Charismatic Carnivores

My favorite advice for hiking in grizzly bear habitat goes like this: Avoid surprising bears, especially sows with cubs, by carrying a whistle to blow when moving through brush where visibility is poor. Also, tie bells to your pack. Finally, be alert for signs of bears – like large turd piles with whistles and bells in them.

Conservation biologists call big predators like bears, wolves and mountain lions "charismatic carnivores," a term that reflects the love/hate nature of human attitudes towards those powerful creatures. We cuddle with stuffed bears and turn lions into noble cartoon characters or steadfast marble guardians for our libraries but if you see one in the wild it's usually been shoot first and ask questions later. Lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) can, after all, eat you.

That rarely happens. In the United States and Canada in the 1990s, 29 people were killed by bears. During the same period, 250 were killed in dog attacks. You are 12 times more likely to die of a bee sting than a bear attack. In the entire history of America, only one person was killed by a wolf, a rabid one at that. While hiking in or near wilderness, you are 40 times more likely to be struck by lightning than attacked by a mountain lion. And yet our fear of top carnivores is as primal as our admiration for them.

Landscapes Raised by Wolves

Can science trump fear? After a long era of killing wild predators, every last one by any means available, America is entering a post "wipe em' out" era that includes the re-introduction of wolves into Western ecosystems, a project our grandfathers would find unfathomable. That wildlife biologists even chose the loaded term "charismatic" for certain carnivores indicates a profound shift in perspective now taking place. Until very recently man was the only carnivore considered charismatic – a high powered hunter who tracked down and slaughtered the other big carnivores and then expropriated their habitat for trophy homes, vacation ranchettes, gas wells and back-country, off-road-vehicle theme parks. Perhaps the grand beasts we exterminated only grew larger in stature – more noble than nuisance – because they were seen in the rearview mirror of extinction. But if we have not mistaken charisma for the nostalgia of a last fading glimpse, then perhaps the new regard for carnivores signals the early glimmerings of a radical break with the resource-driven policies that the Bush administration represents so admirably.

The change in attitude can be attributed to the influence of conservation biologists who have in recent years described the profound effect of carnivores, charismatic or otherwise, on the food webs that include them. Until now, predators have generally suffered a bum rap.

Ecologically, you could say that western landscapes are raised by wolves. After wolves were wiped out in Yellowstone in the early 1900s, for example, elk got lazy and bunched up in delicate but critical river and stream habitats where they chewed up and trampled down the tall grass in which birds nested. They eroded stream banks until native fish choked to death on the muddy waters left in their wallowing wake. When the elk ate up all the willow seedlings, beavers that feed on willow saplings and use them to weave their dams dwindled drastically. No beavers, no dams. No dams, no wetlands. No wetlands, no ... well, whole sets of species fade away. Yellowstone lost precious biodiversity, the most compelling measure we have of any ecosystem's vitality. With no competition from wolves, smaller carnivores – coyotes and foxes – became too abundant and ravaged their prey species: More birds, small mammals, frogs, and snakes gone. Eventually, Yellowstone's entire ecosystem became skewed and degraded, thanks to the absence of just one "keystone" species of predator.