scientific documents to
back them up.
Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, dismisses those numbers as “pulled out
of the air.”
Others assert that political motives are at play.
“This is the most disingenuous and deceiving issue rela-
tive to the entire Canadian gray wolf introduction, and your
groups and others perpetuate this every chance you get,” is THE CASE FOR RELISTING
the way David Allen, president and chief executive officer of
the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation put it in an April letter to Doug Honnold, the lead attorney for the groups seeking
some of the plaintiff groups. “We call it ‘keep moving the goal relisting, dismisses the 300-wolf level as outdated. New science
line’ politics.” has emerged that shows a much bigger population is necessary
If green groups believed in the 1990s that the recovery for long-term genetic health, he says, and the law calls for that
goal was too small, they didn’t do a lot of shouting about it at science to be acknowledged.
the time. And while Montana and Idaho have both vowed to main-
“I don’t recall anybody saying anything bad about it tain wolf populations well above the minimum levels of 100
(the 300-wolf threshold),” said Hank Fischer, a former wolf wolves per state — 400 in Montana and 500 in Idaho, after
specialist for Defenders of Wildlife and one of the primary hunting seasons have closed — Honnold said he can’t be sure
advocates for wolf restoration. “We made commitments to agri- those promises will hold as political winds shift.
cultural people about how they (wolves) would be managed in “We don’t think there’s a binding legal requirement” to
the future, and it doesn’t seem we’re living up to it.” maintain a viable population of wolves, he said.

24 M O N T A N A Q U A R T E R LY 25
 As of the end of 2009, there were at least 1,700
wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and a few
hundred pups likely were born this spring.
Thousands of wolves are necessary for genetic vigor, he
said, because in most cases the breeding is done by a small
portion of the population, the “alpha” males and females.
“If you’re concerned about the numbers, you’re concerned
about the breeders, because they’re the ones passing the genes
along,” Honnold said.
And while there wasn’t a lot of public criticism from envi-
ronmentalists about the 300-wolf target in the 1990s, some
people were raising flags at the time.
“I know I’ve been raising them for 20 years, on deaf ears,”
Honnold said.
Like Honnold, Bangs and Montana officials point to a
stack of science. Their research shows that wolves are doing
PHOTO COURTESY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
An aerial of the Crystal Creek wolf pack taken in 1999.
26
have long advocated reintroducing grizzly bears to the
central Idaho wilderness, which is a touchy political
issue. Fighting wolf delisting may have “poisoned the
well” for that project as well, Fischer said.
Allen, of the Elk Foundation, points to major
just fine at current populations, that the various populations declines in some elk herds that share turf with wolves. If
are genetically diverse and healthy. the predators aren’t controlled, he argues, similar fates
So dueling scientists are part of the debate. But there’s await other herds.
another factor before the court: how the ESA is implemented. “No one is promoting an annihilation of wolves,”
When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first decided he wrote. “So let’s stop pretending such exists. However,
to delist wolves in the Northern Rockies, in 2008, it included there is a great need for sensible balance.”
Wyoming wolves, even though that state adheres to a policy Honnold’s clients counter that wolves and elk coex-
that in most of the state, allows people to shoot them on sight, isted for millennia without human interference. And if
like a gopher. they prevail in court it will mean the end of wolf hunting
Molloy tossed that attempt out of his courtroom, surpris- seasons in Montana and Idaho. And the green groups will
ing almost nobody. Then the Obama administration, using then press a second case that they hope will make it harder
rules concocted by the Bush administration, delisted wolves in to kill wolves suspected of killing livestock, Honnold says.
Montana and Idaho, but left Wyoming to chafe under federal Carolyn Sime, Montana’s wolf coordinator, says it’s
rules. That’s the decision Honnold hopes to overturn in court.
His clients maintain the ESA does not allow a species to
be delisted on a state-by-state basis, that doing so contradicts
20 years of established policy and opens the ESA — arguably
the sharpest arrow in the quiver of environmental laws — to
all sorts of shenanigans.
“This decision affects more than the Northern Rockies
wolf population,” Jamie Rappaport Clark, Defenders of
PHOTO COURTESY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Wildlife executive vice president, wrote in The Washington
Post. “It also sets an alarming precedent for future listing and
delisting decisions.”
Molloy appears to agree.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “has distinguished a
natural population of wolves based on a political line, not the
best available science,” he wrote in Sept. 2009. “That, by defi- Wolves inside the Crystal Bench pen await their release in 1995.
nition, seems arbitrary and capricious.”
“The way I see this mess is there are two culpable parties,” time for the state to manage wolves much like it does
Fischer said. “One is the groups that continue with this litiga- black bears and mountain lions: through a regulated
tion. And the other is Wyoming.” hunting season meant to control the population.
The wolf population can withstand limited hunting,
she said. Plus, making them available to hunters helps
WHAT’S AT STAKE get them to support having wolves on the landscape.
“It’s all wildlife,” she said.
Precedent counts in lots of ways, and not just in courts But that doesn’t mean it’s all treated the same.
of law. Wildlife officials in Minnesota, Wisconsin and
Michigan, where the wolf population numbers about
Fischer, a lifelong conservationist and wolf advocate, said
fighting to keep wolves on the endangered species list could set 4,000 (nearly three times the federal recovery goal),
back the cause of restoring wolf populations in other places, make arguments similar to Simes’.
like the Southern Rockies and the Adirondacks. The federal government and state governments want
“I think we’re doing a lot of damage for any potential wolf to delist the wolf in those states, too.
reintroductions around the country,” he said. So far, they’ve been slapped down in court every
Other species could see blowback as well. Conservationists time.
M O N T A N A Q U A R T E R LY 27