'The Wolves Are More Protected Than The President': Doug LaMalfa Bemoans Wolf Protections Under ESA

2 days ago

During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) spoke about the listing of wolves as an endangered species.

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Transcript

00:00The chair now recognizes Mr. LaMalfa for five minutes of questioning on the topic at hand.

00:09The topic at hand, that's not bashing Trump over every little thing, is it?

00:17Mr. Roberts, thanks for being here with us and I wanted to follow up on a previous question

00:21that was asked here.

00:22Are we taking, basically are we taking too many wolves according to someone's set goals?

00:30We count, so far, approximately 77 in my northeast counties in Northern California, Siskiyou

00:36and Modoc.

00:37That's the numbers that are being estimated and they're devastating the deer population,

00:41the normal wildlife population, and the livestock populations up there.

00:46Just big time.

00:47It's only 77 wolves.

00:48So, a previous assertion that we might be taking too many.

00:51Could you follow up on that?

00:54Yes, we are fortunate to have good data to help guide those decisions.

00:59I appreciate my colleague mentioning the best available science and referencing that peer

01:04review literature is that.

01:08There is good peer review literature to suggest that we can sustainably take around 29% of

01:15a wolf population.

01:16In other words, remove about 29% in the next year and have just as many wolves.

01:21So if the goal is to reduce populations, you would actually need to take more than 29%.

01:28What's a sustainable number of wolves, such as, well, nobody except for people in the

01:35Bay Area want them in our part of the district, but if you want to see a gray wolf, it seems

01:39that you can see plenty of them in the northern Midwest states and Canada, which they're a

01:44little more native to.

01:45I don't wish them on you all there, too.

01:49What is truly sustainable as far as how many wolves they can even deal with there and what

01:54makes a population that you know you can count on to not have an extinction?

02:00The Fish and Wildlife Service in consultation with state and tribal agencies and other scientists

02:07established a minimum population goal.

02:10In the case of wolves, that was set regionally.

02:13For example, in the Great Lakes, that number was 1 to 200 outside of Minnesota.

02:21That number is established with the idea in mind that that would ensure that the population

02:28is around in the long term and is resilient to unexpected circumstances.

02:33Because Fish and Wildlife seems to have no actual target number, they just say, hey,

02:37we've conserved the wolves, we can pull them off the list.

02:40Do you know of a number?

02:42I do not know of a number, a nationwide number.

02:46However, the Fish and Wildlife Service and their rule that they published in 2020 that

02:51was subsequently defended by the Biden administration clearly stated that they determined that the

02:57wolf population in the United States, not just in the Great Lakes region, but in the

03:00United States was recovered and no longer endangered of extinction.

03:04Why do they need to be in more than one region in the United States?

03:07Because they're devastating western states right now.

03:09This kind of brings an analogy to me like, well, there's plenty of giraffes in Africa,

03:14but there's no giraffes in northern America.

03:16So therefore, we must have an endangered giraffe species in northern America.

03:20Well, I think that you do want to have multiple populations to be resilient if something were

03:26to happen to some subpopulation.

03:28However, that does not mean that they need to inhabit their entire historic range.

03:33Right now, one of the criticisms about wolves is that they occur in about 20% of their historic

03:38range in the United States, which is similar to elk.

03:42Elk occur in about 20% of their historic range in the United States, and I don't think anybody

03:47would argue that elk are endangered.

03:51Let me just recount a little bit what's going on in my district in northern California.

03:55People are desperate.

03:56They feel like they have no remedies for anything.

03:59The fladry, the jumping around with flags and flashlights and even flying drones over

04:04a wolf where the wolf gets used to the drone.

04:07They just lay down underneath it until the drone goes away.

04:10They're within, you know, 30 yards of houses just looking at you.

04:14They're mocking people basically, but let me give you a couple anecdotes here.

04:18When the wolves are in the cattle, often the cow aborts or won't breed back.

04:21We lost three head last year that we didn't report.

04:24We know wolves killed them either by tracks, telltale signs, or you hear the howling when

04:28you get near the conflict.

04:30Our lives have changed over the past few years.

04:31We're on edge day and night.

04:33I've never been afraid to go out on foot at night anywhere on my ranch.

04:36I am now.

04:37I don't take my dogs if I'm away from the barnyard for fear they will be killed, as

04:41in that picture up there.

04:43I am up multiple times each night checking for sounds or driving the ranch looking for

04:47wolves.

04:48My husband has stage four cancer.

04:49I've met these people.

04:52This added stress isn't good for him.

04:54We started calling two of the calving grounds of our neighbor's ranch basically death camps

04:58because in the last few weeks, every time we go down the county road, there are fresh

05:02bloody carcasses.

05:03You come back home, some bodies are gone, but new ones take their place.

05:06We hear howls day and night on the calving grounds.

05:09There are many groups of wolves outside those that are collared.

05:12None of us has the resources to fend off this onslaught.

05:15Another is we make, another person, we've made multiple trips to town the last few days.

05:20Deer and antelope herds are frantically running from the calving grounds when we go by.

05:23We normally don't see them doing this.

05:25It's always when we hear the howls or get word that they are close by.

05:28Fish and game, by the way, won't tell them they're nearby even though they have the collars.

05:31They have to wait until they're already in their herd.

05:33Our neighbor is 91 years old.

05:35He spends almost every night, every night driving around, all night, excuse me, around

05:38his feedlot trying to keep them from the yearlings for the past couple months.

05:41He's exhausted.

05:42And I can tell you 10 more stories just right off the top here.

05:45This is what's going on.

05:46This is very real to these people and they have no remedy because the wolves are more

05:49protected than the president.

05:50I yield back.

05:51Thank you, Mr. LaMalfa.

05:52The chair now recognizes.

'The Wolves Are More Protected Than The President': Doug LaMalfa Bemoans Wolf Protections Under ESA

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