Until Wildlife Services agreed to “cut back” on killings of wild animals in Montana, it might not have been visible to most Montanans that thousands of animals were being killed in Montana every year. In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, Wildlife Services killed 7,965 coyotes, 46 wolves, one grizzly bear and other species in Montana. Until the settlement with WildEarth Guardians required Wildlife Services to stop exploding sodium cyanide bombs on certain tracts of public and private land, Wildlife Services’s explosion of bombs to destroy animal habitats wasn’t a subject of discussion.
The massacre taking place under our fingertips is still taking place, only at reduced levels. Wildlife Services is an anachronistic name for a violent agency that mostly appears to protect the interests of big farmers and ranchers. Public understanding of these agencies is that they restore balance in livestock predator conflicts and to human/animal interactions. Yet the activity that most undermines balance is protected by Wildlife Services: the livestock industry that endangers the planet through climate change and pollution. The whole system is one in which countless numbers of animals (including cattle) die to feed a machine that requires more killing to perpetuate its existence. By definition any system running on this level of destruction is not sustainable.
WildEarth Guardians have won a battle that requires the Wildlife Services to turn to science to justify their killings; they are now required to review the killings based on updated reports rather than carry them out wantonly. Unfortunately, it has not won the war. Winning the war is only possible when human groups participate in protecting an environment shared with non-human creatures equally.
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