Guest blog by Jim Beers

Wolves, A Deadly Threat Coming to Urban America – Part II of a two-part series (Read Part One)

Wolves are increasing at rates of 35-50% per year in the Upper Rocky Mountain States. They are spreading almost as rapidly in the Upper Great Lakes States. As they spread into Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Utah, plans are in place to put them into The Grand Canyon and their spread into Nevada and California is inevitable.

Traditional means to control, much less eradicate wolves locally, are both inadequate and very costly for limited and temporary effect in The Lower 48 States. Hunting is a totally inadequate control measure as the recent purchase of 35K+ wolf licenses in Idaho showed it to be inadequate to kill a couple of hundred “dumb” (i.e. previously un-hunted) wolves. Wolves, just like coyotes and dogs, adapt and get “smarter” when threatened. Wolves seldom, if ever, come to calls or bait. Federal laws prohibit the use of airplanes to kill wolves by anyone but government bureaucrats. Federal
laws prohibit the poisons used to great effect by our forbearers. More and more landowners from Ted Turner to the widow in the assisted living home in Seattle will not allow any predator control on their property. States increasingly prohibit the use of traps for wolves (the most effective method used in British Columbia as this is written). When wolves depress or locally eradicate wildlife-food like deer and elk; alternatives from live dog-meat and livestock to foals, colts, goats, emus, dumpsters, garbage cans, garage-bins, storage sheds, etc., etc. precludes any “natural decrease” in their numbers or their spread.

One thing that goes unmentioned about early collaring and tracking (by GPS) of wolves in addition to their presence at so many livestock deaths is the routine nighttime travel through farmyards and ranch buildings. Also, wolves use roads and trails routinely, especially at night. Wolves neither fear men nor do they avoid human habitations or roads.

Consider further that wolves travel in packs as well as alone and they easily cover 30+ miles per day. In their wide-ranging travels they are putting their snouts into all manner of wild and domestic animals that they kill. They are picking up soil between their toes and on their hair. They pick up fleas and ticks from all manner of rodents and wildlife as they kill and burrow into dens. They breathe in, lick, and are otherwise exposed to all manner of disease and infections as they go from pasture to pasture or big-game winter area to big-game winter area or rural backyard to URBAN backyard.

When wolves were imposed by federal fiat there was a public impression that all manner of “science” had been used to forecast the results: nothing could be further from the truth. Disease is one such example of a (purposely?) omitted aspect of the future that wolves would usher in.

Wolves carry many, many diseases and infections. I am neither a veterinarian nor a pathologist but I can list at least 30 such dangers carried by any wolves at any time. Those more expert than I can list many more. There is no argument that wolves can carry these dangerous infections nor that they can spread them far and wide as they envelop urban areas and increasingly investigate urban areas at night after picking up the following infections.

Wolves carry the following infections. Those known to infect humans are followed by an (H). Those known to infect other animals, both wild and domestic, are followed by (OA)

1. Rabies (greatly feared by American Indians, Settlers, early Soldiers, etc.) (H) (OA)
2. Brucellosis (H) (OA)
3. Echinococcus granulosis (potentially deadly and debilitating tapeworm) (H) (OA)
4. Echinococcus multilocularis (a deadly tapeworm) (H) (OA)
5. Anthrax (H) (OA)
6. Encephalitis (H) (OA)
7. Great Lakes Tapeworm (H) (OA)
8. Smallpox (H) (OA)
9. Mad Cow (BSE) (H) (OA)
10. Chronic Wasting Disease (H?) (OA)
11. Anemia (carried by ticks on wolves) (H)
12. Dermatosis (carried by ticks on wolves) (H)
13. Tick Paralysis (carried by ticks on wolves) (H)
14. Babesiosis (carried by ticks on wolves) (H)
15. Anaplasmosis (carried by ticks on wolves) (H)
16. Erlichia (carried by ticks on wolves) (H)
17. E Coast Fever (carried by ticks on wolves) (H)
18. Relapsing Fever (carried by ticks on wolves) (H)
19. Rocky Mtn. Spotted Fever (carried by ticks on wolves) (H)
20. Lyme Disease (carried by ticks on wolves) (H)
21. Plague (carried by fleas on wolves) (H)
22. Bubonic Plague (carried by fleas on wolves) (H)
23. Pneumonic Plague (carried by fleas on wolves) (H)
24. Flea-borne Typhus (carried by fleas on wolves) (H)
25. Distemper (OA)
26. Neospora caninum (causes spontaneous abortions) (OA)
27. Mange (3 types including Scabies) (H) (OA)
28. GID (a deadly disease of wild and domestic sheep) (OA)
29. Foot-and-Mouth (OA)
30. Tularemia (H) (OA)
31. Helminthes (flat-worms) 2 sp. (H) (OA)

Of the 31 diseases and infections carried by wolves listed above, only 3 are not dangerous to humans and even those (especially foot-and-mouth and distemper) are of great danger to the American Livestock Industry and the American dog population. An authority on foot-and-mouth has told me that if foot-and-mouth were to break out here (it is in Japan, So. America, and Australia as I write this) in “Wolf Country” it could NOT be isolated. Remember the anthrax scare in Washington? A little white powder and buildings were closed and fumigated for days by men in Hazmat suits. British farms with Mad Cow or South Dakota farms with anthrax are not only isolated with workers fumigated and not allowed off the property without non-work clothes: dogs are quarantined or shot. What of wolves running through pastures at night? Rabid wolves were one of the most feared dangers in early America. Tapeworm eggs in wolf feces not only infect soil and spread with rain or drying, such eggs are carried into homes and onto rugs where they last for long periods in wait for a child’s hand that is later placed into its mouth or a man to eat a peanut mistakenly dropped on the
floor.

What’s that you say? How come Russians or other such people “fortunate” enough to live in “Wolf Country” aren’t all sick? A fair question deserves a fair answer.

Wolves are a far greater URBAN human health threat in the United States than probably anywhere else in the world. Let’s compare St. Petersburg and Moscow (2 urban enclaves enveloped by wolves) to any Urban area in the US similarly enveloped by wolves (Boise?, Missoula? Duluth? Or soon Spokane or Portland?)

Consider the following differences between US and Russian Cities:

American cities have paths, trails, and walkways interconnected like a spider web through the city. American paths are increasingly heavily vegetated with “natural” cover. American parks are increasingly “natural” with vegetated areas.
Wolves have very enticing entry and exit and rest areas in American cities. Wolves will defecate, urinate, and lick spots where food had been dropped in these urban walkway areas. Wolves will snarl at and leave saliva on and near kenneled dogs or dogs in fenced yards. Wolves will carry and transmit to dogs, fleas and ticks picked up far away. Wolves will gradually get “habituated” and pose a mortal danger to joggers and other walkers as is happening around Fairbanks and Anchorage.

AND EVERY MORNING IN AMERICA:

Mom or kids walk “the dog”. And Bowser – Sniffs wolf feces, urinates where wolves urinate, licks the spot the wolf
licked, and touches other objects like certain plants or objects that the wolf similarly found interesting. When Mom and the neighbor meet, Bowser and Buffy – Sniff anuses, touch noses, lick each other, sneeze near each other, and “swap spit” on occasion as they tussle. Then Mom takes the dog into the home where – Kids “kiss” Bowser. Bowser licks their face (including mouths and noses) and any cuts. Bowser sleeps in the kids’ bed. Bowser vomits (especially if it picked up a bone/hairball up-chucked by a wolf that eats such things as it feeds) in the house. Bowser drags its tapeworm-infected anus across the rug or deposits the eggs in the yard when he poops. Stray or loose dogs (especially as urban budgets become tight) will further transmit all the pathological wolf-wonders around the urban area. Even the childless and single condo dwellers downtown will not be exempt. What do they do on weekends? Why they “take the dog” jogging or out to “the country”. Those suburban paths, or worse yet those National Forest/State Park paths will serve to transmit all manner of dangerous pathogens to “the dog” to take back to the condo and share with all the urban pooches AND THEIR OWNERS! In Russia dogs are kept outside in rural Russia and NONE of the above mentioned practices occur. Russians and others in ancient “Wolf Country” have learned and kept the lessons necessary to survive with wolves. These are lessons that we have chosen to forget and deny at our own peril.

No, wolves aren’t just for Rural Americans anymore. Urban Americans should consider facing reality and rejecting the pagan nostrum being spread by all those mentioned in Part I. Urban Americans should join with Rural Americans and stop this wolf catastrophe before it gets worse. The cost will be prohibitive but it will only grow worse the more we delay.

If ever there was a time when Americans need to come together, this is it. If Rural-Americans and Urban-Americans can resolve this wolf problem, perhaps we can drop the hyphens and once again be simply Americans whose freedoms and respect for each others’ rights once made us the envy of the entire world.

Jim Beers
7 June 2010

Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan,
Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting at jimbeers7@comcast.net

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