
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 4, 1992                   TAG: 9203040283
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOHN KELL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PRESERVING WOLVES, ENDANGERING RANCHERS

IF YOU broke your leg in a tumble from a hammock, your pain and inconvenience would probably not be any less if you learned that few people break their legs this way. Whether a broken leg is a major event depends on your perspective: Do you look at how it affects the individual or how it affects the collective?

Public policies also can be examined from these perspectives. For example, many environmentalists want wolves to be reintroduced to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, which are within the animal's historical range. Many ranchers oppose the idea because they fear that wolves will kill their livestock. Some environmentalists counter with the argument that wolves will kill less than 1 percent of the livestock in the affected area.

Environmentalists are thinking of the industry as a whole and not of individual ranchers. The rancher, on the other hand, is thinking about his particular herd and income.

Is there any way these groups can come to view the problem from a common ground? What if environmentalists tried to understand how wolves affect individual ranchers, and offered to compensate those who lose animals to wolves?

Such a solution is being used by Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental group trying to reduce opposition to the reintroduction of wolves in Montana. The group has raised a $100,000 compensation fund, and has paid $11,000 in compensation since 1987 to check the spread of an anti-wolf mentality.

Defenders of Wildlife hopes the fund will be enough to run the program for 10 years. By that time, the group hopes the wolf population will be large enough so the species can be removed from endangered status; shooting of problem wolves by animal control officers would then be permitted.

Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy and Trout Unlimited have been buying habitat for years. But only recently have environmental organizations assumed financial responsibility for the actions of wild animals.

Like an insurance company, Defenders of Wildlife doesn't want to pay out more than it must, so it is educating ranchers to reduce the risks of losing livestock. It even bought a guard dog for one rancher who had lost cattle.

Environmentalists in other parts of the country are considering similar compensation programs. In the American Southwest, there are plans to restore the Mexican wolf. Conservationists have formed several coalitions and are trying to win public support for the reintroduction. Terry Johnson of the Arizona Game and Fish Department says: "A compensation fund is crucial to Mexican wolf reintroduction. Without it there is no hope for support or even neutrality from the ranching community."

Wolves seem to generate more animosity than the other large predators - grizzlies, mountain lions, and black bears - that run wild in Montana. The reintroduction of wolves is still opposed by many, and their future in Yellowstone is uncertain.

One thing is certain. Environmentalists who are willing to bear the costs of their actions are a species worth preserving.

John Kell is a biologist and writer living in Blacksburg. This is from the March 1992 issue of The Freeman magazine, published by The Foundation for Economic Education.

920304 KELL STORY WOLVES TOPIC SPECIES KEYWORD DESK AUTHOR:RICHERT03/04/92 oped column (kell) for tues march 3, htk wolves: headline byline author

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