‘Management’ of wolves harkens back to extermination era

On May 6, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a gray wolf extermination bill into law that allows hunters, trappers — and even paid private contractors — to slaughter up to 90% of the wolves in Idaho.

The new law permits the killing of wolves by various cruel and unethical means, including night hunting with night-vision equipment, aerial gunning, and hunting from snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles. In addition to letting individuals kill as many wolves as they want, the new law authorizes year-round wolf trapping on private lands, including during the season when pups and females are most vulnerable.

This new Idaho wolf extermination law is only possible because 10 years ago this month federal Endangered Species Act protections were stripped from gray wolves in Idaho, Montana, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and northern Utah via a rider attached by U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, to a must-pass budget bill.

This undemocratic move a decade ago — which blocked any judicial review of the rider — opened the floodgates for widespread wolf killing in the Northern Rockies. Over the past few years, state “management” of wolves in the Northern Rockies has included Idaho Fish and Game hiring a professional hunter-trapper to go into the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness to slaughter wolves and IDFG conducting aerial gunning operations to butcher wolves in some of the most remote roadless federal wildlands remaining in the lower-48 states.

More recently — during a 12-month period — hunters, trappers, and state and federal agencies killed 570 wolves in Idaho, including at least 35 wolf pups. The state of Idaho also allows a $1,000 “bounty” paid to trappers per dead wolf, including wolves killed deep within some of America’s largest and wildest Wilderness areas.

The dire situation for wolves in Montana is much the same. Fresh off revelations that Gov. Greg Gianforte did not have a valid license when he trapped and shot a collared Yellowstone wolf, Gov. Gianforte has signed numerous draconian bills to slaughter more wolves. New barbaric laws in Montana allow hunters and trappers to kill an unlimited number of wolves, allow a wolf “bounty,” extend the wolf-trapping season, permit strangulation neck snares, and authorize night-time hunting of wolves on private lands and baiting of wolves.

The vicious situation facing wolves in Montana and Idaho proves that the gray wolf still needs federal ESA protections. As we warned 10 years ago, state “management” of wolves essentially amounts to the brutal state-sanctioned eradication of this keystone species.

WildEarth Guardians and our allies filed a lawsuit 10 years ago in an attempt to overturn this undemocratic, spiteful wolf rider because we believed the wolf delisting rider violated the U.S. Constitution. While our lawsuit wasn’t successful because Congress simply closed the courthouse doors, the ongoing attempts to decimate wolf populations in Idaho and Montana warrant national outrage and action.

State management of wolves in Idaho and Montana harkens back to an era when people sought to exterminate wolves altogether, and nearly succeeded. These types of actions were not only deplorable in the early 1900s, but they have zero place in science-based management of a keystone species in 2021, especially in the midst of dual nature and climate crises.

President Biden, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, and Congress must take immediate action to restore federal Endangered Species Act for all gray wolves in the Lower 48 state — including in the Northern Rockies — before it’s too late.

We must not abandon wolf-recovery efforts or allow anti-wolf states, hunters, and trappers to push these iconic species back to the brink of extinction.

Sarah McMillan is WildEarth Guardians’ Conservation Director. She writes from Missoula.