Ranchers find their voice over wolf issue

Matt Unrau

While the federal government and goliath-sized interest groups battle out the fate of a wolf-hunting season in the courts, the people dealing with the animals on the front lines, Western Montanan ranchers, feel like they are being all but ignored. After seeing their money rot away in one too many dead caracasses on their pasture land, ranchers finally have someone listening.

Kim Balin, of Dan Rather Reports in New York, spent Wednesday night in Lonepine listening to the rancher’s viewpoint on the wolf reintroduction and the effect that it has had on their business. Balin’s attention had been drawn to the area from a full-page Ad that had run in the Missoulian on June 28. The Ad, which showed pictures of confirmed wolf kills and attacks and asked for support for the delisting of wolves, was spearheaded by Kim Baker of Hot Springs and Dean Hoffman of Missoula.

“It’s(the ad) been everywhere,” says Baker. “I just thought it was going to get to Missoula.” She says the ad has been passed around by email to the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, hunters.net, Montana newspapers and many government officials including Fish, Wildlife and Parks. It was over the internet where Balin first saw the ad and contacted Baker for research and background for a potential national story.

With the promise of an audience 50 to 60 ranchers were more than ready to spill the years of frustration that were simmering below their cowboy hats. Baker started the discussion with an impassioned plea of her own to summarize the night, “we got to have a plan, we got to make it known and we got to bring it out.” With that introduction, Baker went around the room, giving everyone a chance to speak.

Some of the talks were outbursts of frustration such as when Gary Knell angrily said, “I don’t know why Uncle Sam doesn’t take care of his God-damn dogs.” This statement drew a round of cynical laughter from the crowd.

Others such as Ross Middlemist of Dixon gave a more personal and eloquent story. Taking the time to write out his story before attending the meeting, Middlemist talked about the plight of the rancher up against wolves he described as “phenomenal killing machines that hunt in packs.” Describing the many hazards they’re now up against he stated, “the most precious loss of all is our peace of mind.”

Several members of the audience echoed Baker’s opening statement describing the hardship of a small-town rancher. Lisa Hendrickson of St. Ignatius talked about the necesity of becoming organized if they were going to hope to accomplish anything in the courts. “We’re going against an organized foe. We’re not (organized) we’re working our butts off just to make a living.”

It wasn’t just ranchers that had something to say, but also two representatives from Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation spoke up about the problem. Steve Becker says Montana has the greatest elk population in the world and that is solely because “farmers and ranchers provide a habitat that make that possible.” His partner Kirk Murphy also echoed what the group as a whole was thinking. “They need to be delisted and given to state management where we all have a say,” said Murphy. “Hunting is a great tool and needs to be used to manage them.”

Along with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation senators Pat Ingraham and George Hinkle attended the meeting. At the end of the discussion Hinkle compared the wolves to four-legged terrorists for what they were doing to the American people.

Although, Baker is pleased to see the success of the full-page ad that has been given so much attention around the nation, she says it was originally designed for only one person. That person is U.S. District Judge Don Molloy who will decide wether to grant an injunction to stop the wolf hunt in Montana and Idaho.