Wolves in Wyoming: A call for state control

The Wyoming rancher was unmistakable, what with the wool cap, work-tattered Carhart dungarees and mud-scuffed boots. He sat, arms folded tight against his chest, as Cat Urbigkit discussed the wolf in Western history and culture. And when it came time for him to speak, it took every ounce of self-restraint not to lose his cool veneer. He told the audience about how wolves had preyed on his great-grandfather’s cattle, and how his family had helped eradicate the wolf from the state. Urbigkit, an award-winning author and photographer who lives on a working sheep ranch near Pinedale, thanked him for his honesty. She’s the author of “Yellowstone Wolves: A Chronicle of the Animal, the People and the Politics” and creator of the blog, “Wolf Watch.” Wolves, Urbigkit reiterated, are a hot-button issue in Wyoming, ever since their controversial reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s. They have proliferated, so much so that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that there are now some 300 wolves in Wyoming, and 1,600 in the region. Time, and federal protection, has given the wolf the strength to survive – and the time has come to delist the wolf from the Endangered Species List. That would allow the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission to classify the wolf as a trophy game animal in northwest Wyoming, then manage their numbers as a predator outside the proposed hunting season of Oct. 15 to the end of February...more