The impending reintroduction of wolves to western Colorado will surely result in wolves soon returning to Utah after nearly a century of absence. Whether they will still be protected under the Endangered Species Act is less certain. If not, there is little doubt that the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, with the blessing of the Utah Legislature, will make plans for “lethal control” in the form of wolf hunts, ostensibly to reduce losses of big game and livestock animals.
The public deserves to know that there is no solid scientific evidence that wolf hunts will benefit prey animals or livestock. None! In fact, there is substantial evidence that killing of the more knowledgeable and capable pack leaders will lead to more predation on livestock by the remaining wolves. Skillful hunting takes skilled hunters.
Utah’s chief anti-wolf crusader is Don Peay, founder of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife. The article quotes Peay as saying wolves will be “a billion-dollar problem knocking on Utah’s door,” and alleging that wolves have already laid waste to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming big game herds; also “Three thousand wolves are about 75,000 dead elk ... Wolves of that number would kill every elk in Utah.”'
In more than 25 years, I have never heard Peay back up his outrageous fear mongering with references to peer-reviewed scientific publications; nor have I ever heard anyone from DWR challenge his assertions. Why do he and his enablers, like Dracula, fear the light of day? It’s time to face the facts.
There will never be 3,000 wolves in Utah — a few hundred at most. Colorado has a larger prey base than Utah and can support far more wolves. According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, there are about 300,000 elk in Colorado. Assuming a population of 500 wolves, we know from data collected in Yellowstone that approximately 12,500 elk will be killed by wolves each year. By contrast, hunters will kill about 40,000.
A significant difference is that hunters take elk (and deer) in their reproductive prime, while wolves minimize risk to themselves by focusing on diseased and old animals. Consequently, predation by wolves has little or no impact on the size and demographics of ungulate herds. In fact, wolves benefit prey species, as anyone with even a minimal understanding of evolution and ecology knows.
The Spring 2022 publication of “International Wolf,” by the International Wolf Center in Minnesota, lists the estimated number of elk in each of Montana’s seven hunting regions along with the population objectives set by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. All but one of the regions is over objective, with the two that border Yellowstone National Park significantly over. Based on the most recent counts, Region 3 is 31% over objective and Region 5 is 183% over objective.
Data from Idaho and Wyoming also indicate more elk since wolf reintroduction. In fact, the most recent counts indicate that there are now some 50,000 more elk in the three states.
Also, wolves have not hurt hunter success rates in any of the three states. No doubt it takes more knowledge, commitment and skill to successfully hunt elk and deer now that they are no longer standing about in the open like cows — but this is something that real hunters welcome.
The article states that “Utahns are not so enthusiastic about the return of the apex predator,” which is at odds with public opinion surveys. A 2002 Utah State University survey found that more than three times as many Utahans “like” or “strongly like” wolves than “dislike” or “strongly dislike” them. Another USU survey from 2004 found that, with the notable exception of big game hunters, most Utahans believe wolves “are a necessary component of healthy ecosystems.”
There is no evidence that wolves will negatively impact any sector of the economy, particularly with a generous livestock predation compensation program in place. On the contrary, not only will wolves attract nature tourism to benefit rural economies, as has happened near Yellowstone, they will promote biodiversity to help combat the extinction crisis, in turn creating more functional watersheds that soak up and retain that most precious natural resource: water!
Kirk Robinson
Kirk Robinson, Ph.D., is founder and executive director of Western Wildlife Conservancy.