Rationales for Wolf Reintroduction

Fred Allebach, PO Box 31931, Tucson, AZ, 85751      11/3/99

Why is it a good idea to reintroduce wolves? I believe the strongest arguments in favor of wolf reintroduction come from the following points.

1: Ecosystems grow out of millions of years of species rising and falling and co-adapting together. Current ecosystems have deep context. Whole ecosystems act as a unit. All the components are necessary, flora and fauna.  Ecosystem assemblages and individual animal and plant species rise and fall over eons and ages. However, there have always been top predators. In the fossil record, at no time do we see animal assemblages with no predators.

Wolves are a keystone species. The keystone/ capstone metaphor describes a relatively small component, without which a building would have no structural integrity  Predators are critical to maintaining the equilibrium of ecosystems in the same way keystones are essential to holding up arches.  With no keystone, arched structures collapse;  with no predatory check on rodents or deer, ecosystems collapse from over-consumption of basic resources. (Although there is some debate about whether the primary resources themselves regulate all animal populations, or, said in another way, whether it is top down, bottom up or both.) We can also use a disease metaphor to describe a whole system as sick and dysfunctional. The earth, being the metaphorical body, may succumb to certain bad habits, cancer, etc. The body with no immune system would be analogous to an ecosystem with no top predators.

The argument here is not for individual species per se but of valuing whole assemblages of species.

People have a lot invested in their endeavors but at the same time, the needs of people cannot ignore the reality that if we go too far in exterminating those parts of nature we don’t like, we may risk irreparable damage to the very system which supports us. If we see that nature has worked the same general way for 3 billion years, why would we assume that massive human caused alterations, within the space of generations, could somehow be more wise?

The fossil record shows that when a top level organism, a keystone species dies out, another has come to take it’s place. There has been no harmonious stasis concerning individual species. There are and have been, adaptive zones and corresponding adaptive types which rise up to fill those zones.  If the adaptive zone fades out, the animals become extinct. Different adaptive type/ predator niches, such as cat-style slash and attack, cursorial pursuit, hyaena style bone-crushing and generalist bear- like styles, have been taken up by many extant and extinct groups of Carnivores in response to the opening and closing of adaptive zones. The animals are their ecosystems.  Social hunting by canid groups did not arise until the development of savannahs, and the herd behavior developed by ungulates in response to living in these open spaces.

Our race has caused serious extinction of other animals and plants. It is in our power to attempt to reverse this trend by valuing whole ecosystems and reintroducing keystone and other species which still exist.

2: Genetic points are two-fold:

One, the fitness of prey species depends upon predators; prey that are not hunted by their natural predators become soft, like domestic animals. Hunting prey that have no natural predators is about the same as slaughtering a cow, only you do a bit more work.   The only way that prey species, large ungulates, maintain their sharp edge, is by being hunted by their natural predators, wolves, bears and large cats. The fitness of a population of prey animals depends on their being smart, wary and knowledgeable of the threats to them. This naturally hunted elk, deer or moose is a wild animal in it’s full context. The animals that survive and pass on their genes are the smart and wily ones, the ones that would be a challenge to hunt. In taking this tack it seems that hunters would conceivably support wolf reintroduction because then the quality of the hunted prey would be of tip top shape.

As well, prey species with no predators may begin to accumulate harmful genetic traits. Prey with no predators start to multiply beyond the carrying capacity of the system. With an overpopulation of large herbivores due to lack of predators, effects ripple out to other species, causing the elimination of many animals and plants dependent on a complete food chain. It is not only the wolf which suffers when the pyramid structure of the food chain is broken. Condors, ravens, wolverines and all scavengers suffer with no top predator to provide kills and carrion. Plant species are over-eaten by unnaturally large herds, then, effecting rodents, birds, insects. Etc.

Two, wild progenitors of domestic species are a critical resource of hereditary information. For example, the last aurochs, the ancestor of today’s cattle, died in 1624. (These are the same wild cattle seen in cave paintings.) That was it for domestic cattle, no more back-breeding possible, no more recourse to the ancestral genotype. However, the ancestor of the dog still lives with the wolf. With the dog, our best friend, I believe preserving the original genetic stock is critical to being able to breed good dogs into the future. Preserving and reintroducing wolves into their former range is an insurance policy that dogs can always be made healthier. After all, the fads and fancies of people have made many pure breed dogs into genetic misfits. When coat color, texture and length, or skull shape, size and/ or many other factors are selected over other traits the phenotypic results are not all: one gene :: one characteristic. What dog and other breeders don’t seem to realize is that desired traits are often linked to other more harmful traits.

Generally, if you take all dog behaviors and combine them together, what you have is a wolf. Dogs may outperform wolves in certain areas because they have been bred as specialists. A pointer, retriever, herder, chaser, guard, etc. dogs may be better than the wolf in certain areas but the wolf is the generalist. In the wolf’s genes lie the keys to all dog behavior. It is within our ability to take out a major insurance policy on our best friends, dogs, by preserving the wolf.

Domestication of almost all animals and plants started no more than 20,000 years ago. (Dogs may have been domesticated quite a bit earlier.) What is 20,000 years compared to billions of years of natural selection? With a wild animal’s or plants genes you get the whole of behaviors and adaptations, a way deeper genetic context than 20,000 years can provide. It is only smart to value this resource.

3: An appeal to morals, why is it right to preserve wild wolves? Two arguments:

One, earth represents all the resources we have, it is our family farm, our back forty and since this acreage cannot be divided up endlessly into smaller and smaller plots, it only makes sense to steward our inheritance for future generations. This truth I take to be self evident. People must adjust their actions so as to not cause disproportionate harm to whole ecosystems, even if this causes harm to individual people. This is a utilitarian argument, which has some weak points. For example, the causing of harm to other life, by consuming it, is a primary fact. It is not wrong to consume, for without it we die; the question then gets into who gets consumed by who and how much? 

With a utilitarian argument, what may cause harm to any individual person does not outweigh the good of the whole. What may benefit one small group of people in the short run may diminish forever the quality of life for the rest. Realistically, our being able to survive 1000's of more years as a race, depends on keeping as much biological diversity as possible. Take for example the potential crisis with antibiotics, they are increasingly less effective. Germs are adapting faster than new drugs can be developed to counteract them. News says we will soon be dying of colds and flu, just like 100 years ago.  Penicillin was discovered as a mold on grapefruit. What if when all plants are generic, mono-culture varieties, what becomes of our ability to have recourse to nature? Antibiotics hunt germs, they are predators of germs. We enlist nature to help with disease by siccing one thing against another. On a different scale, wolves are the hunters of hoofed mammals. It is the same chain, just higher up. If you get rid of wolves and deer turn into metaphorical cancer.

I am not without compassion for the disruption that wolf reintroductions may have upon rural ranching operations. I am trying to take a tack which puts these issues into a more or less objective framework, to paint a picture and create a context that looks at all things. Obviously I am biased but I am aware of the need to understand and work with other people who may not agree with me. If you ask people to sacrifice their lifestyles for the good of all, then these people deserve compassion and aid. Who wants to bear the burden of the collective good on their individual backs?  How do we get to a balance between the needs of people and the real need to preserve whole ecosystems? Certainly some people will have to sacrifice their back yards, but if it is for the collective good, with collective help, people should chip in and help them.

Two, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God did not command Noah to leave off wolves or lions or bears or any other animal from the ark. These animals had/ have value to God and God justified this through his actions. All animals, of every kind were to be taken on the ark and God made a covenant with all animals and people at the end of the flood. All would be fruitful and multiply and people were the stewards.  Into our hands is delivered all of creation and the moral imperative is to not violate this creation. “The earth is the Lord’s.” That is why God caused the flood in the first place, because of man’s corruption and insolence.

After the flood, God said, “go forth, you and your family and every living thing of all flesh”, “...that they may breed abundantly on the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth.” God also said  “I will not again curse the ground anymore for man’s sake: for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.” So here, God explicitly states that all species shall be fruitful and multiply and that he himself will not smite them. If that is God’s will, it is just more ego on people’s part to think that we can run the show better in our own way. There is as much a stewardship message here as there is one of total license.

God also said “...the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea: into your hand they are delivered.” And God then said, “And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you; and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.” God made an everlasting covenant with every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

God laid out the covenant and he demonstrated many times that he intended for ALL species to be saved in the flood and that afterwards, they ALL should be fruitful, under the stewardship of man. God will not destroy all species ever again. If He won’t, why should we? “Wisdom is proved right by her actions.” Matthew 11:19  If we are the stewards of the creation, then it is incumbent on us to manage the whole package wisely. You don’t mess with the creation without becoming like pre-flood people or Sodom and Gomorrah. You don’t get so caught up in your own power and insight as to lose perspective, like Solomon.

4: Wild areas provide inspiration to reinvigorate our souls, our imaginations. John Muir and Aldo Leopold spoke eloquently of the power nature has to inspire us. By preserving whole ecosystems, predators and all, we keep an important avenue open for our spiritual growth and the opportunity to marvel at the beauty and mystery of creation. Wild nature has a cutting edge that our domestic life cannot touch. Cutting edge inspiration from being in places which are truly wild and natural is a value worth preserving. It is alright to allow nature to just be and to be able to go there and find sanctuary in the marvels and mysteries of creation. We can’t go back to being cave men but at the same time, what inspiration may be gained from endless strip malls and open spaces dominated by domestic animals?

Conclusion: Conflicts of perspectives concerning the role of predators are frequently set in an all or nothing context. The spectrum of perspectives involved simply represents how we as a species are confronting our role as stewards of nature. The real question boils down to how and in what ways are we going care for our natural environment? Does the environment exist for us to use without care or consequences? Surely no is the answer. Then the question becomes just how we are going to do it. That is where the conflicts are with wolf reintroductions.

I think it all gets down to what kind of world we want to live in. When we landed on the moon, we could see the whole earth. From space you don’t see national boundaries or the differences between urban and rural areas, between tame and wild areas. From this perspective, life on earth as whole becomes the important common denominator. In terms of biology, it is like Noah’s ark, and we are the stewards, the ones who are in charge of managing and preserving the plants, animals and all of life.  Here on earth, we are all on the same boat. We have no where to run. The argument is really not about one particular species but of getting the idea of the value of the whole ecosystem. As stewards, we have the health of ecosystems and their components to be responsible for.