Carter Niemeyer has had a hand in killing more American wolves in the Lower 48 states than any wildlife manager in modern history. As I wrote in a recent column that appeared in the Jackson Hole News & Guide newspaper : “I don’t mention this as an indictment—it’s a fact. A fact that gives him credibility, though the credibility comes from doing methodical detective work on the ground and deciding when wolves should—and shouldn’t—die.”
For decades, Niemeyer worked as a U.S. civil servant in the employ of Wildlife Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a bureau within the U.S. Interior Department. His primary job was killing predators that menaced domestic livestock. Some environmentalists castigated him as a 'hit man" advancing the interests of cattle and sheep while ranchers on the other side of the barbed-wire fence said he was aligned with greens. After retiring, Niemeyer wrote a book about it, Wolfer, that has met with critical praise. We highly recommend that you read it.
With about 1,600 wolves in the northern Rockies, about one wolf has died for every one that still lives.
Since gray wolves were reintroduced to the greater Yellowstone ecosystem and central Idaho in the mid 1990s—in the wake of humans exterminating original lobo popultions—some 1,500 of the candid predators have been destroyed, largedly in appeasement of the livestock industry. It means that today, with about 1,600 wolves in the northern Rockies, about...
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Author: Todd Wilkinson
Post Date:November 2nd, 2011
'Retired federal wolf control specialist Carter Niemeyer talks with Wildlife Art Journal.com about his critically-acclaimed memoir 'Wolfer' and gives a straight-shooting interview about why state wildlife managers in the West are afraid to tell the truth about wolves—namely that they're neither wiping out elk nor representing a serious economic threat to ranchers.
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Research tags: carter niemeyer, wolves, yellowstone wolves, wildlife services, wolves wyoming, wildlife art, wildlife art journal, todd wilkinson,