August 5, 2005

 

Matthew J. Hogan

Acting Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

1849 C Street N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20242

 

Dear Mr. Hogan:

 

As you perhaps know, the State of Utah recently adopted a northern gray wolf management plan, to be implemented whenever the species is removed from the Endangered Species List. The Utah Wolf Forum, a group of citizens favoring natural recovery and conservation of the wolf in Utah, participated on the Gray Wolf Working Group that wrote a large portion of this plan. Sadly, for reasons explained below, we cannot embrace the final result. In the interest of wolf conservation we, the undersigned conservation organizations, urge the Fish and Wildlife Service to include Utah within a new recovery zone for the northern gray wolf and to reject the wolf management plan adopted by the Utah Wildlife Board on June 9, 2005.

We believe that Utah should be included within the recovery zone for the northern gray wolf because much of the state is federal land (about 69%), much of this land is within the historic range of the subspecies, and because wolves are expected to disperse here from Wyoming and Idaho. Mexican gray wolves will also eventually disperse into Utah from Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. If allowed to do so, some of these wolves will find mates and establish packs. Eventually, Utah-born wolves will disperse into neighboring states, where some of them will found packs. A Utah wolf population will potentially have a beneficial impact upon regional ecosystems and will be an integral part of the larger wolf meta-population in the West.

We also believe that state management plans should be designed to foster wolf recovery and conservation while protecting various economic (and other) interests to the extent possible, as required by Utah House Joint Resolution 12. Unfortunately, the Utah plan errs on the side of protecting entrenched special interests at the expense of wolf conservation and ecological health.

In the main, the Utah plan is fairly sound, although in our opinion it is stingy on conservation measures and on recognition of the ecological importance of wolves. The single most troubling provision, which has the effect of poisoning the entire plan, will allow ranchers, their family members and employees to kill wolves on public land that they believe are harassing their livestock. It will allow them to do this without prior training on how to identify wolves or incidents of harassment and without having to obtain a permit or employ any non-lethal depredation prevention techniques. (Harassment is defined in the plan as “chasing, actively disturbing or harming.”)

Under this provision, meaningful wolf recovery in Utah will depend entirely upon the honesty and good judgment of ranchers, their family members and employees—especially those who lease grazing allotments in areas of Utah that wolves are expected to disperse into from the north and which provide the best potential wolf habitat in the state. We believe that this bad provision (1) relies on an unrealistic assumption, (2) is entirely unnecessary for protecting ranchers' legitimate interests, (3) is an affront to the majority of citizens of the state, most of whom favor wolf recovery, and (4) is the result of a biased process.

 

1. An unrealistic assumption. It is both imprudent and unrealistic to rely solely upon the sound judgment and honesty of members of the ranching community for an important aspect of wolf management. After all, the very reason why this provision was insisted on by ranchers is that they perceive wolves—and therefore the very presence of wolves—as a serious threat to their livestock and their livelihoods. We do not wish to challenge this perception, only to observe that ranchers have an interest that is obviously in conflict with wolf recovery and conservation.

It is true that there is a provision in the plan requiring anyone who kills a wolf to report it to Wildlife Services or the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. But we believe the plan conveys a message of leniency that will fail to discourage illegal wolf killings and will dispose the agencies to grant the utmost latitude in determining what falls within the law when killings are discovered or reported.

For one thing, most sheep herders, who are the ones most likely to have an opportunity for vigilante actions, are seasonal employees who spend most of the year in their native countries. Many barely speak English, if at all. It would be best if they were instructed by their employers not to shoot a wolf unless it is in the act of attacking livestock—something easily identified—rather than left with a hazy zone of uncertainty and the impression that they are free to take lethal action in a broad range of situations.

Second, although the Utah depredation response protocols allow ranchers to kill bears and cougars that harass their livestock, populations of these species are quite robust in the state, while the wolf is barely poised to make a recovery. Thus, different rules are called for in the case of wolves.

 

2. Unnecessary for protecting ranchers' legitimate interests. Ranchers who graze their flocks and herds on the public commons, who are additionally reimbursed by the public for losses to predators, and who have the temerity to also demand the removal of predators should be required to proactively employ any number of several proven depredation prevention techniques as a prerequisite for the privileges they enjoy.

We are aware that most ranchers already do employ some such techniques and we know that none of them is guaranteed to be completely successful—our concern is the message given by the plan, which makes employing them voluntary. Ranchers, like other people, need to be reminded that with every privilege comes a responsibility, lest they abuse the privilege. Despite grazing fees, grazing livestock on the public lands is a privilege not an absolute right.

Furthermore, ranchers ought to employ rubber bullets to deter wolves that are harassing livestock instead of real bullets. If they are close enough for a killing shot with real bullets, they will be close enough for deterrence with rubber bullets. This would have the effect of sparing both the wolf and the livestock—no need to even wait for an attack.

Finally, the Utah plan recommends a very generous compensation package for livestock killed by wolves: 100% for confirmed losses (plus a multiplier to be determined by the legislature), 100% for probable losses, and 50% for possible losses to wolves.

Given all this, why do ranchers insist on the controversial provision in the plan? We think it evinces a clear prejudice against wolves, which is serious cause for concern in a plan that ought, among other things, to be a true conservation plan.

 

3. An affront to the majority of citizens. The fact that ranchers lease grass and water on the public lands does not entitle them to be self-policing wildlife managers of publicly owned wildlife on those lands. All citizens own the public lands and wildlife equally. Therefore, the legitimate interests of all should be protected to the extent possible. Unfortunately, the Utah wolf management plan evinces a prejudice against wolves. Furthermore, by giving ranchers pre-emptive rights regarding the use and management of other components of the land, it also evinces a prejudice against the interests of most citizens. We find this to be outrageous and unseemly, especially given the tremendous amount of damage that livestock do to wildlife habitat and watersheds on the public lands and the extent to which this one use (grazing) interferes with and degrades a host of others.

 

4. A biased process. The Wolf Working Group that was assembled to develop the Utah plan was not able to reach a consensus on this contentious issue during its 18-month charter because the agricultural interests on the Working Group steadfastly refused to compromise one iota. Instead, they held out for a state Regional Wildlife Advisory Council (RAC) system to supersede the group process and resolve the issue through a different process that is inherently biased in their favor.

We conservationists attempted to circumvent the usual RAC process because it is decisively dominated by “consumptive” livestock and sportsmen interests that are unfriendly to wolves and other predators, and because the process is designed to assist in setting fishing permits and hunting regulations, not in writing management plans for recovering species. Indeed, we would not have participated in writing the plan at all if we had not received an assurance early in the process, from then-Director of the Division of Wildlife Resources Kevin Conway, that the usual role of the RACs would be modified in this case so that RACs would not make recommendations on changes or additions to the plan directly to the Utah Wildlife Board. Instead, they were to review the draft plan and make suggestions to the Working Group, which would then produce a final plan to be presented to the Wildlife Board for approval. This modification of the usual process is arguably consistent with state law, was approved by Director Conway in one of the Working Group meetings, and is stated in the charter for the Wolf Working Group. Under this assurance, representatives of the Utah Wolf Forum agreed to participate.

Unfortunately, Director Conway died of cancer a few months later and the new director did not follow through on this promise. Consequently, the agriculture representatives on the Working Group lacked incentive to work in good faith toward a group compromise. Instead, they immediately went outside the group process and lobbied the RACs and the Wildlife Board to give them what they wanted. And they got it. In this way, the conservation interests represented on the Working Group were simply ignored on the most sensitive issues, making the supposed diversity and broad public representation on the group a sham.

Finally, it should be noted that the Salt Lake Office of the Fish and Wildlife Service supported this maneuver through tacit collusion. The office sent a letter to the Director of the Division of the Wildlife Resources and members of the Wildlife Board about a week before the plan was adopted, stating unqualified support for “the plan” even though it was only in draft form and contained unresolved controversial issues. Recipients of the letter found it convenient to interpret this as a statement of unqualified support for a final plan, including any additions or changes they saw fit to make. We think it was inappropriate for FWS to send a letter of unqualified support when it did, thereby aiding and abetting a devious process that made a big show of including the interests of conservationists—and indeed, the larger public—but which really took advantage of our assistance over the course of 18 months in writing the bulk of the plan, then betrayed our trust.

For all these reasons, we cannot support the Utah plan and we urge you to reject it in no uncertain terms.

 

 

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Kirk Robinson, Ph.D., executive director of Western Wildlife Conservancy, on behalf of the Utah Wolf Forum and the following non-profit environmental organizations with substantial memberships in Utah:

 

Bear River Watershed Council

Forest Guardians

Great Old Broads for Wilderness

High Uintas Preservation Council

Save Our Canyons

Sierra Club (Utah Chapter)

Western Wildlife Conservancy

Wild Utah Project

 

 

 

cc: Ed Bangs, Wolf Recovery Coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service