Pendulum Swings in Wolf Management Led to Conflict, Illegal Kills, and a Legislated Wolf Hunt

Abstract

Rapid change in wildlife populations can challenge managers to promote species conservation while maintaining public support for wildlife. Wolf management during recolonization in Wisconsin, United States demonstrates the complexities of inconsistent management authority, public attitudes, and illegal killing of wolves. State management authority to control depredating wolves oscillated during a period of intense sociopolitical conflict over wolf status under the federal Endangered Species Act. We demonstrate that swings in wolf status led to inconsistent management authority, declining local public support for wolves, and possibly the unintended backlash of more illegal kills and a legislatively mandated public wolf hunt. A new Wildlife Management Matrix illustrates an idealized relationship between lethal control options and perceptions of wildlife. Moderating the sociopolitical drivers of swings in policy over short periods is essential to allow wildlife managers greater flexibility in achieving species-specific goals. To our knowledge, this research provides the first demonstrated link between illegal wildlife killing and management authority under the Endangered Species Act, and suggests that illegal behavior may be moderated with responsible and effective wildlife management programs. We recommend states avoid prescriptive harvest legislation, and we suggest a more incremental shift from federal to state management authority.

Where can wolves live and how can we live with them?

“…Attacks on humans by healthy, non-rabid wolves, despite earlier contrary claims when wolf populations were low (Mech, 1970), have been increasingly documented (Shahi, 1983;Linnell et al, 2002;McNay, 2002aMcNay, , 2002bButler et al, 2011;Behdarvand and Kaboli, 2015), although they are nowhere near as prevalent as some thought they would be (Geist, 2008).Still, wolves have chased bicyclists and motorcyclists (Associated Press, 2009a;Hopper, 2013), and in several areas, people have fed wolves, habituating them (Heilhecker et al, 2007) and ultimately promoting attacks (McNay, 2002a(McNay, , 2002b.Even close encounters foster the widespread and exaggerated perception (Linnell et al, 2003) that wolves are far more dangerous to humans than they are (Bjerke et al, 2001;Roskaft et al, 2007).Such issues feed public intolerance by folks living in or near wolf range.Thus, it can be expected that as wolf populations and distributions expand, so too will human conflicts and intolerances (Ruid et al, 2009;Olson et al, 2015aOlson et al, , 2015b.…”

“…Some reports imply that wolves could live in currently wolf-free areas because people there are more tolerant .However, this view overlooks the logic and findings that human attitudes change when confronted with wolves (Olson et al, 2015b) and that the closer humans live to wolves, the less tolerant they are (Williams et al, 2002;Karlsson and Sjostrom, 2007).It also ignores the fact that in some areas with only lone dispersers, human intolerance is so great that it has prevented or retarded wolf recolonization.…”

Can we save large carnivores without losing large carnivore science?

“…Ecological evidence alone is insufficient to make decisions, which must also account for the ethical, cultural and socio-political factors that shape decision making in society (e.g. Van Ballenberghe, 2006;Mech, 2010;Trouwborst, 2010;Fleming et al, 2014;Olson et al, 2015;Trouwborst, 2015;Marshall et al, 2016;Lewis et al, 2017). We hope that the issues we raise here prompt deeper consideration of actual evidence, leading to an improvement in both the rigour and communication of large carnivore science, because the fates of many large carnivores and the integrity of associated ecological processes are depending on it.…”

Time series analysis reveals synchrony and asynchrony between conflict management effort and increasing large grazing bird populations in northern Europe

“…In highlighting this variation, we provide valuable insights into potential indicators of social conflicts involving wildlife conservation and agricultural activities. Indeed, perceived randomness and inconsistent changes in management effort relative to wildlife impacts in the short and long terms have been shown to influence the level of trust stakeholders place on the decision‐making process (Young et al., ), as well as their overall responsiveness to policy change (Olson et al., ). Overall, our study highlights a need for more timely responses of management to changes in species counts so as not to unexpectedly influence social conflicts resulting from wildlife impacts (Redpath et al., , Tuvendal & Elmberg, ; Young et al., ).…”