Time to temper tapeworm hype
Maybe Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials have to show deference and not be entirely dismissive of public concerns about a tapeworm carried by wolves that can be dangerous to people.
But we can plainly say that the Internet-driven tapeworm hype is a proxy campaign against wolves.
Sure, it is important for Fish, Wildlife and Parks to make hunters and the general public aware of the potential hazards of being exposed to Echinococcus granulosus tapeworm or the eggs that can be present in wolf scat.
The agency has done just that, providing on its website copious information on wolves and the tapeworm and providing education about hygiene, particularly for hunters field-dressing game animals.
Public awareness is good, but public hysteria is not.
The tapeworm is not new to the landscape and chances of contracting it are less than a person’s chance of actually seeing a wolf. Put in relative terms, if people are concerned about tapeworm exposure, then they should be absolutely terrified of bodily harm whenever they drive on an icy road.
Put in perspective, potentially harmful tapeworms can be found not only in wolves, but also in coyotes, fox, ungulates, sheep, dogs and other animals.
The public needs to consider other diseases and parasites that are in the wild. How about the West Nile virus, hantavirus or the tick-borne Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever or Lyme disease?
While the wolf tapeworm has raised concerns in Idaho and Montana, we aren’t aware of an outbreak of hysteria in Canada, where British Columbia alone has a far larger wolf population (and one that has long been on the landscape) than Montana.
Now back to that campaign against wolves.
It’s no secret that there is considerable ill will toward the proliferating wolf population in Montana, but raising tapeworm alarms is not likely to lead to a sanctioned eradication of wolves, and if it did, the tapeworm would still be in the environment.
As a practical matter, if Montana’s wolf population is whittled below a certain level, wolves once again would be protected by the Endangered Species Act, whether wolf haters like it or not.
On these pages, we have consistently supported delisting wolves so that they can be managed by the state of Montana, partly through a legal hunt.
Instead of going apoplectic over tapeworms, however, it would be better if people directed their energy toward the fight for Montana rather than the federal government to manage wolves, and for an annual, sustainable wolf hunt to continue in this state.