As Wolf Management Debate Reaches a Fever Pitch
the Interior Department Hires a National Mediator
America’s heated conversation over wolf management has turned into a screaming match in recent weeks. Death threats from wildlife activists poured into Wyoming last week after news broke that a resident captured a live wolf in February and paraded it around a bar before dispatching it. In Colorado, pissed-off landowners are withdrawing their cooperation with Parks and Wildlife after a second calf was killed by recently reintroduced wolves. The latest round of virtual discussions is today and tomorrow.
Wolf advocates are not especially happy with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s announcement last month that it was not reimposing federal protections on wolves in the Northern Rockies, claiming the decision “failed not just the wolves of the Northern Rockies, but wildlife and wild lands at large.”
Meanwhile, the venue where most wolf management decisions are taking place is a courtroom as litigation defines the terms of the national debate over where wolves should be allowed to roam and whether we should have more wolves or fewer wolves.
That impasse was articulated by FWS in early February when it declined to restore federal protection to wolves in the Rockies and western U.S.
“Debate over the management of wolves has included more than two decades of legislation, litigation and rulemaking,” FWS noted in a news release. “Wolf recovery to date has been construed around specific legal questions or science-driven exercises about predicted wolf population status. Courts have invalidated five out of six rules finalized by the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife] Service on gray wolf status, citing at least in part a failure to consider how delisting any particular population of gray wolves affects their status and recovery nationwide.”
In order to elevate the discussion beyond the state legislatures and federal courtrooms, and to forge durable management solutions for wolves, FWS in February announced its intention to develop a first-ever nationwide gray wolf recovery plan by December 2025.
Cody Roberts brought a wolf he had injured into the Green River bar in Wyoming before finally killing the animal. The incident sparked national outrage after Roberts was fined only $250 for illegally possessing a live wolf.
Wyoming Game and Fish
That recovery plan will be informed by a new and controversial process designed to collect a wide range of opinions and facilitate a national discussion on wolves and wolf management. That discussion is very intentionally designed to not take place in a courtroom.
“These discussions, led by a third-party convener, will help inform the Service’s policies and future rulemaking about wolves, and include those who live with wolves and those who do not but want to know they have a place on the landscape,” according to FWS.
That convener is Francine Madden, principal of a firm called Constructive Conflict which specializes in “engaging constructively with social conflict, so communities, cultures and conservation thrive.”
Madden has worked around the world on resolving intractable natural resource conflicts. A Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda, Madden returned to that country to resolve impasses around rural community interactions with mountain gorillas, and her work has taken her to the Galapagos Islands, where she worked on resolving contentious invasive species issues. Her previous work on wolves was in Washington State, where she quarterbacked a process in which hard-core environmentalists and ranchers agreed not only on a middle way regarding wolf management but also adjacent issues like grizzly bear delisting and tribes’ role in species conservation.
Madden’s firm has won a $3.2 million contract to design and guide what the FWS describes as a “national discussion around gray wolves.” The process is formally being called the “National Dialogue Around Working Landscapes and Gray Wolves and Thriving Communities and Cultures.” Creative Conflict’s website devoted to the wolf conversation will go live next Monday, April 23, at www.peoplesprocess.com.
“The Service believes that the conversation is best led by an outside party and not by the Service,” FWS noted in a news release. “Understanding that a fair, inclusive, and balanced public engagement requires a neutral and widely trusted convener to design and guide the process… the Service intends to participate as one among equals with citizens, Tribes, states, environmental groups, livestock producers, hunters and other contributors in this national dialog. Ms. Madden’s team will work with people from all sides to convene and guide the conversation. This effort will help inform the Service’s policies and future rulemaking about wolves.”
The wolf mediation plan got immediate blowback from influential critics: the ranking members of the House Natural Resources Committee. In a February letter to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Republican committee members wrote that “The timing of this announcement and the lack of clarity about what this dialogue intends to achieve leave the Committee with more questions than answers. Given recent congressional action related to the listing status of the gray wolf and the significant impacts of any executive action on that status, significant Congressional oversight is necessary.”
Committee members further noted that there’s little ambiguity about the listing status of wolves.
“The facts are clear… the species is recovered, should be delisted, and management should be returned to the states.”
In a formal request for all documents relating to Madden’s multi-million-dollar contract and her marching orders, the committee cautioned that, using the “vague parameters of the Service’s proposal, the Service could begin to dictate to states what their management approaches should be. Perhaps more concerning, they could utilize this proposal as a proxy to relist wolves in the Northern Rockies without the support of the impacted States.”
Madden’s contract extends through September 2026, which indicates that Constructive Conflict’s work will be used to develop FWS’s national wolf recovery plan. With so much noise in the air when it comes to wolves, from actual conflicts on the ground to threats of lawsuits and legislative interventions, Outdoor Life sat down with Madden to discuss her background in conflict resolution, how a national conversation might create a durable future for wolves, and how readers can get involved in the discussion. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q&A with Francine Madden
Outdoor Life: This isn’t your first work on wolf-related conflict resolution. You worked in Washington State for several years as that state’s Wolf Advisory Committee developed rules around what at the time was a recently restored and growing wolf population. How does that experience inform the national-level conversation?
Francine Madden: I’d say there are a number of parallels between what’s happening nationally with wolves and what was happening in Washington a decade ago. The specific case in Washington was how to move forward on wolf management when some people were saying there could be absolutely zero lethal removal of wolves, and other people saying that lethal removal was the only management choice. Also similar is the perception of wolves as the trigger point for a broad array of other issues. The approach we used, which is similar to work we’ve done in Africa and the Galapagos Islands where there’s intensity around natural-resource issues, is to listen and to make sure that all points of views are heard and understood.
Source:
https://muddycountryradio.com/as-wolf-management-debate-reaches-a-fever-pitch-the-interior-department-hires-a-national-mediator/
April 15, 2024 - Blog
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