Earth Matters: Myopians want a return to the days when shooting a wolf made you a hero

Nearly a century ago, in 1926, park rangers shot what were long thought to be the last gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park—a pair of pups. By the end of the 1940s, wolves had been extirpated from all the western states, and the only wolf packs left were in remote parts of northern Minnesota, although there were many scattered sightings of lone wolves elsewhere. This included Yellowstone, according to a study done 50 years after those pups were killed.

In 1978, five years after the Endangered Species Act was signed into law, the gray wolf was listed as endangered, which paved the way for the reintroduction of these apex predators to at least part of their ancestral territories in the contiguous United States. In 1994, after decades of efforts by ecologists and animal activists, wolves made their first human-assisted reentry into Idaho. The next year, 31 gray wolves from western Canada were relocated to Yellowstone. Since then, wolves have been reintroduced into Montana, Washington, Oregon, and, most recently, Colorado.

The howls heard over the return of this iconic species didn’t come from wolves and their celebrating admirers, but rather from farmers, ranchers, and other Westerners complaining about depredation of domestic livestock and wolf kills of “more desirable” species (for hunters) like elk and deer.

Consequently, over a decade, the gray wolf was delisted, relisted, partially delisted, relisted. Current status: “endangered” and protected in 44 states; “threatened” in Minnesota; and under state Jurisdiction in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and north-central Utah. State jurisdiction means no federal protections, and the record for stewardship in the states without them is decidedly mixed. Counting the animals is an art as well as a science, but estimates now put the population of gray wolves at somewhere around 6,000 in 10 states, including California, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

As the Helena, Montana-based journalist Jim Robbins notes at Yale360e, the backlash against the reintroduction—which began the minute the first wolf arrived in Idaho in 1994—continues today.

After the delisting, Montana and Idaho created wolf hunting seasons, but their initial, careful quotas have given way to widespread killing and much more liberal quotas spurred by anti-wolf sentiment. After maintaining a 10-year average population of about 1,000 wolves in Montana, last year hunters killed about a quarter of them. An individual hunter can take 20 wolves a year – 10 by trapping and 10 by shooting. In 2021, Montana’s governor, Greg Gianforte, made headlines after he hunted and killed a wolf wearing a tracking collar that had wandered out of Yellowstone National Park. [...]

Montana “is managing them more aggressively than they need to,” said [Ed Bangs, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist]. Bangs, who led the gray wolf recovery efforts in the 1990s, added, “That’s not the fish and game people, it’s the legislature doing that, somebody trying to prove they hate wolves more than the next guy.” [...]

There is also an increase in unethical behavior around wolves, environmentalists say. In Montana, wolves are legally trapped with neck snares placed on trails. A wolf wanders into the metal loop and slowly chokes to death. Sometimes, grizzly bears, dogs, or other nontarget animals are accidentally killed. In Wyoming, snowmobile riders chase down and run over coyotes and wolves in a pastime called “yote mashing.”

Two wolves released in Colorado in December 2023. — Two more wolves were released in Colorado in December 2023.

In Idaho, about 500 of the estimated 1,500 wolves in the state were killed last year, while in Montana, about a fourth of state’s estimated 1,000 wolves were killed. Yellowstone wolves are federally protected, and tribal management occurs on the Wind River Indian Reservation in west-central Wyoming. But the rest of the state is a “predator zone,” where wolves can be killed by any means any time of year. No bag limits apply, so trophy hunters and trappers can kill as many wolves as they can find. In that small part of the state near Yellowstone where seasonal hunting of wolves is managed, there is a limit and a license required, but most of Wyoming is a free fire zone for wolves.

Robbins cites Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, who said said the wolf population has to be large enough to fulfill its ecological role. “I have reasonable fears that their numbers would be so greatly diminished they would become functionally ecologically extinct,” he said. “Wolves have a role to play in nature. You have to have enough wolves on the ground in order for them to play that role.”

As unpleasant as it can be to lose livestock to depredation, there have long been programs to compensate ranchers for livestock verified to have been killed by wolves. Initially, starting even before reintroduction, Defenders of Wildlife provided the money. Now several states and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Wolf Livestock Loss Demonstration Project Grant Program handle it.

But that’s not good enough for many public officials and private interests in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, who would like their states’ wolf count to return to zero. But while they press for aggressive culling of wolf packs, the killings have yet to be enough to trigger a return of federal management. Thus, even though the science is not yet clear on how big a population of wolves is required to provide a natural balance, the killing will go on in spite of the fact that wolves are a blessing to the ecosystem. They generally take weak, diseased animals as prey, they tend to drive out coyotes who, because of their larger numbers, take far more domestic livestock than wolves, and they reduce the environmental damage from over-abundant numbers of elk, deer, and antelope, that abundance being partly a consequence of the wolves being extirpated in the first place.

Such considerations get nothing but a pfffffft from wolf-haters today anymore than they would have a century ago. There are obstacles in the way, and it’s no doubt hardly a high priority, but the wolves taking over the federal executive next month likely would if they could do away with the Endangered Species Act and the species like the gray wolf that it protects. In their view, after all, humans are the only worthy apex predator. We are damn good at it.

Robbins also reports that the backlash in the United States has a counterpart in Europe, where wolf populations have doubled since 1979 to more than 20,000 individuals now. In early December, the Council of Europe downgraded the wolf from “strictly protected” to “protected.” That means wolves that attack livestock can be killed. This change would offer “more flexibility in managing wolf populations,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, whose chestnut pony was killed at her farm by wolves in 2023. “[W]e need a balanced approach between the preservation of wildlife and the protection of our livelihoods,” she added.

Indeed, we do. Perhaps, someday, we will get one.

—Meteor Blades

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Montana Supreme Court rules in favor of climate activists

In a 6-1 decision, the Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday did what no state court has previously done, ruling in favor of young people who claimed the state violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” by giving permits to fossil fuel projects without considering the climate impacts. On behalf of 16 youth, the lawsuit in Held v. State of Montana was filed by Our Children’s Trust, which has sued over climate matters in all 50 states.

The decision affirmed a lower court’s ruling from August 2023 by District Court Judge Kathy Seeley, in which she stated: "Each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere exacerbates impacts to the climate. Plaintiffs' injuries will grow increasingly severe and irreversible without science-based actions to address climate change." By prohibiting the consideration of climate impacts with greenhouse gas emissions associated with project, the state’s environment is unconstitutionally degraded and children harmed.

Said Nate Bellinger, lead counsel to the plaintiffs: “This is a monumental moment for Montana, our youth, and the future of our planet. Today, the Montana Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutional rights of youth to a safe and livable climate, confirming that the future of our children cannot be sacrificed for fossil fuel interests. This is a victory for young people and for generations to come. The court said loud and clear: Montana's Constitution does not grant the state a free pass to ignore climate change because others fail to act--this landmark decision underscores the state's affirmative duty to lead by example.”

In a statement, Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte said the ruling would lead to “perpetual lawsuits that will waste taxpayer dollars and drive up energy bills for hardworking Montanans. This Court continues to step outside of its lane to tread on the right of the Legislature, the elected representatives of the people, to make policy. This decision does nothing more than declare open season on Montana’s all-of-the-above approach to energy, which is key to providing affordable and reliable energy to homes, schools, and businesses across our state.”

Every molecule of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases that is added to the atmospheric burden is warming the climate. In such a world, an “all of the above” energy approach that may have made sense in the days of Arab oil embargoes of the 1970s worsens the climate crisis we face now.

—Meteor Blades

ECOQUOTE

“Two things can both be true: Clean energy is breaking almost every record you can imagine. And oil use is going up, and gas use is going up, and coal use is going up.”—Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University

HALF A DOZEN OTHER THINGS TO READ (OR LISTEN TO)

The International Court of Justice, which has its seat in The Hague,
is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations — The International Court of Justice, which has its seat in The Hague, is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.

The International Court of Justice Takes On Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert at The New Yorker. Thanks to the maneuverings of Vanuatu, the entire industrialized world effectively went on trial this month in The Hague. The case, before the fifteen-member International Court of Justice, is about climate change. Do countries have a legal as well as a moral obligation to prevent a planetary disaster? And, if they violate those obligations, what should the consequences be? Roughly ninety countries submitted written testimony in the case, and a similar number sent representatives to the Netherlands to make oral arguments. The proceedings have been called “landmark,” “historic,” “momentous,” and a “watershed moment.” “I choose my words carefully when I say that this may well be the most consequential case in the history of humanity,” Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change and environment, told the court. “Let us not allow future generations to look back and wonder why the cause of their doom was condoned.” Courts all around the world look to the I.C.J.’s decisions for guidance, as do other international tribunals. “The I.C.J. proceedings could establish that addressing climate change is not just a matter of political will or voluntary pledges—it is a binding legal responsibility,” Grethel Aguilar, the director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a group also testifying in The Hague, said.

See also: This Indigenous attorney is fighting for climate justice in the world’s highest court (Grist—Anita Hofschneider) and ICJ climate justice proceedings must recognise links between climate and nature (Climate Home News—Grethel Aguilar) and Climate-vulnerable Nations Look to World's Top Court as COP29 Ends in Bitter Truce (Drilled—Isabella Kaminski) and International Court of Justice Hears Climate Pleas Ahead of Issuing an Advisory Opinion (Inside Climate News—Bob Berwyn)

Murder, mayhem, and minerals: The price of the renewable energy revolution by Jessica McKenzie at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It’s not as if the human and environmental toll of mining is a particularly well-kept secret. But the full extent of the damage from mining for the rare earth elements and other metals that go into electronic devices, electric vehicles, solar panels, and countless additional components of modern life can be hard to wrap one’s mind around—unless the mountain of evidence is laid out end-to-end, as in Vince Beiser’s new book Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future. The book begins with an overview of what Beiser calls “critical metals,” where they come from, and the history of their discovery and extraction, before moving on to the current state of mining and processing critical metals today. Demand for these substances has soared in the Information Age and is projected to keep climbing. (One factoid that stood out: “Just one Tesla Model S can contain as much lithium as ten thousand mobile phones.”) The environmental damage caused by the production of critical metals is continuing to mount—and could grow in unexpected ways if, for example, companies begin mining the sea floor. Still, humans need these substances, especially for the renewable energy technologies needed to stem climate change. There is no Cinderella-shoe solution. There are always trade-offs. As Beiser writes, “When it comes to mining, the choice is never between bad and good but only bad and less bad.”

Vernon “Buddy” Pocknett at Fishermen’s Landing, Popponesset Beach, Massachusetts

The Mashpee Wampanoag Work With a Cape Cod Town to Restore Their Fishing Grounds by Emma Glassman-Hughes at Civil Eats. Public access points along Massachusetts waters have thinned since the mid-20th century, but their disappearance has been especially pronounced here, in and around the town of Mashpee and the Popponessett Bay, in what was once Wampanoag territory. Meanwhile, overdevelopment has destroyed abundant wetland areas that shaped Wampanoag life for thousands of years, and water pollution threatens many aquatic species essential to the tribe’s survival. A lifelong aquaculturist and fisherman, Vernon “Buddy” Pocknett has recently begun work to restore access to traditional fishing grounds and the ecosystem that supports them. With help from the tribe’s Natural Resources Department, the town of Mashpee is compiling a harbor management plan, an extensive document that will set guidelines for the construction of marinas and docks. The plan will also address encroaching erosion and sea-level rise throughout this Massachusetts municipality. As part of the project, the town has invited Pocknett and a group of tribal elders to identify Indigenous pathways to the water, with the goal of eventually opening some of them back up for public use. It is a modest effort, a starting point to repair fraught relations, reconcile with the past, and strategize for the future. If the plan succeeds, it will help rebuild wetlands and traditional food sources for the tribe, once largely excluded from environmental decision-making.

LA tree enthusiast shares her love for the city’s canopy: ‘Something we took for granted’ by Victoria Namkung at The Guardian. As we walked past Chinese elm trees, coast live oaks and Brazilian pepper trees, Stephanie Carrie shared the history of the city’s celebrated palm trees with a rapt audience. Many of today’s trees, planted in the 1930s, are approaching the end of their lives – and while they have become symbols of the city, they also guzzle water, fueling calls to replace them with drought-resistant trees. “The most important thing about L.A. is our natural environment and our community, and the best way to provide for that community is different types of trees that will give back and protect us moving into the future,” said Carrie. She’s not a professional photographer or an arborist, but Carrie and her popular Instagram account, Trees of L.A. (@treesofla), help people identify some of the 700,000 street trees that make up the world’s most diverse urban forest. Offline, the New Zealand-born, southern California-raised creator hosts a variety of city tree tours that educate attendees about environmental sustainability, canopy inequality and the countless benefits of paying attention to the trees around us

How One Mayor Is Cooling Off America’s Hottest City by staff members at Streetsblog. In an interview, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego reflects on temporarily losing the ability to drive in her sweltering-hot city, and what her administration is doing to keep people cool outside cars. An excerpt:

Streetsblog: Tell me about the genesis of this ambitious shade plan, and how you found the funding and political support to get it off of the ground.

Mayor Kate Gallego: So back in my days as a city volunteer, we did a tree master plan for the city that set a citywide goal for tree cover. We have since learned that we need to be more intentional and really focus on transportation corridors or places where kids will be playing outdoors, adult recreation. We don't want to plant a ton of trees in our beautiful Sonoran desert mountains, we want to support the natural ecosystem, which in most of our parks is in a healthy, great state. So this is really focused on the street-level infrastructure, parks and schools.

The new plan is much broader than the original plan, which just focused on trees. Like when we do public art, we ask, "Can it provide shade?" We're investing in hundreds of new man-made structures, as well as 27,000 trees. We're trying to map out the city and put the tree in shade where people are most likely to be traveling on foot. We hope that it'll make it more comfortable because in our community, we have two seasons sunny and sunnier.

We want people to be out walking for more of the year, and we've seen that shade really makes a difference. We've actually gotten international attention because we have something called the walkable urban code, where we're trying to put 70 percent shade cover in the areas of the city where people walk the most. It's really exciting to see what a difference it makes and how it activates the streets.

Back when I first ran for office, the city protected the area above the sidewalk as belonging to the public, and we didn't want anyone to build into it, so we would discourage canopies that would overhang the sidewalk on private buildings. And now we've really changed the way we think about shade, and we want developers to create shaded, inviting spaces.

Monarch butterflies gather on rocks along a stream.

Texas agriculture commissioner criticizes monarch butterfly proposal from the U.S. wildlife officials by Octavia Johnson at the Houston Chronicle. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday announced a proposed extension of federal protections to the monarch butterflies who migrate across North America. There will be 90-day public comment period. If finalized, monarchs would be listed as “threatened” and given specific protections and flexibilities under the Endangered Species Act in an effort to increase breeding and migratory habitat. Included in the proposal is a critical habitat for the species on part of its overwintering sites in coastal California, according to the news release. Such habitats give the monarchs a rest to help them prepare for breeding come early spring. However, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said the move was an example of federal government overreach and could harm agriculture and rural development. He said the proposal would cause widespread restrictions on any structure that could disturb the monarch's habitat, including building or expanding dairies, wind and solar farms, and football stadiums. This could hit Texas farmers, ranchers, small businesses and consumers which "drive (the) state’s and nation’s economies," Miller said.

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Soaring Insurance Rates Show Climate Change Is a Pocketbook Issue by Rachel Cleetus at the Union for Concerned Scientists. Despite the many headlines and heart-breaking stories about the impact of high insurance costs and dropped policies, there’s a lack of publicly available, granular data on where and how much premiums are increasing and why. Earlier this year, the US Department of the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) announced a first-ever data call to assess how climate risks were affecting the insurance market. This is a voluntary effort and some states, including Florida, Texas and Louisiana, have already signaled they will not participate. That’s a problem because these are also states where consumers have experienced sky-rocketing rate increases and insurers dropping policies or even exiting the market entirely—and they are highly exposed to climate risks. According to an annual report from the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), “The data call required participating insurers to submit ZIP Code-level data on premiums, policies, claims, losses, limits, deductibles, non-renewals, and coverage types for the ZIP Codes in which they operate nationwide. State insurance regulators sought more than 70 data points. An anonymized subset of the data was shared with FIO.” Yet, none of that data has been shared publicly.

See also: Insurers Are Deserting Homeowners as Climate Shocks Worsen (The New York Times—Christopher Flavelle)

Wetlands in Peril: How Industrial Agriculture Damages Critical Ecosystems, Increasing Flood Risk in the Upper Midwest by Stacy Woods at the Union for Concerned Scientists. Wetlands not only protect communities from flooding, but as effective carbon sinks, they also provide an important nature- based solution to climate change. They excel at carbon sequestration, trapping and storing over 30% of soil-stored carbon on Earth, despite covering only 6% of the planet’s surface. But the high carbon stocks of wetlands present a significant risk, as damaged or destroyed wetlands release stored carbon as methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide, powerful heat-trapping gases that accelerate climate change.Threats to WetlandsDespite the clear benefits of protecting wetlands—and the severe consequencesof destroying them—wetlands are losing ground: Half of US wetlands have disappeared since the 1780s, and the pace of wetland loss has accelerated over the last 20 years. Urban and rural development, cultivated forestry, and climate change–related disturbances to temperature, evaporation, and precipitation patterns all play a role in wetland decline. But no factor has contributed more to wetland loss over the past two and a half centuries than the rapid expansion of mechanizeda nd large-scale agriculture.

We must prioritize rangeland conservation for planetary health and biodiversity by Dr. Igshaan Samuels at Mongabay. Rangelands, despite their size and significance, have been historically under-appreciated in global sustainability discussions. However, as this “triple COP” year of three UN summits draws to a close, we have an opportunity to reverse this trend. By giving rangelands the consideration and support they deserve, their potential to help lower emissions, reduce biodiversity loss, and reverse land degradation can be realized. Rangelands cover more than 79 million square kilometers of grasslands, savannas, deserts, shrub lands, and tundra globally. But they are more than just expansive open landscapes—rangelands are central to global economies, ecosystems, and cultures. In some African countries, for example, rangelands are key to the livestock sector, providing natural forage for cattle, sheep, goats and camels. Globally, they provide over 70% of the forage consumed by livestock, underpinning a significant portion of the global protein supply—especially for 200 million pastoralists. Overall, rangelands support the food security and livelihoods of up to 2 billion people. They also foster some of the most biodiverse areas in the world and are home to 30% of biodiversity hotspots, including the Succulent Karoo biodiversity hotspot in southern Africa, home to more than 6,000 plant species.

How Community Solar Can Liberate You From Fossil Fuels by L. Michelle Moore at Wiki Obsevatory. Rural and small-town utilities flourish because clean energy and the transportation sector’s electrification enable them to grow again. More revenue means more funding to support community development and pay for essential services, so residents thrive, too, because their utilities represent their needs and are governed in alignment with their democratic roots. As a result, and perhaps most importantly, the 48% of Americans who want to live in a small town in the countryside can do so and have a good life there with jobs, affordable homes, and the possibility of an even better life for their kids. How can we make this vision a reality? Community solar projects are unique in their ability to help neighbors within the same utility service territory share power from a solar project. Rural electric cooperatives, in particular, have long been leaders in community solar. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association even published a “solar playbook” in 2016 to help local utilities develop business models and implementation plans for bringing community solar to their member-owners. Here are six great examples to look to for inspiration and guidance.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) meat inspectors and graders perform their mission] — Rows of hanging beef carcasses awaiting the okay of U.S. Department of Agriculture meat inspectors and graders to perform their mission

It’s time to crack down on the meat market monopoly by Dave Dickey at Investigate Midwest. Big Beef has a history of breaking the law if it means making more money for its shareholders and company executives. When just four companies — National Beef Packing Company, Cargill, JBS, and Tyson — collectively control 80% of the U.S.beef market, it’s relatively easy to collude and manipulate prices. And should Big Beef get caught with its hooves in the cookie jar, the playbook says admit to nothing and try to negotiate with plaintiffs and the courts for a quick settlement. Just make the lawsuits go away. [...] Big Meat price fixing lawsuits also dot the landscape in the pork and chicken processing businesses. [...] For far too long Big Meat in general and Big Beef in particular have been handled with kid gloves by the feds, receiving what amounts to slap-on-the wrist fines. It’s time — beyond time — to get serious with Big Beef’s unethical and illegal conduct. The question is do the feds have the political will?

See also: U.N. report obscures meat’s true climate impact (Heated.World—Arielle Samuelson)

The Blue Economy is failing small-scale fishers by Liliana Sierra Castillo at EHN. Over the past decade, aquaculture — understood as breeding, rearing, and harvesting fish, shellfish, algae, and other organisms in water environments — has rapidly expanded. This expansion is frequently proposed as a solution to the decline of wild-caught fisheries, which in the past few years have reduced significantly. For small-scale fisheries in marginalized communities, particularly in the Global South, wild-caught fisheries provide around 90% of the employment and livelihood. From Ghana to Bangladesh, Vietnam to Kenya, and Mexico, communities have embraced aquaculture as a remedy for dwindling fish stocks. Aquaculture’s growth is a central pillar of the Blue Economy, which promises social and economic benefits for the communities where it is implemented. However, after listening to the voices of small-scale fishing communities in Mexico, I’ve come to question the expansion of aquaculture and the Blue Economy as a whole. Aquaculture is not only failing to fulfill its economic promises, but it’s leaving fishers unhappy, unfulfilled, and missing their culture. In a world where climate change and its impacts are increasingly evident in small-scale fishery communities, researchers, policymakers and agencies need to shift our focus from the economic gains of the Blue Economy to the well-being of the communities and create policies that have people and their rights at the center.