#gray wolves

So, here's the thing: ranching in the United States was developed in part by exterminating any large animals that could pose a threat to cattle and other livestock, whether through predation or competition for food. That includes wolves, bears, cougars, bison, etc. While it's likely there was someone along the line who tried to coexist with these wild animals while raising livestock, the prevailing solution was to kill "nuisance" species, whether by shooting, trapping, or poisoning them en masse. These animals were wiped out from much of their native range in the lower 48 states by the early 20th century, and their more recent return represents a reckoning with the way we have used and abused the land since.

Now that we have more understanding of the ecological importance of every native species that exists in an ecosystem, there's no excuse to keep defaulting to killing wolves and other predators. Conservationists have offered ranchers a wide variety of solutions to protect their stock, from wolf-proof fences and hazing protocols to livestock guardian dogs. Ranchers can request financial compensation in many Western states for wolf-killed livestock and other losses, though not every rancher wants to differentiate between a cow killed by wolves, and one that died of other causes but was scavenged by wolves postmortem. And, unsurprisingly, some ranchers file fraudulent claims to game the system.

But there also remains the attitude that ranchers should be able to let their cattle run wherever they want on private or public land, and not have to monitor them or create adequate barriers against predators. The entitlement they feel to enormous areas of land, to include public lands that are supposed to be for everyone's use, has its roots in the assumption that "taming the land" for economic profit is more important than any other use. They want any potential threat to be preemptively removed for their convenience, no matter the ecological cost--or human cost, for that matter. Don't forget that every ranch in the West was once the homeland of indigenous people who were, more often than not, forcibly and violently removed so the ranchers' predecessors could move in with their livestock.

As there is going to be ALOT it will all be under!

CW: meat

silly grey wolf requested by 🌿🐾 anon !