The Dilemma of Democrats in States Dominated by Ranchers and Farmers opposed to Endangered Species Protections:
 
The complex politics of wildlife is revealed in the votes of Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin who are supporting legislation to remove protections from gray wolves in the Great Lakes area.  Survey data of the general public in states like Minnesota and Wisconsin show that the general public supports protection of species like wolves & grizzlies. But, despite this general support and the generally progressive nature of parties in these 2 states (though Wisconsin is increasingly becoming a red state), these senators are supporting these measures.  Why? An article by Jimmy Tobias argues that the senators are undermining their ability to resist future changes to the Endangered Species Act. They argue that the ESA has been so successful (and they support it) that the wolves can be delisted. But the politics is that specific groups in their states such as ranchers and farmers are strongly anti-wolf and are passionate in their views while the supporters do not place a high salience to the wolf issue, thus again explaining why minorities win out over majorities in wildlife politics. For example, recently the Wisconsin Farm Bureau presented a detailed case of a farming family whose livestock was threatened by wolves as the basis for delisting them in the Great Lakes area. See the article by Tobias: These Democrats Are Trying to Sabotage the Endangered Species Act: It’s not a good look. By Jimmy Tobias. PSMag, Accessed 4/8/17 from https://psmag.com/these-democrats-are-trying-to-sabotage-the-endangered-species-act-e46a247649e0
 

Wilderness Act Used to Overrule helicopter-elk-collaring project in Idaho: Wilderness vs. collars.
Wilderness Watch and Earthjustice succeeded in a case with a Federal judge ruling that their elk-collaring project using helicopters in the Frank Church-River of No Return must be ceased. Underlying the project is the intention of Idaho to kill wolves in order to boost elk numbers. Many of the most controversial and successful court cases by conservationists have involved the Endangered Species Act but this is a case where the intrusion of helicopters into the wilderness employed the Wilderness Act as the basis of the case. This case reminds me of Dave Foreman’s contention that while seeing wild bear and other carnivores was the essence of wilderness, that a collared bear did “nothing for him.”  See the report on the case at: https://wildernesswatch.org/victory-for-river-of-no-return-wilderness-and-its-wildlife
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Science and Overfishing: Interaction of economic costs, politics, and data quality issues.
An article by Kate King in April 7, 2017 Wall Street Journal reports that an interstate commission has mandated a cut in summer flounder (also known as fluke) by 30 percent but this proposal has been protested by fishermen and the State of New Jersey which has asked the Trump Admin. to overrule the proposal.  The regional Administrator of NOAA says that “summer flounder are being fished at a rate that is too high for the population to sustain itself.” The article cites the concurrence of an experienced fishermen that the “fish are stressed.” But New Jersey officials state their “surveys show the summer flounder stock has remained stable over the past 25 years” and they claim that “the federal government’s methodology for collecting data is outdated” and have asked for a stay of the quota until “new data is collected.” This case illustrates again why scientific disputes have become central to wildlife politics as I discuss in Ch.2 of my Wildlife Politics book. Most people agree that science should guide policy on wildlife but that does not stop disputes because people disagree over scientific findings due to a variety of issues including quality of data as is the case here.  With respect to fish, often the industry disputes the science claiming that their fishing experience shows that there are much  more fish than the government is finding.  In short, agreement that science should guide wildlife policy does not by any  means bring an end to disputes over the policies. This case also illustrates how climate change is a looming issue behind so many threats to species--some scientists speculate that climate change has pushed the fish further north. See the article: King, Kate. (2017). New Jersey Fishermen Reel Over a New Quota on Fluke. Wall Street Journal, April 7. Accessed 4/7/17 from https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-jersey-fishermen-reel-over-a-new-quota-1491483600
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Why hunters dominate wildlife policy in Wisconsin.
One of the major themes of my book, Wildlife Politics, is that small groups such as hunters and ranchers have dominated policymaking on issues such as wolves and grizzlies despite the fact that they represent a small portion of the population that is every declining. Despite their declining numbers, their dominance in policymaking is, if anything, increasing at both state and national levels. A story in the Wisconsin State Journal by Ron Seely provides insight into a major reason for this dominance: institutionalism—The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is dominated by hunting interests so they make ever more “hunter friendly” policies such as allowing expanded killing of wolves and bobcatys in state parks, hunting with dogs, and extending hunting seasons. How do they achieve this? Seely’s article describes how there is a “Conservation Congress” that advises Wisconsin’s DNR on policy and this group is dominated by hunters. When non-hunters such as animal rights activists are elected to the Congress, they are warned they will be “censured or removed” if they speak against hunting.  Moreover, the chairman of the group, Ron Bohmann, says that the recent push to expand hunting of wolves, use of dogs, extending seasons, is because “because as the number of hunters drops, they lose their power to influence decision-makers” and "If we don't fight for what we have, we'll lose it," Bohmann said. "I think we're more active now." In other words, the fewer hunters, the more extreme positions they push and even bigger gap grows between the views of the majority of Wisconsin’s and their Department of Natural Resources. This perfectly illustrates institutionalism’s effect on public policy that I speak of in my book. See the article at http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/madison-resident-hopes-to-bring-voice-of-non-hunters-to/article_a2d6fdb2-9e3f-11e2-9f42-001a4bcf887a.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share
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Wyoming Bighorn Sheep versus Domestic Sheep and Struggles Over Grazing Rights on Federal Lands
An excellent and fascinating detailed case study of the conflict between ranchers and those interested in conserving big horn sheep is presented by Angus M. Thuermer in a Wyofile article. He gives a case study of sheep ranchers who have lost their dogs to grizzly attacks and have to coral their sheep herd every night. This family decided to sell their grazing rights on Federal lands to conservation groups such as the Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation. As part of the deal, the family “waives its grazing rights.” The State of Wyoming and the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association generally opposes the loss of AUMs (Animal Unit Months) on grazing lands in Wyoming and thus don’t like such deals. Due to this, the Feds actually labeled the family’s AUMs as “vacant” rather than “closed.” The reason for the action are due to the threat of disease transmission from the domestic sheep to the wild bighorn.  The article cites disease outbreaks among the wild bighorn in 2010 and 1991 that cut the population by 405 and a third respectively. The case also illustrates the role of science in policymaking. Offers to ranchers are based on a model that predicts the risk to wild sheep from domestic sheep. It contains a number of factors such as geography predicting likelihood of contacts between wild and domestic sheep. The rancher groups and the State are caught in a philosophical bind about the sales of AUMs to conservationists because, although they generally oppose the retirement of AUMs, they believe in the right of ranchers to sell thehttp://www.wyofile.com/stockmen-bighorns-butt-heads-western-showdown/
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Enforcement and Implementation Crucial to Marine Protected Area Success:
 
The importance of implementation and enforcement to wildlife conservation has been shown once again by two studies of marine protected areas (MPAs).  When marine protected areas are designated, the public and many policymakers often assume that they will be effective in protecting species but two studies show that this confidence is misplaced. MPA’s need to have the staff and budget and actually carry out enforcement activities or the desired results will not be achieved. In a 2014 article in Nature, J Edgar Graham et al. found 5 key factors that were associated with MPA no take, well enforced, old (10 years or older), large (100km2 or larger), and isolated by deep water or sand.  A more recent article by J. Gill et al. found that staff capacity was by far the single most important variable promoting success with budget capacity next in importance.  Qualitative data gathered  by the researchers explained the finding by noting that staff are needed in order to “to support monitoring, enforcement, administration, community engagement and sustainable tourism activities.”  The two articles are as follows: (1) J. Gill et al., “Capacity shortfalls hinder the Performance of marine protected areas globally.” Nature, 30 March 2017, 543, 665-669. (2) J. Graham Edgar et al.,  Global conservation outcomes depend on marine protected areas with five key features Global conservation outcomes depend on marine protected areas with five key features, Nature, 13 February, 2014, 216-220.  An article by Carl Safina in Ocean Views (March 28, 2017) provides a broad overview of these findings along with some great photos of marine protected areas. It is available at: https://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/28/experts-say-marine-protected-areas-are-great-but-could-be-better-with-more-staff-and-funding/