The War on Predators
Part I: Felids
In 2015 I was hiking in the Siskiyou mountains of southern Oregon in early January. It was a gloriously sunny day, the light reflecting off the two feet of pristine snow that my dog and I were tromping through. We were the first to brave this trail since the snowfall, and our footprints were the only blemishes on the untouched blanket of white. As we were the only car at the trailhead, my dog was off leash, lolloping ahead of me and happily sniffing out rabbits under the drifts. I was toying with the idea of wildlife photography as a career choice at that point in my life and had my expensive camera with me. I was snapping away, focused on my dog’s antics, when the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
There was no sound to alert me; no smell or shadow falling across the sunbeams. But something made me look up and ahead of me down the snowy trail. A massive adult male cougar, at least 130 pounds, stood about forty feet in front of me, his eyes locked on mine. Absolute power radiated from him. I could see his well-muscled shoulders twitching slightly as we both froze, taking each other in. He was framed in the center of the trail, snow-covered Ponderosa pines on either side of him, a perfect photo. I had my camera in my hands, but I didn’t move. I could hardly breathe. My dog, completely oblivious with his nose in a snowbank, was perhaps 15 feet from the cat. The cougar’s eyes flicked towards him, and I hurled myself forward through the snow towards my dog, desperate to pull him away from the predator. As soon as I moved, the cougar ghosted away through the trees. After clipping the leash on my blissfully unaware dog, I cautiously ventured over to where the cougar had been. His pawprints were perfectly preserved in the snow, the size of an adult’s spread hand. I was awestruck- how incredible to have glimpsed such a shadowy predator- and a bit shaken. I had seen something that not everyone gets to see; a ghost passing by.
Predators once ruled North America, providing ecosystem services which kept our wild lands healthy. They cleaned up carrion, effectively controlling disease transmission. They kept rodent populations in check, increasing biodiversity in their habitats. They removed sick and deformed animals from the gene pool of prey species, contributing to healthier populations. Their presence was wide-spread and their impact on our ecosystems cannot be overstated. Cougars have been roaming the Americas from the Yukon to the Andes for close to 400,000 years, once sharing their territories with mammoths, giant sloths, and dire wolves. It has only been the presence of man that has reduced the range of this prolific big cat.
When we modern-day Americans think of any large predators, we picture them mainly in the mountains and deep forests in the far-flung corners of wilderness areas. However, cougars, wolves, and grizzly bears were all originally plains species, feeding on the populations of bison, antelope, elk, and deer which migrated en masse across the great plains. These predators only moved to the deep forest and high mountains as their natural habitat was destroyed and replaced by cities and farmland. Predators are, for all intents and purposes, refugees from the relentless spread of humanity. The entirety of the eastern populations of cougars are now extinct, save from an isolated subpopulation of Florida panthers, listed as endangered and deeply threatened by the highways and heavy traffic in the state which fragment their habitat.
In 1990, the state of Texas reported with outrage that 86 calves and 448 sheep had been killed that year by cougars, which calculates to a loss of 0.0006% of the 13.4 million cattle grazing in the big sky country and 0.02% of the 2 million sheep. In fact, a recent study found that cattle make up only two percent of any given Texan cougar’s diet. Despite these minuscule losses, Texas has never had a closed season on mountain lions. Since the first settlers moved into the territory, it has been open season for both trapping and shooting these keystone predators.
While the cougars are persecuted, they have survived on the edges of populated areas, skirting around Los Angeles and crossing highways in Florida at night. Another big cat species that once called the contiguous United States home, however, has been almost entirely eliminated; the jaguar. Pioneer accounts mention sighting jaguars (also called “tygers”) as far north as the Monterey peninsula of central California in 1814 and 1826 and the state of Colorado in 1843. A 1544 map even places them in Ohio and Pennsylvania. As settlers, ranchers, and the federal government hunted and trapped the solitary cats their population was forced further and further south, until the only population of jaguars in the country was found on the border of Arizona. By the 1960s it was assumed that jaguars were extinct in the United States, only for surprise sightings to reignite enthusiasm for the species. In 2010 they were declared a United States federally endangered species, and the Obama administration set aside land for their recovery. Unfortunately the border wall effectively destroyed any progress made by cutting directly through jaguar territory, further fragmenting their populations. In 1928, Aldo Leopold wrote about his travels in jaguar territory in the southwest, and mourned the loss of the species;
“We saw neither hide nor hair of him, but his personality pervaded the wilderness; no living beast forgot his potential presence, for the price of unwariness was death. No deer rounded a bush, or stopped to nibble pods under a mesquite tree, without a preliminary sniff for el tigre. No campfire died without talk of him. No dog curled up for the night, save at his master’s feet: he needed no telling that the king of cats still ruled the nights; that those massive paws could fell an ox, those jaws shear off bones like a guillotine. By this time the Delta has probably been made safe for cows, and forever dull for adventuring hunters. Freedom from fear has arrived, but a glory has departed from the green lagoons.”
Part II: Ursids
When Lewis and Clark explored western North America, the grizzly bear was found from Alaska to Mexico, and as far east as the Dakotas. Prior to the 1850s, the grizzly population in the lower 48 states hovered somewhere between 50,000 and 100,00 individuals. As of 2022, there were 1,500 left.
As settlers moved west across the great plains, their contact with grizzly bears increased, to the detriment of the bears. For settlers, grizzlies represented not just a possible threat to livestock, but potential competition for crops and forgeable food like fish and berries. They were also considered a sport- the cruel enterprise of “bear baiting” flourished in the old Southwest before grizzlies were ousted from their range there. Spanish cowboys in the region were known to run down the powerful bears on horseback, lasso them by all four legs, and drag them back to town, where they were tied to posts in public squares to be tormented by locals. Grizzlies have endured a perfect storm of population-limiting factors beyond just hunting and sport. Smaller black bears have adapted to urban environments, requiring less space- and food- to survive. Grizzlies, however, not only need more resources, but have one of the lowest reproductive rates of any North American land mammal. In just 100 years, grizzly bears were eliminated from 98 percent of their original range in the lower 48 states. In modern times, grizzlies are found in only five populations in the contiguous United States, and most of those numbers are in the Upper Green River Basin of Wyoming. Also known as the “Serengeti of the Yellowstone”, this ecological hotspot is protected, and attracts massive numbers of prey species. Grizzlies are drawn to the safety of the wilderness, but unable to perceive boundary lines, often stray across the border of the safe zone into livestock grazing areas both in and around Yellowstone National Park.
Grizzlies are not carnivores but opportunistic omnivores. Studies have found that in Washington and Idaho, less than 10% of their diet is fish or meat. One large source of food for the bears is whitebark pine trees- or it used to be. With the surge of bark beetles brought about by climate change, this source is rapidly dwindling. So too are the cutthroat trout that the bears once hunted. Desperate and starving, grizzly conflicts with ranchers in the Green River Basin have exploded, leading to the deaths of many bears. In 2017, ranchers successfully lobbied for the Yellowstone grizzly to be delisted from the Endangered Species list, which the entire species had been on since 1975, declaring the species locally recovered. For a population to be considered genetically viable and stable, a minimum of 2,500 individuals needs to be reached. The Yellowstone grizzly population remains around 650 to 750 bears and is isolated from other populations. After a massive legal battle, the Yellowstone grizzlies were relisted in 2019. The conflicts with ranchers in the area rage on, and the flames are fanned by poor regulation. Certain ranchers even allegedly engage in a new form of “bear baiting”; leaving sick calves untended where bears will find them so the state of Wyoming will pay fair market value for the loss- more than the rancher would have gotten for a sick calf. Hungry grizzlies also interact more with campers and homeowners around the park boundaries in their search for food, creating dangerous conflicts with visitors and locals. Surrounded by ranches and thousands of miles away from any other grizzly populations, the Yellowstone bears are caught in an ecological sink, and they will continue to circle the drain until something changes.
Part III: Canids
No North American animal is as controversial as the wolf. From the remnant gray wolves in the northwest to the fragmented populations of red wolves in the south, wolves have clawed their way back from the brink of total extinction to exist in tentative populations on the outskirts of human developments. Rarely seen, aloof and cautious, wolves slink through the shadows of their habitat now, but once thrived across the continent. The spectacular relationships between predators and prey that we tune in to see in Africa’s Serengeti plains on nature documentaries once also played out here in North America’s plains. Cougars stalked mule deer across the tallgrass prairie. Packs of wolves hunted vast herds of pronghorn and bison on the multi-colored grasslands. But settlers depleted prey populations. Predators prefer deer or elk, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and wolves were forced to turn to livestock as a source of food. To prevent livestock losses, ranchers and government agencies began an eradication campaign, with wolves in the crosshairs as public enemy number one. The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service created the Wildlife Services Agency as a federal predator control entity in 1895. Bounty programs initiated in the 19th century continued as late as 1965, offering $20 to $50 per wolf. In 1969 zoologist and naturalist Robert McClung described the bounty programs as “…mere trapper subsidies, prone to many different types of fraud and double collecting, and with little or no discernible benefit in terms of either wildlife balance or agriculture.” Wolves once roamed across all of central and western North America. Before colonists expanded into the country the wolf population was estimated at as many as two million individuals. By 1965 just 500 wolves remained in the contiguous United States.
Having successfully eliminated their preferred nemesis, the cattlemen, hunters, and federal government turned their elimination campaign on the increasingly visible coyote. At this point you might be thinking, hang on, you can’t tell me the government eliminated coyotes, too. After all, there are plenty of coyotes out there in modern times. Perhaps you have some in your own residential neighborhood. And it’s true; the federal elimination campaign against the coyote was an utter failure. In fact, in trying to wipe the coyote from the face of the country the government ended up increasing their numbers, due to some unique characteristics of the species. Wolves and coyotes were natural competitors, and the larger wolves kept coyote territories in check. With no wolves to compete with, the coyote expanded across North America, popping up in habitats and states it had never before been seen in, where ranchers responded by implementing the same bounty and poisoning campaigns they used against wolves. They soon found the coyote to be an altogether more challenging adversary.
Coyote populations have a complex family structure. Culling coyotes throws this structure into chaos and increases the number of alpha pairs; the only pair that usually reproduces. The death of the alpha pair means that other pairs begin vying for the top position, and all begin to reproduce. According to the Humane Society of the United States, a sudden population loss can also lower the breeding age and increase the litter size of the population to combat the sudden drop in numbers, as well as increase the immigration rate of coyotes from other nearby populations. Research has also suggested that when aggressively killed, coyotes respond by increasing their overall rate of breeding; clever coyotes are built to survive. These facts have not stopped the federal government’s killing campaign against the coyote, however. In 2016, the Wildlife Services Agency killed 76,963 coyotes. Of these deaths, 16 percent were attributed to M-44s; sodium cyanide bombs baited to attract predators. M-44s are a “safer” version of an original spring-loaded cyanide device called the Coyote Getter, which was used from the 1930s to the 1960s, and had the unfortunate side-effects of killing hikers and their pets. The improved M-44s still kill indiscriminately by releasing a cloud of sodium cyanide when triggered, which mixes with the victim’s saliva to kill them quickly. In the summer of 2017, organizations WildEarth Guardians and the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit the use of sodium cyanide devices. More than 20,000 public letters supported the cause. The EPA decided in 2019 to keep the devices, stating that ranches would incur higher losses without them.
What exactly are the ranch losses? In the modern era, how many livestock deaths can be pinned on predators? Ranchers describe wolves and coyotes as methodical killers who lay siege upon domestic herds, destroying people’s livelihoods. The fact of the matter is that in the United States carnivores represent less than 0.5 percent of annual cattle and sheep deaths. Specific to cattle, predators account for just 2 percent of adult cattle deaths, and 11 percent of calf deaths on average. For the rare livestock animal killed by wolves, ranchers are compensated by the government for the cost of the animal killed. Ranchers grazing their livestock on public land often demand that predators be eliminated from the land- land which by all rights should give a priority to natural systems, not industry. Ranches that graze their animals on public land influence the natural predator dynamics in those habitats. Grazing is detrimental to the possibility of natural predator-prey interactions limiting prey animal populations in most areas. Livestock grazing directly affects predator numbers, because depredating individuals may be killed, and stock also may compete with native deer and elk species, thereby influencing predation patterns on native prey. Despite studies of USDA data reporting a “paradoxical relationship” between lethal control of predators and livestock fatalities, government predator control programs continue to target cougars and coyotes in the west, after already having virtually eliminated wolves and grizzly bears. A 2013 study found that the most important predictor of cougar/livestock conflict in a given year was heavy hunting of cougars the year before. So why do the hunts continue?
The complicit relation of government agencies and livestock interests has led to the direct destruction of nearly all predators on public lands, yet there are no current programs focused on predator reintroduction or population growth on public lands. In fact, it is business as usual for the war on predators in 2022. US Wildlife Services killed 1.75 million animals in 2021- roughly 200 an hour. Predator killing contests are still legal in 42 states. The Gray Wolf was protected under the Endangered Species Act until January 2021 when the Trump administration lifted the protections. However, even before the Trump administration, ranchers in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming- states where the Endangered Species Act protections for wolves were removed — had the right to shoot wolves on sight. Of the 6,000 wolves currently living in the contiguous United States, 1,000 were killed in 2020 alone.
Wolves create “hot spots” of nutrients in their habitats by leaving the carcasses of their prey, not just feeding scavengers and smaller predators, but adding nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus to the soil, benefiting plant communities and the surrounding ecosystem. Grizzly bears are important seed-distributors, increase species richness, and fix nitrogen in their environments. Cougars and wolves keep deer populations in check, an increasingly important role as climate change advances and earlier snowpack melt decreases the rate of natural prey death over the winter months. A perfect example of how predators affect an ecosystem as a whole can be seen in the tragic tale of Teddy Roosevelt and the Kaibab Plateau;
In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt designated the Kaibab Plateau on the northern rim of the Grand Canyon a Natural Game Preserve. Roosevelt’s main goal for the preserve was to protect a population of mule deer in the area- about 300 individuals when the protections were put into place. As part of his protections, a massive predator-control initiative took place over the first 13 years of the preserve’s life, killing a total of 674 mountain lions, 120 bobcats, 11 wolves, and 3,000 coyotes. In 1923 the Kaibab Plateau Natural Game Preserve was declared predator-free, and the population of mule deer ballooned from 300 to just shy of 100,000. Crowded by this massive burden of herbivores, the preserve became devoid of browse and grass, and the deer became weak from malnutrition. Diseases spread quickly through the overpopulated, weakened herd, and during the winters, mule deer died by the thousands, too sick to survive the snows. By the time the federal government called for a reinstatement of deer hunting to save the herd, the landscape was permanently damaged, The Kaibab Plateau’s carrying capacity was permanently lowered, and the government was said to have learned a lesson. As Aldo Leopold once wrote; “A mountain lives in mortal fear of its deer.”
Yet predator control campaigns remain a part of governmental land management to this day, even in the face of climate change. Research has found that the presence or absence of herbivores and carnivores has as large a quantifiable effect as fire, global warming, and carbon-level increase. Across the country, healthy predator populations will counteract climate-related population booms and save landscapes from overgrazing by creating balanced ecosystems.
But balanced ecosystems are not what the government wants. The Bureau of Land Management exists not to create healthy public lands, but to serve domestic livestock grazing interests. During interviews, Bureau of Land Management range managers- individuals tasked with the stewardship of our national public lands- expressed a belief “…that it was their job to advocate for the interests and values of the cattle ranching industry”. Grazing rights on public lands is an extremely misleading term- grazing on public lands is a privilege, one that disrupts the natural ecosystem services and uses public resources for private profit, to the detriment of the land. Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming, states with crucial habitat for all the species I’ve covered in this article, are home to 109 federal wildlife refuges. Cattle graze on 103 of them.
References
Robinson, M. J. (2005). Predatory bureaucracy : the extermination of wolves and the transformation of the West. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Coleman, Jon T. Vicious: Wolves and Men in America. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2004.
McClung, Robert M (1969). Lost Wild America. William Morrow and Company, NY:
In Milner, C. A., In O’Connor, C. A., & In Sandweiss, M. A. (1994). The Oxford history of the American West.
APHIS (2016). Program Data Reports. USDA APHIS | Program Data Reports
