Charisma is in the eye of the beholder

Will the wolf survive? It may depend on whether our love of awe and wonder can help us transcend our fears.

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. But do you know this guy?

That’s one of the coyotes that I’ve seen patrolling the other side of my backyard fence about 20 times since I moved into my Colorado home 2 ½ years ago. They more often make their presence known audibly. I hear them howling dozens of nights a year, presumably over a kill. My neighborhood hosts a veritable buffet for dining predators. Prairie dogs, rabbits and squirrels run amok — and those rodents would dominate the ecosystem without coyotes keeping their populations in check.

With their uncanny survival skills, coyotes have become ubiquitous in much of the United States. But if you look at any Nextdoor chat or neighborhood Facebook group, you know that many people, scared for the safety of their families and domesticated animals, want to eradicate the coyote populations nearby. This scenario has played out throughout history whenever people regularly have come face-to-face with predators such as bears, mountain lions, and wolves.

Face-to-face interactions with large animals are fairly common these days. In a society that promotes a “bigger is better” ethos, since World War II, people have migrated from cities to suburbs — and in recent years, to exurbs — in search of more land and larger homes. Often, “charismatic megafauna,” large animals that people love and respect, live on that previously pristine land. People may be in awe of charismatic megafauna, but they don’t want predators in their backyard — even if the freshly-seeded lawn was recently a natural habitat for wild animals.

The coyote’s majestic cousin, the gray wolf, provides a great case study. In an unscientific online poll by the website ranker.com, gray wolves were ranked as the most charismatic megafauna. Despite their charisma, people are afraid of “the big bad wolf,” so gray wolves may not be part of the circle of life much longer.

The Department of the Interior unexpectedly announced earlier this year that it intends to remove gray wolves from protection under the Endangered Species Act, which has successfully prevented the extinction of 99 percent of the listed species. Only about 5,500 wild gray wolves still live in the Lower 48 United States. The last native wolves in my home state were shot in the 1940s, according to the Colorado Sun, though at least one has wandered down from Wyoming in the past year.

In pioneer days, when large canines and great cats roamed vast swaths of the United States, people knew they were the interlopers. But in 2019, our urban sprawl has displaced traditional animal habitats, and lord have mercy on any charismatic megafauna that wanders where people live. When humans cross paths with larger animals in or near civilization, it can mean trouble — first for the unlucky person who stumbles upon say, a mountain lion, bear or moose, and then, often for the animal, who becomes subject to retaliation for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So why eliminate protections for gray wolves? Some people hunt wolves for sport and you can find guides who specialize in wolf hunts with a quick online search. However, government officials and/or ranchers have eradicated the majority of wolves to prevent them from eating livestock. They’ve used a variety of methods including trapping, shooting and poisoning them with “cyanide bombs.” Ironically, a 2018 study showed that those actions may be counterproductive. The authors wrote:

…killing predators is widely perceived to be effective… yet afterwards real and perceived risks appear to increase. The spill-over effect may be responsible. Our hypothesis builds on the idea first articulated by Haber that killing wolves can trigger pack disruption which might lead to more livestock predation than done by intact packs. If our inference about spill-over effects is confirmed, then we hypothesize that the perceived effectiveness of lethal methods stems from a few livestock owners who report preventive benefits, while neighboring livestock owners report increasing losses because of the spill-over effect from the former farms.

In other words, kill a few wolves in a pack that has a regular place to eat dinner, and then lone wolves will spread out and find a bunch of places to dine. The report authors note that guard dogs and fladry (a ring of flags or fabric strips that flap in the wind, affixed to a line surrounding livestock) can be effective non-lethal deterrents to wolves, at least temporarily. And as my colleagues at Environmental Action wrote, “where wolves thrive, entire ecosystems benefit.”

My 43-pound lab/hound mix is the same size as a large coyote and half the size of a gray wolf. I have to admit: I don’t want wildlife as big as — or bigger than — Bear jumping the 5-foot fence (I know they can) and getting any closer to her, my family or me. But I get an adrenaline rush every time Bear careens to the sliding back door. As she barks hysterically, inevitably, we simultaneously scan the overgrown adjacent property for a glimpse of her sleek canine relatives. That’s charisma.