Headlines grab our attention. Salacious words and scandalous ideas are the sharpest hooks and why they are most often used.  Truth can be meted out in the rest of the story, but as long as there is something akin to truth, it suffices to be printed in bold.  This isn’t new. The newspaper barons like Hearst and Pulitzer did it back in the 1890s so often that a term was coined: yellow dog journalism.  Shameless, factually incorrect stories were rampant, unedited, and uncited.  Their content didn’t matter, only that they got sales, and therefore dollars, into the publisher’s pockets. 

The Sierra Club’s Jun 28, 2024 post on Instagram brings in another species to yellow journalism: wolves.   The post specifically references the Northern Rockies population in an effort to focus attention in a way that makes the viewer think a small segment is quickly disappearing. Clear data from state agency biologists unquestioningly contradict this. But, in the spirit of yellow journalism, that doesn’t matter. Clicks and coins are the goal; everything that follows must be to that end. Let’s take it line by line:

Hunters are “cruelly shooting wolves.” FALSE. 

Regardless of how anyone feels about wolves being hunted, the methods of hunting are legally required to be quick and effective.  This is exactly what hunters want.  Wounded animals can be difficult to track, and lost animals mean lost resource utilization. Wyoming requires a very specific rifle setup for all big game hunting, including for wolves.  This ensures that animals are humanely dispatched with nearly zero suffering. 

Wolves are hunted at an “unsustainable rate”. FALSE. 

Since their delisting in 2012, wolf management has been turned back to the states, who are required to maintain minimum numbers. All three states have exceeded these minimums. They now have more wolves and a larger range. Wolf recovery began in Montana with naturally immigrating wolves in the 1980s with around 30 breeding pairs. In the Northern Rockies, there were at least 1,600 wolves when they were delisted in 2012. Wolf populations in Idaho alone near this number. Delisting management guidelines called for 1,100 wolves in the Northern Rockies. Today, there are at least 2,900, almost three times that number.  Simply put, wolf populations show zero downward trends.

“Without strong protections… we lose vital wildlife”.  TRUE-ish.  

Sportsmen have known this for over 120 years.  The first game laws were part of hunter-sponsored, hunter-enacted, and hunter-funded efforts. American conservation is a success story beyond compare and envied globally by wildlife management agencies. However, the Sierra Club’s post suggests that there are currently protections — this is false.  The Endangered Species Act protects those most vital in danger.  The Migratory Bird Treaty partners with Russia, Canada, and Mexico to protect birds as they fly across the continent.  State wildlife agencies devote entire staffs to writing and distributing the laws and regulations governing limited hunting. Hunter Education classes explain these to new hunters and help them better understand why they’re necessary.  Sportsmen serve as the first line for documenting changes in wildlife populations and presence. Biologists rely on this real-time data to make quick changes to further protect species.  Without hunters, wildlife would lose its primary protectors, and we would all lose wildlife. 

Hunters “cause irreversible harm to the habitats”. FALSE. 

After a hunter walks the woods, little more than bootprints remain. Conservation ethics hold great importance and are rigidly upheld within their community.  They take great pride in knowing that their hunting and fishing licenses are what fund future habitat improvements—not donations to the Sierra Club.  The federal duck stamp, state habitat stamps, wildlife-sportsmen conservation groups, auction licenses, and countless other efforts collectively contribute billions of dollars every year to habitat conservation and restoration.  (It is also important to point out the debunking of the trophic cascade credited to wolves in Yellowstone National Park).   

Hunters have “Endangered wildlife.” FALSE. Modern regulated hunting has been shown to be the critical link in establishing a species’ future.  The American alligator was once near extinction and now enjoys record populations.  The  Canada goose’s collapse, recovery, and success are now a nuisance in most city parks and golf courses. Hunter-conservationists fund and support elk, pronghorn antelope, bison, white-tailed deer, and mule deer, all of which share similar inspiring stories. Without question, the champion for wildlife is and will continue to be sportsmen who hunt.

The single best thing that can be done to save wolves is to buy a hunting license- for both hunters and non-hunters.  It funds the scientists that study these incredible animals and make recommendations that keep them on the landscape.  It raises the awareness of a species that is widely misunderstood by those who don’t frequent their mountains.  It grants the holder the opportunity to be closer to them than any other experience.  It educates everyone that wolves have value, management needs, and extraordinary stories. It dispels the fallacies that wolves are diminishing, endangered, or distressed.  It prevents the wolf from becoming a yellow dog.

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Everett Headley

Managing Editor- Wolf Hunter

HOWL for Wildlife