Wolves Are Not the Dangerous Predators; Humans Are

If you want an example of essentially all that's wrong with the way humans think of, talk about, and interact with their fellow animals, do I ever have an editorial for you. The publisher, editorial board, or some unnamed journalist from an Oregon newspaper (the byline is vague) yesterday published this doozy: "Give Ranchers Right to Kill Problem Wolves."

Early on in the editorial, the authors set up wolves as the indisputable bad guys. First we learn that wolves in one general area killed twenty-something sheep total in April and August incidents, and thus those wolves were deemed "rogue" and were tracked and killed by the trusty U.S. Wildlife Services. This, it is argued, was justifiable because the wolves clearly intended to cause the ranchers trouble: "Since the wolves were bent on mayhem, and since efforts to relocate them did not work, it’s right that they were killed."

Bent on mayhem? Seriously? I mean, seriously? It gets better:

But this is not the end of the story. Decades and decades of wolf vs. human conflict lie ahead. The two species never have and never will be able to peacefully co-exist, not totally anyway.

Let's be clear. The "rogue," "bent on mayhem" wolves aren't creating conflict with humans. They aren't villains refusing to peacefully coexist with us. We are creating conflict with them. We are the ones hell-bent on unnecessary violence. Wolves aren't maniacally breaking down humans' doors and eating their babies. They are doing what they have always done, what they are designed to do, and what they must do to survive in their own world. They are hunting, in their habitat that we have invaded and populated with domesticated, penned-in species. We created and continue to create these situations. We could choose to coexist. But we refuse to acknowledge that it is our insistence on killing -- on commodifying and killing one set of (domesticated) animals, in this case, sheep -- and on looking at all nonhuman animals as less important or worthy-of-life than us that guarantees the continuation of the cycle.

And what is more rogue and less justifiable? Nonhuman animals killing other animals out of instinct and for survival? Or human animals bringing animals into existence so that we can kill them unnecessarily, while also killing all other animals who dare to get in our way of killing the original bred-to-die animals?

The article's authors go on to whine about how unfair it is that "people in the livestock industry" should have to jump "through an endless series of hoops" just because wolf populations need to be reestablished -- they shouldn't have to suffer the inconvenience of permits and laws when they want to gun down wolves "to protect their own private property" (again, not to truly protect their real property or their families, but to protect their chance to kill their own victims themselves). They shouldn't have to "move stock closer to home, build double pens and electric fencing, install alarm systems, deploy guard dogs, and hang flags from fences"; they should be able to shoot first and explain later.

The whining continues even while the article concedes that Defenders of Wildlife has consistently reimbursed ranchers for the "value" of the sheep killed by wolves. That's not good enough, the trigger-happy ranching enthusiasts insist.

It is questionable whether Jacobs or other ranchers should be put through so much inconvenience and stress just to defend and keep what is theirs. On their own land, they should be able to take quick and decisive action against predators, even wolves.

"What is theirs." Such a short phrase says so much. Everything that -- and everyone whom -- we humans decide is ours simply is ours. If we see something or someone, and we want to possess and take that life, we do; it is ours because we say so. We take "ownership" of billions of fellow animals and of inexcusably vast tracts of land and scream in an indignant, childish, collective voice, "Mine!" And we mercilessly kill any other animals who dare think they have a right to live and eat as well, to live on the land that was theirs before it was ours, to merely survive. By destroying their habitat and controlling (and refusing them) access to food, by poisoning them, by shooting them, by whatever means, we kill them. And we call mass, indiscriminate killing our duty, our right. We have a right to kill. But no one else has the right even to live. Show me another "rogue" species that does this.

The most dangerous predators on this planet are not wolves or coyotes or sharks or lions or bears. The world's most dangerous, most violent, most mayhem-inducing predators are humans, by and far.

The species killing 10 billion domesticated animals each year in the United States, 50-some billion across the world, so that they can eat the flesh and secretions and wear the dead skins of their victims, not for survival but for selfish convenience and pleasure, isn't wolves.

Show me another species that has waged outright war on this planet -- against ecosystems and against all the planet's other animals. And then tell me a species other than our own is the planet's rogue predator.

The editorial concludes,

Wolves may have some rightful and useful place in the wilderness, but they have no business raiding stock pens and killing sheep for the fun of it.

Right. Killing for pleasure is humans' job.

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Photo of Idaho sheep by Flickr user brew ha ha