Wolves

First Settlers reported wolves on the Olympic Peninsula. When agriculture began, wolves killed livestock and threatened humans, so they killed them off by offering a bounty. The last bounty was paid about 1930. Whether this was the last wolf is a question. Some inhabitants claim the wolves are still here. Some have wolf prints to prove it. If there are wolves still on the peninsula, they are secretive and shy, probably because those were the characteristics that allowed them to elude the bounty hunters and they have passed those genes on to their progeny.

Enter: Defenders of Wolflife

Radical enviros in and out of the NPS are determined to import aggressive Canadian wolves and release
them on the peninsula. The reason given is that predators are needed to cull out the deer and elk populations.
State F&W people (and simple observation) assure us that the deer and elk populations have dramatically
decreased in the past few years without the help of imported wolves. Wolf mania is driven by a group
called "The Defenders of Wildlife". It would be more appropriate to call them "Defenders of Wolflife"
because wolves (and Grizzly Bears) seems to be about the only Northwest wildlife they care about. The
policy guru for the organization is none other than Reed Noss, Who, with Dave Foreman (of Earth First fame)
authored "The Wild Lands Plan" - a plan to "move us back to October 1492", (eliminating 500 years of
progress) turning up to half of the US into a huge wildlife preserve. (Before you laugh, see " Wildlands.org")

Media Hype

The DoW are pros at manipulating the news media, while the president is an old college chum and political
ally of Congressman Norm Dicks.. Dicks has never exhibited much love for his Olympic Peninsula
constituents anyway (especially since he lost Clallam County in 1994 to a political unknown) and supports
DoW's plan to set their dogs on us. In 1997, the DoW held a pep rally for wolves at the Olympic Park
Institute. Their media connections are so good that the affair was covered by all three Seattle TV stations
and both daily newspapers, as well as a number of other radio and print media representatives. When a
citizen's group organized a real wildlife conference in Port Angeles in September of that year, which was
a serious attempt to get at facts, the media stayed away, in spite of the fact that we had state F&W
representatives, professors from two Washington State universities, as well as representatives of the NPS,
Fund for the Animals and the DoW. Their motto::" Never mind the facts, we want sensation"..

Wolf Kills

We regularly receive reports coming out of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming of wolf depredations on
livestock (cows, sheep and horses) as well as dogs (both large guard dogs and small household pets.
  (See wolf report  
Some of this information comes from the wolf lovers internet list - other comes from newspapers and  
reports by stockmen. There have been attacks on humans in recent years, despite DoW's claims to  
the contrary. When wolf populations mature in areas around Yellowstone where wolves have been  
planted in recent years, and are now carefully watched and protected by the USF&WS, we will see  
an increase in attacks on livestock and perhaps humans (There are already reports they have decimated  
the elk populations in that area) 

When their population gets larger, natural prey such as deer and elk will become less plentiful  and people
will find that a hungry wolf is much harder to deal with than one that is well fed. Of course there will be
nothing people can do at that point. There have already been cases of law-abiding citizens being threatened
by Federal officers who are protecting the wolves.

They Will Be Back

People of the peninsula have overwhelmingly expressed their antipathy to having wolves in their
backyards, in every meeting, poll or whatever. Moreover, studies have shown clearly that we do
not have a surplus of deer and elk on the peninsula, but rather their numbers are diminishing.
Weekly reports from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming (from the wolfers own internet list) show
increasing loss of cattle to the wolves recently imported to those area. In the face of all that,
wolf mania has diminished somewhat, but DofW has not given up their goal.

Most rural residents of the Olympic Peninsula are aware that there are cougars all around us. Some
of us are aware because of lost pets or livestock. Some of us from personal confrontations with the
critters. About the only creatures cougars fear are canine. The DoW's resident representative insists
that wolves will help eliminate cougars because of feline fear of canines. He further insists that when
spooked by wolves, cougars will run uphill and thus starve in the Olympic Mountains. My personal
observation is that cougars are perhaps the most intelligent of wild beasts and when pursued by dogs,
they run a crisscross pattern which confuses the dogs and makes it impossible for them to track the
cougar. If wolves drive them out of the park, it is much more likely they will run to where there is food
and shelter - the populated portion of the peninsula, rather than climbing the heights of the mountains
after mountain goats. The DoW insist I am wrong in this, but can't cite any evidence.

Wolves and People

Norm Dicks says he wants wolves on the peninsula so he can go up in the park and howl with
them and the DoW insists they are not a threat to humans. In fact they go so far as to imply that
wolves have never attacked humans. Try telling that to people in India where wolves account for
a number of deaths every year. Or try telling that to the family of Tricia Wyman, a young woman
who was killed and partially eaten at a 17 acre wolf sanctuary near Toronto, Canada in 1996,
or to the parents of a boy who was pulled out of his sleeping bag and severely lacerated by a wolf
while camped out in a Canadian park (Reader's digest) Wolf attacks on humans are rare in North
America because people who live in wolf country normally go armed and generally kill or scare
the wolves away before they can attack. However, there have been recent wolf attacks in Alaska,
wolf packs have been known to take down grizzly bears. They are indeed dangerous.

If Canadian Wolves are loosed on the Olympic Peninsula, it will be a no-turning-back situation.
They will be protected by police power of  federal agencies (USF&WS and NPS)) and residents
will not be allowed to kill them. They will settle in to the ONP and will become permanent residents.

Does the Olympic Peninsula really need more predators? - two legged or four legged?

What do you think?

or USPS mail: NOBB, 356 Lawrence Rd., Port Angeles, WA 98363