S7. E22: Maggie Howell: Relist Wolves
“This is their second chance. They were rendered extinct in the wild. And so now this is our second chance to get it right. We killed them off and hopefully they have enough of what they need that they can take the second chance and run with it.”
– Maggie Howell
This is the last episode in a series that we are doing on wolves. It's probably not the final episode because I'm not going to shut up about wolves until they're all back on the endangered species list. But for the moment, it's the last.
It's a conversation with Maggie Howell. Maggie is the executive director of the Wolf Conservation Center, an organization that is working to protect and preserve wolves in North America. And they do it through science-based education and advocacy, and they participate in the federal recovery and release program for two critically endangered wolf species, the Mexican gray wolf and the red wolf.
Maggie is also a founding member of Relist Wolves, a campaign to put all wolves back on the endangered species list.
Please listen and share and quickly go to Relist Wolves to help get ALL of these remarkable animals back on the endangered species list.
Please listen and share.
In gratitude,
Elizabeth Novogratz
Learn more about the Wolf Conservation Center
Learn more about Relist Wolves
Transcript:
Maggie: [00:00:15] This is their second chance. They were rendered extinct in the wild. So now this is our second chance to get it right. We killed them off and hopefully they have enough of what they need so that they can take the second chance and run with it.
Elizabeth: [00:00:38] Hi. I'm Elizabeth Novogratz. This is Species Unite. We have a favor to ask. If you like today's episode and you have a spare minute, could you please rate and review Species Unite on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts? It really helps people to find the show. This is the last episode that we are doing in a series on Wolves. It's probably not the final because I'm really not going to shut up about wolves until they're all back on the endangered species list. But for the moment, it's the third and final in a series we are doing on Wolves. It's a conversation with Maggie Howell. Maggie is the executive director of the Wolf Conservation Center. They're an organization that is working to protect and preserve wolves in North America. They do it through science based education advocacy, and they participate in the federal recovery and release program for two critically endangered wolf species, the Mexican gray wolf and red wolves. Maggie is also a founding member of Relist Wolves, a campaign to put all wolves back on the endangered species list. Hi, Maggie. It's so good to be here. We are at the Wolf Conservation Center, which I did not know was an hour from my house back in our emailing, and I saw like a few days later adopt a highway wolf conservation center. When I was driving in, I was like, Wait a minute, I'm emailing someone in New York and it's crazy that you're right here.
Maggie: [00:02:24] No, it is.
Elizabeth: [00:02:25] How many wolves are here?
Maggie: [00:02:26] 32.
Elizabeth: [00:02:27] That's a lot of wolves. It's really cool hearing the wolves howl in the background.
Maggie: [00:02:34] It is. Wow. It doesn't get old. No, the best one is actually because when we're up there earlier we heard a couple of them howl, but sometimes something just gets them all going and it rolls down the hill and it's just like, oh, that's nice. Wow, that's really cool.
Elizabeth: [00:03:01] All right. I want to hear about how they all got here. I want to hear about what you're doing here. But first, how did you get here?
Maggie: [00:03:07] It was kind of a roundabout journey, but I grew up in New York City and always loved animals, kind of followed the whole scientific academic career, moved out west, got other jobs that were animal related, finally came back east and found out this place was here. I was very stubborn and made them hire me.
Elizabeth: [00:03:27] That was a long time ago.
Maggie: [00:03:28] Yeah, that was 2005.
Elizabeth: [00:03:30] Because it is kind of crazy that there's a wolf conservation center an hour from New York.
Maggie: [00:03:36] Yes, it is. It actually started because our founder, our co-founders, one of the main founders, her name is Ellen Grimaud, and she's a classical pianist. She pretty much took sabbatical early in her career because she really wanted to build this place. It was her dream. She was bitten by the wolf bug. All of a sudden she discovered wolves and she was just obsessed, like wanting to do something for them, teach people about what wolves really are, and maybe even become a place where people could learn about wolves if they did start re-colonizing in the northeast. So she really had big plans and so she chose this place because it was still kind of close to a few airports. If she got back to her career because she really is just all over the world all the time. So it worked out because we're really close to a great population in New York City and here in Westchester and Connecticut and Massachusetts. But people that might not really know that much about wolves because they're not in our backyards.
Elizabeth: [00:04:40] I've been on this kind of wolf tour lately in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming. I think people in big cities especially, but east coast, west coast, we don't really think of wolves as anything we have any power over in the sense of what we're doing to them in this country. Actually, I got an email this morning from somebody telling me it's Montana's problem. Get out of Montana, you know, like really mean, i'm like, no, actually, that's public lands, so to to kind of empower people.
Maggie: [00:05:10] Exactly. Yeah. So we teach people about wolves. We also participate in recovery efforts for critically endangered wolf species. We also fund research, but we also advocate for wolves. First of all, we want people to appreciate wolves, but then we also want to give them the tools and kind of a roadmap so they can speak up for them. Yeah, I mean, definitely a lot of New Yorkers probably don't feel like they really have the power to say anything about wolves, because we're told we don't, but we do, it’s a part of the public trust and natural resource in our country, we have just as much say as everyone else.
Elizabeth: [00:05:49] So talk about the wolves that are here. I don't know anything about Mexican gray wolves or red wolves.
Maggie: [00:05:55] I'll start with the Mexican gray wolves. We participate in something called the Species Survival Plan. It's a network of facilities. Most of them are zoos, which we don't consider yourself a zoo, but it's under the umbrella of the American Zoo Association (AZA). If you're a participant, you're going to house wolves, you'll teach people about wolves, you'll be responsible for their care. You'll participate in really carefully managed captive breeding. I can talk more about that and also make recommendations for release. Although we're not like an accredited zoo, we're kind of a great asset for the program because that's all we do with wolves. Right now with the Mexican gray wolves, we actually have 21 of them. The coolest thing is we've actually gotten to give some of these guys the biggest gift of all, and that's really a life in the wild. Actually, when I first got the job, it was in 2006, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife called us and said that due to her genetics, this, Wolf, her name was F 838, she didn't have a name, just an alphanumeric number, kind of like Yellowstone. Now we give them names as well, even though it's not an official study book. But how do we expect people to care for animals that have robot names? So F 838 and so we had to capture her, you know, we took her to the airport. She went commercial, which we try not to do these days. She arrived at a facility in New Mexico that was managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and that's where she was paired with a mate. They liked each other. She got pregnant and then she had two pups and six. As a family group, they were then released into the wild. It just gives me goosebumps when we have any wolf, even though they don't know me. Totally hands off of these animals to think that for the first time there's no fences, no people, but just this vast wilderness for them to explore, to bring, to balance, just to be wolves. It's really one of the best things that we can tell people when they are coming here to visit the wolves or learn about wolves, because most of our wolves here at the center are off exhibit. So we're kind of a tease when we say we have 32 wolves, but you might see three or four. But I think they have a better understanding when they learn, one of them might actually be like F 838 and we've given a handful of our wolves that opportunity.
Elizabeth: [00:08:29] Now, where do Mexican gray wolves live?
Maggie: [00:08:31] Currently, they live in Arizona and New Mexico and also in Mexico.
Elizabeth: [00:08:37] Are they hunted as badly there as gray wolves in the Rockies?
Maggie: [00:08:41] They used to be. So just like all wolves in the lower 48, I think we just didn't really have an understanding of the importance beyond just being a living animal, but their ecological role when really they were just federal programs to just wipe the whole landscape of most predators. The Mexican gray wolf was actually extinct in the wild at one point.
Elizabeth: [00:09:08] When was this?
Maggie: [00:09:09] Early eighties. There was an effort to find any potential or possible Mexican Wolf out there. They caught them, that is US Fish and Wildlife and also the agencies in Mexico. Actually the last wolves were captured in Mexico and then brought in captivity in hopes that they could start a captive breeding program and then they could be rereleased. Really just seven founders, not all seven even genetically contributed, but still it was just a handful of wolves that all Mexican gray wolves on the planet come from today.
Elizabeth: [00:09:44] So all Mexican gray wolves are related to those seven.
Maggie: [00:09:47] Yeah. So genetics remains a big issue in the recovery of the species right now. For the wild population, the mean kinship is 0.24 I think. That means they're about the equivalent of brothers and sisters, all of them. So when we're looking to take animals from captivity and get them in the wild, obviously we'd like to boost their numbers up. There are 186 Mexican wolves in the US at the last count, but really we want to get some genetics because right now in captivity its little bit more healthy than the wild. The most recent Mexican wolf to be released was actually a pup named Hope. She was part of a cross foster effort, which is when captive pups, if they're born around the same time as wild pups, if everything's set up just right, the moons, the stars, everything is aligned, we can actually take some of the captive pups, put them in the den with the wild pups, and sometimes take some of the wild pups and put them in with the captive pups because you don't want to swamp any mom with lots of pups. It's a sneaky way to really insert genetics that are in the captive population into the wild population. Right now, U.S. Fish and Wildlife only uses this cross foster method as a way to release captive wolves into the wild. I think a lot of it is just politically more palatable. Definitely. I would prefer if they would do family groups kind of like F 838 out there because they're going to be able to really help the genetic pool faster. So that's really what we're trying to do.
Elizabeth: [00:11:39] That's nuts that it got so low.
Maggie: [00:11:41] Yeah, it's scary.
Elizabeth: [00:11:47] You guys have red wolves here, too.
Maggie: [00:11:49] Yeah, and they have a really similar story. Red wolves are actually a separate species. The Mexican gray wolf is a subspecies of the gray wolf. You have the northern Rocky Mountain wolves, you have arctic wolves. You have the eastern wolf is still debated. Whether it's gray wolf or a different species of wolf, it depends which country you're in, Canada or the US, what you say. But for the red wolf, it's a different species than the gray wolf. So they're basically native to just the US and possibly Canada at one point and they look a bit different. Definitely don't have as much of that shag. They are reddish and color a bit smaller, bigger ears really, really gorgeous just like gray wolves, but in a different way. They are though.
Elizabeth: [00:12:39] No, I agree.
Maggie: [00:12:39] But they too, went extinct in the wild and their numbers also. Same sort of effort. Like let's just try to gather these last animals that we think are red wolves and bring them into captivity. This last kind of remnant wolves that they found there along the Gulf Coast, like Louisiana, I think mostly. So they gathered them up, put them in captivity, and those became the founding red wolves. So those numbers were just 14 animals. So yeah the Red Wolf program is really interesting because it was actually the first time when they finally bred them in captivity, had enough in captivity to start considering releasing to the wild that release, that reintroduction effort was actually the first effort went with wolves that they've ever done, and that was in 1987. So it was really that model that inspired and helped kind of shape what happened in Yellowstone in 95 and 96, and then also the return of Mexican gray wolves in 1998. So it's neat to see that all these programs are supporting one another. Also the Red Wolf, the only way they were really releasing, I guess this past decade, captive wolves of the Wild were that cross, that puppy cross foster So that's something the Mexican Wolf program learned from the Red Wolf program.
Elizabeth: [00:14:16] Is that just a wolf thing where the mother Wolf will kind of adopt other pups?
Maggie: [00:14:20] It seems like it does, it just kind of shows you just how family oriented they are. I say this a lot, but if I went to bed with two kids and I woke up with four, I'd be upset and I don't think it's 100%, but I don't know many things in life that are 100%. But the thing about Cross Foster, that's it's really neat. I mean, it's a really neat kind of sciencey effort, but it's also so micromanaged that you do, especially if you're that pup that's born in the wild and then you end up being put in captivity. So it's a great opportunity for the captive pup. It's not really fair when you're in the wild. I'd love to know what the mothers are really thinking or taking away one of their pups, and I know that they are actually I don't know this. I assume I tell myself that they're a bit harder than we are, but can handle more and are practical and less emotional about some things because they probably have to be.
Elizabeth: [00:15:33] You know, it's its loss.
Maggie: [00:15:34] It's kind of a bittersweet thing. We definitely want to save. Save the species, which means really helping the genetics of that population, boosting it, fortifying it. I think one thing that the pandemic has taught us is just really you want to really be as strong as possible. It just takes if they all have the same genetics and they all have the same response to something like that, that could even wipe out the whole population.
Elizabeth: [00:16:01] Well, and in some ways, yes, we definitely want to save the species, all these moves across the board. But it's for your work and what you're doing. It is hard, like you're putting wolves in captivity to save wild wolves, but when we're killing so many of them, like you don't know what's going to happen when they go in the better off.
Maggie: [00:16:23] Oh, we've learned the hard way that it's not always the happy ending when we release our wolves. Actually F 838 when she was released in 2006, we got word from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife that they actually hunted and killed their first elk like a week or two after they were. I mean, where you've never seen an elk. So I was just like, Oh, I'm so proud of her. Which was just really cool because we do feed them roadkill deer, but still know that she was capable of hunting. We know that they know how to do that. But it just really felt good to know that she was so well equipped. But one of her pups actually didn't make it long. I believe it was a bear. So at least it's nature.
Elizabeth: [00:17:10] Not human.
Maggie: [00:17:10] Pups are vulnerable. Then a couple weeks, not much longer after that, we heard that F 838 was killed and she was shot. So it was devastating. It was emotional guilt and anger.
Elizabeth: [00:17:31] The whole thing, all that it took to be able to re release her and her family. Yeah, all the work that went into that and the people and the manpower and the love.
Maggie: [00:17:44] She wasn't the first one. We've had others that were killed at the hands of humans, criminals. They're protected as an endangered species.
Elizabeth: [00:17:55] They're still hunted, even.
Maggie: [00:17:56] So they don't hunt them. This was poaching. This is all illegal.
Elizabeth: [00:18:01] Hunts, not the right word.
Maggie: [00:18:02] So because they're protected to a degree.
Elizabeth: [00:18:04] Have they always been listed?
Maggie: [00:18:07] Red Wolf was the precursor of the Endangered Species Act, the one that was passed in 73 Mexican wolves were different because they've never had gray wolves listed. Then it was maybe in 2013, I'm thinking, they were actually listed separately from gray wolves as a subspecies.
Elizabeth: [00:18:33] Was that when gray wolves were taken off the list?
Maggie: [00:18:35] That was one of the efforts to yeah, there's been a few, but that is the reason why they're exempt from this kind of blanket delisting rule that under the Trump administration, at the end of his run.
Elizabeth: [00:18:46] I was saying this to you before we started, people would probably have a much easier time supporting and fighting all this if it wasn't so complicated. The whole thing is it's insane.
Maggie: [00:18:57] Yeah. Red wolves today only live in one place. That is in North Carolina, very close to the Outer Banks, actually in the northeast part of the state. It’s primarily in a wildlife refuge called Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. Right now, there's ten known to be in the wild. So the red wolf was different, although things are looking really good right now for red wolves, so that's a good thing. Just a recommendation from US Fish and Wildlife. After years, I think of neglect. It was political. Go figure. So a very small but vocal group in North Carolina was opposed to. To red wolves, even claiming that they weren't a true species and decimating prey population deer populations.
Elizabeth: [00:19:53] Because ten wolves can wipe out thousands of them.
Maggie: [00:19:55] Well, they got to as many as maybe 150. So but still. It's not that many because of this push back from North Carolina. I think primarily because of the small group, they did like an assessment. Through this assessment, they're going to decide if they were going to end the program and just that's it. Just kind of fix or not fix, but just change the program, amend it in some way or continue it as is. While they were doing this assessment, they stopped all kinds of recovery management efforts and the management was pretty heavy to recover. Red wolves early on. That's because wolves and coyotes can breed and produce viable young and gray wolves can, too. But it's not likely to happen for gray wolves. They're physically or a little bit more adept, kind of a like, for the red wolf and and so they did a one of the things they did was a placeholder program or a coyote sterilization where because say you have this red wolf population and then there's coyotes surrounding it, which they didn't used to be coyotes, but they moved across to the east. So they can breed. So to really safeguard the genetic pool, they would take the coyotes, neuter them and put them back out. So that way, even if they did hook up with a red wolf, that's fine. They're going to hold their place, but nothing genetically is going to kind of dilute that gene pool, then once that coyote passes away, maybe a chance for Red Wolf to move in. So really they would defend that territory. This is why it's a placeholder from other coyotes from coming in. So it kind of created like this little safety wall.
Elizabeth: [00:22:02] So it wasn't working?
Maggie: [00:22:04] It worked. But it's a lot of heavy management which the sad part is when they stop doing this, including releasing wolves from captivity and even counting the wolves. They were even allowing some landowners to give them kill permits in some cases that really caused the population to plummet. Last year, I think it hit the lowest at seven. But via court order, they've been told by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife to put more captive wolves back into the wild. One of our wolves was actually released last year. It's not the best story. Actually, all of the adults that were released got hit by cars.
Elizabeth: [00:23:00] Oh, no.
Maggie: [00:23:01] Yeah. So there's a lot of. So basically, this is kind of my point. We're starting from scratch where if they're born in the wild, they're going to understand. They know where to go, where not to go. Because we just the program kind of got through those tough points and they got through the coyote sterilization, they got through, you know, a lot of the stuff. Now it's having to start at square one.
Elizabeth: [00:23:27] So because it didn't work.
Maggie: [00:23:29] I mean, yeah. So now they do have more slated for release for this season. I think they have more precautions. They have highway signs everywhere. There's more studies just about crossings and really just creating these wild ways. Ideally, what would happen, they have something called a propagation island. Actually we have a wolf on a propagation island right now or the propagation island. It's off of Florida in the Gulf Coast. It's lovely. It's really nice. It's called St Vincent's Wildlife Refuge. Basically it's literally an island and they put like a pair of red wolves out there. They have pups and then they grow up on the island. Then those animals can then shift over to the wild population, but they are a little bit better prepared.
Elizabeth: [00:24:19] Like they've lived in the wild already and safely.
Maggie: [00:24:22] So but the reason they had to do this kind of emergency release straight from captivity is because there were no breeding pairs left in the wild. So I think there's two consecutive years where they're just. No, so it's just like. Something's got to happen. So but really, U.S. Fish and Wildlife is now doing this is also a court order, but a recovery plan, really looking for new recovery or release sites. So there's real hope. I think it's the one when it comes to wolves and just kind of the government right now it's it's it's been the one kind of ray of sunshine that.
Elizabeth: [00:25:04] Where the government's actually on the Wolves team.
Maggie: [00:25:06] Yeah. It looks like they're I mean they've publicly the big press thing are recommitment so it's good. Yeah.
Elizabeth: [00:25:13] The wolves here, there's 32. Where do they come from?
Maggie: [00:25:18] Our three educators, Zephyr, Ulloa and Nicky, they've only been here. They came to us as pups. We raised them. They are very used to people. They're never going to go anywhere. They're also never going to be wild. But for the red wolves and the Mexican wolves, they're actually owned by the federal government, which means they're owned by all Americans. If we can own wolves. Really it's with this network of other facilities, some like us and some are just lots of zoos as well. They just get shifted around a lot. So a lot of it is going to be based on space. For example, we had one Mexican wolf pair that had nine pups one year and they were an older couple. So yeah.
Elizabeth: [00:26:12] I don't even know that was the highlight.
Maggie: [00:26:14] I remember it was hilarious because when we do have pups, we have a pup check and we have a series with it vaccinated and blah blah blah. Our curator was like climbing into the den and she's like passing back the pups. We're just like, Oh no, look what's going on. We just could not believe how many she had. Especially since this mom, she had a pup the year before or two years before, maybe two years before. It was her first litter ever. It had one pup, which is almost even weirder than that. So she thought, it'd be interesting to see if we can interview her. What's harder to have one pup annoying you because there's no one to play with or like a whole baseball team. So, like, in that case, I guess after about two years or maybe a year and a half, all of the boys from that litter went to a different facility because we have large enclosures, but we had 11 animals in that. It was getting hectic.
Elizabeth: [00:27:27] What's the point of moving them? I know that that makes sense. But like all the shifting.
Maggie: [00:27:31] Yeah, so most of the shifting is going to be based on creating breeding pairs and just because of the whole genetic crisis for both a mexican wolf and red wolf, you're looking to create these pairs that have the lowest inbreeding coefficient. So we're not the ones to figure that out. The geneticist on the management team, we'll figure that out and kind of tell us on paper, like the best marriages, so it's all arranged. So that's how that's how we do it. So and then so often, though, you'll find the perfect match might be in Mexico. So you have to make the trip. So but that's how a lot of these decisions are made.
Elizabeth: [00:28:13] But this is the only way to bring them back, right? Like you're basically bringing them back from extinction. Yeah, when people say like, I think we've become so numb as a society to where it's like, Oh, they're on the endangered species list. Oh, they're critically endangered. Like critically endangered means you're extinct in like two breaths.
Maggie: [00:28:31] Right? This is their second chance. I mean, they were rendered extinct in the wild, right? So now this is our second chance. Like to get it, right? We killed them off, and hopefully they have enough of what they need that they can take the second chance and run with it.
Elizabeth: [00:28:47] Wow.
Maggie: [00:28:48] So but there's all the challenges with just being a wild animal. Right. Comes with challenges like that little pup of F838 But it's really the people that create a lot of the challenges through either poaching crimes or with these other wolves know the northern Rockies or western Great Lakes, the state sanctioned hunting and all these other things. That's fine and legal. So it's definitely not the easiest world.
Elizabeth: [00:29:22] It's scary to put them back in the wild. So the wolves here, there's the three I met and those are your ambassadors, but the other ones you don't really interact with?
Maggie: [00:29:31] We try to keep them as wild as possible, even if we don't think they are going to be released in the wild. If they're going to raise their pups, we want them to teach the proper values.
Elizabeth: [00:29:42] Yeah, they really have values.
Maggie: [00:29:44] Oh, 100%, yeah. I mean, the thing that's so cool about wolves is almost there. So first of all, they're so similar to people. That's probably why we don't get along and probably also why some people like them so much because they kind of get it.
Elizabeth: [00:29:59] why some people hate them so much.
Maggie: [00:30:01] Exactly.
Elizabeth: [00:30:02] The most hated animal in this country.
Maggie: [00:30:04] Exactly. They just live in family groups. That's all a pack is, really everything they do is to kind of just reaffirm those family bonds because they need each other. They say the strength of the wolf is the pack, that's because when they're hunting, they're going to be, strategizing together, whether defending their territory, their power numbers. So really, they all have to be in the same kind of place, know what's happening, where they kind of stand in the hierarchy of the family. What scientists have found is that they pass down these traditions that might be unique to that group, generation after generation, that they're not seen in other wolves. So it just shows you like this could be a hunting tactic. There was a biologist that studied the, I guess it was like the longest study of a single family group in Denali. So by family group this means like it's not just the pack, it's just like throughout the generations, right? and I don't remember specifically what it was about the way they hunted, but something was unique about the way they did that. So just different behaviors. It could be, even I don't even know, like the way they raise their pups. But you see that for example, when you have a multigenerational family or pack. So if you have mom and dad and they have a litter of four and then the next year they have another litter, often the mom and dad will then tap one of the yearlings to be the babysitter. So, they're going to have to earn their weight pitch in, and when they're doing that, they're not only helping mom and dad get a break, but they're also mom and dad could be hunting, they could be providing some of their way, but they're actually going to be teaching those parenting skills to those other animals or their kids, whether they're going to be really honing some certain skills like hunting or wrestling or whatever, but also, again, reaffirming those bonds. When they're communicating with howling, they sometimes just howl because it just feels good. Often it's because they want to, call for a mate or maybe, sing about their territory, maybe defend it and let them know how many of us there are here. Sometimes it's a warning or bark howl. But again, sometimes it's just to make music because it feels good to sing with your group. It's going to just you're going to be close and feel warm and fuzzy. So it's just really neat. One of my favorite things about them, because we always like to think of how to be like a wolf to be a better person. So, wolves like to play. So like, remember to play, don't work too hard all the time, but so that they don't hold a grudge. That's because it's really not in their best interest to have any sort of beef, with someone in the pack because you need them. They compared wolves and dogs. Wolves tend to get over any sort of conflict much faster than dogs do because dogs don't really need each other as much.
Elizabeth: [00:33:26] So they'll, like, fight in the moment and then let it go.
Maggie: [00:33:29] Yeah. I'm sure, there's going to be outliers, but, another way. Like to be like a wolf. Like, don't hold a grudge.
Elizabeth: [00:33:34] Let it go. Yeah, my dog's still mad at me because I've been traveling so much and it's real. Like it is real. Yeah. Oh, she even holds a big, grouchy.
Maggie: [00:33:45] Yikes. I get that.
Elizabeth: [00:33:47] A lot of kids come here. Adults come here. Talk about that a little bit. Like what? What people are learning and how is it changing people?
Maggie: [00:33:53] So if you want to come and visit the wolves, you first are going to learn about the wolves. We're going to, first of all, just really try to diffuse any myths or nonsense that people might have stuck in their brain when it comes to wolves.
Elizabeth: [00:34:07] Do a lot of people show up here super misinformed.
Maggie: [00:34:10] Most of the kids know their stuff, which is interesting. Some of the adults. Yeah, they don't, they don't really know much about wolves. They probably came for the kids because of course they have to come here, too. So they have some sort of interest in wolves. But a lot of people are really surprised that they're not as large as they think. Often people think they're going to be like these like £300 brawny beasts.
Elizabeth: [00:34:38] They're not much bigger than German shepherds.
Maggie: [00:34:40] No, smaller than some. Actually, in the summertime, they're really surprised because in the summertime they only have one layer to their coat. They really blew out all that fluff right around. Now, actually, they're going to be dropping huge chunks of that undercoat. When they just have that course like top coat, guard hairs, you see what wolves really are. They are not brawny at all. They're super sleek and slender and they kind of look like supermodels or something skinny, and suddenly people say, like, aren't you feeding the wall? It's like, no, that's that's kind of what they look like. They're really leggy. So then I think the summertime we definitely get some people that are surprised.
Elizabeth: [00:35:27] Well, and I guess to in New York, it's different than if you are in the West where people aren't coming in here angry about wolves, right?
Maggie: [00:35:33] No, we do. We get a few, but not many. Of course, they have to pay to get here. Right. You know what I mean? So there's some sort of effort to come here, right. But no. So we are kind of preaching to the choir to a degree sometimes. But because we have a very big online presence, that's when we're going to find a lot of pushback. So that's where we're reaching people really all over the world, which is awesome. Blows my mind, actually. But that's where sometimes you can find a lot of people that don't like wolves or us.
Elizabeth: [00:36:16] Well, it's the kids. I mean, that's who really is going to change all this. With a lot of things, it's a lot of pressure on these kids.
Maggie: [00:36:26] So many kids will come up to me like, Oh, I've liked wolves since I was four. How long have you liked wolves? I was like I'm in my late twenties? But there's no shame on me.
Elizabeth: [00:36:43] So we connected because you are a part of an organization, an organization, You are part of a campaign called Relist Wolves. Which is how we connected, will you talk about that a little bit?
Maggie: [00:36:56] Yeah. So Relist Wolves, it's really a campaign. Well, it was two things, really, but it's a realist wolf that had lost protection. A, This is where it gets complicated through this rule change at the really close of the Trump administration to delist wolves nationwide, except for the Mexican gray wolves, so are all gray wolves, not the Mexican wolf. That was one thing, but also to address the wolves that had already lost protections in 2011. Those are wolves in Montana, Wyoming and also in Idaho.
Elizabeth: [00:37:38] Which is also really complicated because in the other 47 states, currently the wolves are relisted as of this year.
Maggie: [00:37:45] No, actually 40. Alaska, they have no protection.
Elizabeth: [00:37:48] Oh, okay, so 46 states That's crazy they have no protection in Alaska. So where all the wolves live, most of the wolves live, they're not protected, but they're totally protected in New Jersey?
Maggie: [00:38:02] The delisting, like Trump rule that was most devastating to the wolves in the western Great Lakes states. So those are states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, states where they had lost protections before and then via a court order got the protections back. Sometimes it yo yoed back and forth and but really within weeks after the delisting or even before it even happened, a lot of the states were starting to like get ready and figure out how they're going to kill them. There was a push actually to have an emergency wolf hunt. But they just had their normal Wolf Hunt in Wisconsin, which is mandated by Wisconsin law, that if wolves are delisted, they have to be hunted. I don't think it was a full three days. I think it was like two and a half days. They killed 218 wolves and those are the ones that were reported. There's a lot of models that show that probably many more were poached. So these were wolves that hadn't been hunted, hadn't known the pressures of human hunts in the past because they've been relisted, I think, in. 2015 or something. So they hadn't had protections for a few years at least. It was just those numbers just piled up so quickly. Minnesota and Michigan chose not to hunt those years. However, what happened when this rule was announced and then implemented really at the beginning of Biden's time in office, is that almost like emboldened the politicians, I guess, in the state level and the governors for these states where wolves were already unprotected, they kind of ramped it up and they passed new laws that made it easier to kill more wolves and in really the most cruel ways, we're talking bounties, something that, it's the 21st century, bounties? We're talking about snaring more trapping, killing wolves and nursing mothers in their dens. If it's on not public lands, that's not allowed. But still stuff that's like you see so many things moving forward in our culture and this is a huge slide back into a time that made us almost, you know, make them extinct entirely in the first place. So it's just a short sighted push to kill the animals. It just doesn't make sense.
Elizabeth: [00:41:10] You just wonder if you're going to go shoot a mother and her pups in a den when we allow that kind of stuff on any level, we're just, like, encouraging the worst of humanity. No, aside from what we're doing to wolves, we're doing a lot of bad things to humans, to animals across the board. It just pushes that agenda.
Maggie: [00:41:30] States like Montana, like Wyoming, have always had pretty horrible management of their wolves where they really hunt 365 days a year. One portion of the state, a very small portion, which is really just around the national parks. It's called the trophy zone. They do have a limit to how many wolves can be hunted. But through 85 to 90% of the state of Wyoming, it's a predator zone. You don't need a permit. You don't need to really use anything. So it's really free for all. Idaho's been bad for a while, they got worse. Montana was considered probably the best with that little trio. They just went down quick and really we saw a lot of people in this kind of wolf space that was attending or listening or watching these hearings. It was really difficult just to see them try to justify implementing this liberalized hunting. For like a single person killing so many more wolves and in so many horrible ways. They even had groups of people who support the hunting of wolves saying this is not the right thing to do, sometimes they did it because they said, oh, there's just gonna be a lawsuit or something's going to happen. They're just going to protect the wolves. But sometimes, just as an ethical hunter, they were saying, this is going to be just a black mark on our community. Like already our populations are shrinking, and now you're making us out to be these monsters. So, I mean, there's really a lot, still they slid through and we had former managers and then on the state wildlife level in Montana and those states came out opposing some of these laws. The former director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife, who supported wolf hunting, Dan Ashe, came out with an amazing op ed, I think it was in The Washington Post, where he called it ecocide. I mean, so like, really, you had people coming out like they never came out before, just being like, wait, what is this? This is inhuman, this is not hunting. This is, again, ecocide. So really what the good news is, is about a month ago, the Judge actually did rescind the decision to delist wolves across the lower 48, with the exception of.
Elizabeth: [00:44:22] Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.
Maggie: [00:44:22] The place where they're being hunted so brutally. That is great news for the Great Lakes wolves like Wisconsin, Montana and Michigan. It is great news for the Northeast. If we ever do have wolves come back from Canada, like through Recolonization or the Pacific Northwest and parts of Washington, Oregon and and California. They're protected on the state level, too. So there's lots of good news just in terms of potential and also a really big population in the Great Lakes. But then it's confusing to our constituents because of course, they think, yay, it's all over. While again, some of the worst cruelty imaginable is happening right under our noses in the Northern Rockies.
Elizabeth: [00:45:04] Also the Northern Rockies Wolves in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming. How does that change? How did they get reelected?
Maggie: [00:45:11] So those guys still have no protection. The reason that they were kind of. Isolated from that blanket delisting is because they had been previously delisted by an unprecedented effort. It was really through a must pass budget bill who had a writer that said that wolves in Idaho, in Montana, Wyoming were going to lose protections and no judicial review was allowed either.
Elizabeth: [00:45:46] So is there only a chance then to get relisted? Like if Deb Haaland said, Hey, I'm enlisting the wolves. Does that release them?
Maggie: [00:45:55] Yeah. So right now what's happening is two big groups, Center for Biological Diversity and also the Humane Society, filed a petition to re-list that distinct population segment back in May.
Elizabeth: [00:46:15] Yeah.
Maggie: [00:46:15] So US Fish and Wildlife saw the petition, saw what was going on and said, this might be warranted. This is because there have been such drastic changes in the laws and management in these three states, maybe it does actually threaten this population to go below a threshold which would justify them being relisted under the Federal Endangered Species Act.
Elizabeth: [00:46:43] But those things take like a year.
Maggie: [00:46:45] So it's just really you don't know how U.S. Fish and Wildlife is going to take it
Elizabeth: [00:46:48] But that's their only chance?
Maggie: [00:46:49] Yeah, it would be this review, the 12 month review, or if they could prove just with their population surveys, the numbers had dipped.
Elizabeth: [00:47:01] But they've got to go really low for that, right?
Maggie: [00:47:03] Yeah, you also have to, again, figure out how people are counting wolves. So it's tricky.
Elizabeth: [00:47:10] So, is Relist Wolves goal to push this like for Fish and wildlife or?
Maggie: [00:47:15] So Relist Wolves was the first one now that was done via lawsuit which a win is a win. In terms of those wolves. But now it's time to get to work because like, let's make sure that the state policies are right in Wisconsin. Why is that in their constitution that they have to hunt wolves so and that's that's the long game. That takes decades to get education, and just try to build advanced non-lethal ways to prevent conflict with, like, livestock and just coexistence, try to foster that kind of value. So it's not an easy fix. Yeah, but I think more and more people are understanding that long game. Now really the goal is to just try to get those animals in the northern Rocky Mountains. I mean what 25 wolves in Yellowstone were killed this year? Why? They're not making money for the state. They're beloved to wolf watchers all over the world.
Elizabeth: [00:48:28] I'm telling you, I was in Yellowstone on Monday, the only people there because it was 11 degrees, werewolf watchers. Yeah, it was just wolf people.
Maggie: [00:48:36] Yeah. I mean, and they have their groupies. I say that with love, like like again, 11 degrees. Yeah. So it's not like, oh, it's summer break. Let's go visit the wolves and those wolves, there are no cows grazing in Yellowstone.
Elizabeth: [00:48:52] But Montana, it feels like, has like it's really gone to hell. I mean, it wasn't great to animals before this with the governor hunting mountain lions in the trees.
Maggie: [00:49:04] The craziest thing about what the governor is doing, because he killed a colored wolf from Yellowstone, not in Yellowstone, but it was a Yellowstone wolf outside of Yellowstone. It's like these are scientists in your state. Maybe you hate animals, but do you have, like respect for
Elizabeth: [00:49:24] For humans and research what they're doing? A lot of people go to Yellowstone to see wolves. It is a lot of money for Montana and Wyoming.
Maggie: [00:49:34] It's their top tourist destination. It doesn't make sense.
Elizabeth: [00:49:37] Right.
Maggie: [00:49:39] It's stupid.
Elizabeth: [00:49:39] It's idiotic. I went to this ranch outside of Yellowstone called Barb Ranch, there's big signs outside and they are part of this coalition where they live in coexistence with wild animals. So it's like if you want to hike around here, you better have bear spray because there's a ton of grizzlies. If they kill some of our cows, that's the circle of life and that's nature. That's just how they roll.
Maggie: [00:50:05] It's good.
Elizabeth: [00:50:05] It was just such a beautiful thing to see after hearing about so much hate.
Maggie: [00:50:11] We all pay taxes, right? If you're grazing cows on the landscape that is shared with wild animals and wild plants and everything else, it's just Mother Nature's tax.
Elizabeth: [00:50:25] Yeah, it is.
Maggie: [00:50:26] There's tools that you can use, the government and the community are there to help.
Elizabeth: [00:50:30] Everyone I was talking to who was not a wolf hater but other pro of people were like dogs actually work and like all these things that really do keep wolves away from livestock.
Maggie: [00:50:41] No, I mean, as a New Yorker, I didn't understand until way too late just really how much of our public lands is used to support cattle primarily, often released out for season. They might have range riders or literally cowboys like on ATVs or something just to manage, but often not.I don't think wolves have a thing against cows or any predator, but they are definitely more naive than an elk or a moose or a bison. Unfortunately, we've got to come up with some way where we can share the land or have an acceptable threshold. Of loss like any other industry. Yeah, any other industry.
Elizabeth: [00:51:27] This is how it's been forever, it's the same laws and the same ridiculous, like painting a dollar or 30 or whatever to keep your cow on this land. We'll protect it and we'll kill all the wildlife. They're destroying all the public lands, all these cattle. There's not a lot of upside except for the person making the money off the cattle and the people who are governing all that. But I think and especially if you look at the people in New York, for instance, we really don't think it's our problem and we really don't think we can do anything about it. I think that's the message that's got to get hammered in more than any other message that if.
Maggie: [00:52:05] We have a voice.
Elizabeth: [00:52:06] Yeah, it's our land
Maggie: [00:52:07] Yeah. No.
Elizabeth: [00:52:09] There are animals.
Maggie: [00:52:11] I'm hopeful.
Elizabeth: [00:52:12] I'm really hopeful for these guys here and what you guys are doing. Thank you. Maggie, it's been really nice to be able to come up here. I'm so glad you're so close. Yeah, I might stop by. Yeah, it's really cool. Thank you so much.
Maggie: [00:52:29] Thank you.
Elizabeth: [00:52:37] You can make a real difference for wolves by going to Relistwolves.org. To learn more about Maggie, to learn about the Wolf Conservation Center and to learn about and get involved with Relist Wolves, go to our website Speciesunite.com. We will have links to everything. We are on Facebook and Instagram @speciesunite. If you have a spare minute and could do us a favor, please subscribe rate review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find the show. If you want to support the podcast, we would greatly appreciate it. Go to our website Species Unite and click Donate. I would like to thank everyone at Species Unite, including Gary Knudsen, Caitlin Pierce, Amy Jones, Paul Healey, Santana Polky, Bethany Jones and Anna Connor, who wrote and performed today's music. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful day.
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