[I’ll get a pup picture in here eventually, but it has to come from the big camera, here’s a filler: it’s a horizontal rainbow we saw on that ridge one of the first days we were up there. The other picture is Isaac, filming, and yes, that white stuff on the ground is in fact, snow…just a dusting, but snow. And yes, it really is late June]
We’ve managed to get sidetracked. This is our self-proclaimed final month for filming this project (we knew we’d have to put an end date on it or else we might go on filming forever… there’s always a little more to get, a little that we missed, a little that we could get better, and a lot that we never even saw). So in our minds we are getting a little antsy to get back out there one final time, to go back to the area where we began this whole adventure last year, and to check on the wolves there.
But while spending some time in town, we got wind of something that is going on right in our backyard, that has captured our attention. We feel this is too good of a story to let slide, simply to get back into the wilderness. This is something that we feel people should be aware of. I don’t want to get mired in politics in this blog, so here’s the short and skinny version:
There was a pack of wolves that lived on a nearby ridge, Blue Bunch Ridge. They happened to roam an area that is public land, and because this is Idaho, that means that land is also used to graze sheep and cattle. Occasionally, these wolves stray from their normal wild diet, and take down a sheep/lamb or cow/calf. How often this happens is another subject up for debate, which I am not going to get into here, but seems like perhaps the wolves get blamed for more depredations than they are actually responsible for… but that is all speculation. Our experience, from many years of watching wolves, is that they strongly favor wild food, even when domestic game is available. But again, those are simply my observations/opinions.
Anyway, so last fall these wolves apparently made a depredation (I don’t know the details, sheep, cow, one or multiple). Being that the area is heavy with non-wild grazers, Wildlife Services decided it was time to step in and take out the pack, probably with some pressure from the people who own those grazers. This is all fair and square, they are allowed to go in and kill offending wolves for up to 60 days after a depredation (they made the rules). Ok, now I’m feeling badly because I really don’t know the exact details, and I should have looked them up before trying to write this, but I’m hoping no one is reading this for the hard facts… I think Wildlife Services went in and shot some of the adult wolves in the pack at that time, but not all of them. Time passed and for whatever reason they didn’t get back to it until this spring. Yes, by now we are way beyond the 60-day rule. But they have made a promise to the grazers that they would get rid of the problem (the wolves), so they come out again sometime in April and shot the rest of the pack, except for the radio-collared alpha female. They figured that if any other wolves were in the area, they will join up with her, and then they can shoot more wolves by finding her. Trouble is, we’re now way beyond wolf breeding season, and yes, she is pregnant, and soon enough she goes to den and delivers seven pups.
Now Wildlife Services is in a real pickle, because not only have they made a promise they didn’t keep, and not only did they already have several chances to finish off the pack, which they didn’t take, and not only are they way way way beyond their own 60-day limit, and not only is it quite possible that this particular wolf never did any depredating herself, but now Isaac and I are up there on Blue Bunch Ridge watching and filming this female wolf who is working her tail off to feed seven hungry and boisterous little fluff ball pups, all on her own with no pack to help her hunt and feed. It seems an almost impossible feat. For us, it’s an ideal filming opportunity. It’s a good story: single female, seven pups, against all odds, being hunted by humans as well. And, she is away a lot, searching for food, so we have plenty of opportunities to film the playful pups without being found out by an adult.
Long story shorter: She is succeeding. She is somehow able to feed herself and her seven pups, which are doing extremely well and growing up healthy. But Wildlife Services is still after her, and now the pups too. One day we hear a low flying airplane, and see (and film) the plane circling and circling around the den area where the pups and female are currently. Luckily they all stay under trees, and therefore not visible to the plane, and therefore are not shot. But now we too, are in a pickle, because soon we get wind that Wildlife Services (soon after that day with the plane) where told by the big guys in D.C., not to go anywhere near the wolves while there are cameras (us) out there. Bad PR for them.
We hadn’t intended to be watch-dogs. We hadn’t intended to ‘save’ these wolves. And we’re not trying to kid ourselves that it will do any good anyhow, except maybe for these particular wolves, for a little while. In all reality, and as cruel as it sounds, it would be better if they did get shot (and we were able to film it, or enough to get the point across anyhow), so that the public could become aware of what was going on. Shooting a single female and seven very cute, very young pups would certainly look bad to the public, especially to those people in Kansas or New York who don’t have any ties to the land like the grazers do. This particular land belong to those people in New York City just as much as it does to the people who graze animals on it. My personal opinion is that if you choose to graze animals on public land (which by the way, is fairly destructive to the land) than you should have to face the facts that you are sharing that land with natural predators, like wolves, like bears, like mountain lions, and that depredations will happen on occasion, and that that is part of the risk of grazing on public land.
So for now the story sits. We film the wolves whenever we see them, which isn’t much these days because we are being really careful to not bother them, as we feel the female has enough work cut out for her simply with feeding the pups, and we don’t want her to find us, and then have to move the pups again and again. And Wildlife Services isn’t hunting for them, as long as we are filming. So for the moment they are ‘safe’. But that doesn’t do whole lot of good for the rest of wolves, for trying to keep people honest, and for the importance of rules. Because what good are rules if no one follows them?
Anyway, that was a rather poor telling of a situation much more complicated than I made it seem. Like I said, I don’t know all the details/facts, and I don’t intend to get political here. My apologies to those who know more, for all that I botched. This is just my skewed perception from my little corner.
No comments:
Post a Comment