“We must kill more wolves. When hornets get near my house, I don’t just kill the adults, I destroy the larvae.”
– Representative Paul Fielder, Thompson Falls, Montana
Over the past several years, we have come to know Paul Fielder (R) of Thompson Falls through the course of his tenure as state senator and now representative. We have seen him work tirelessly to eradicate wolves in Montana and he has shown no fondness for grizzly bears either.
He attempted to have trapping made part of the state constitution. Conservationists pushed back hard, and thankfully, the effort was defeated.
His method uses faux science to support the idea that game animal populations are falling year after year. Numbers are, in fact, at near record levels. Nonetheless, he wants wolves eradicated, and no method is too cruel for him. He repeats outdated and disproven arguments that all predators must be “managed”. Ideas based not on science, but talking points tailored to convince his fellow lawmakers Montana’s wolves must all die. People need more management, not wolves.
Fielder calls himself a “wildlife biologist” but likely takes money from trappers and trophy hunting groups, and he’s a pay-to-play legislator. Trappers represent less than 0.24% of people using public lands, yet Fielder represents their desire to kill and torture wildlife as a majority view.
Now, one of his new bills, HB 258, would take Montana to a new low. It allows for the killing of wolf pups in their dens. This is sick, dangerous thinking. It would be wholly unethical and unsportsmanlike. HB 258 is simply a free pass for trappers to get bounties on the pups they kill, just like in Idaho.
This is simply welfare for trappers and must be stopped. No civilized society pays bounties except on the worst of criminals. Montana’s wolves are not “a new hybrid with giant teeth” or the “Big Bad Wolf,” as Fielder extols, and he has used such nonsense as talking points. Retired Yellowstone Wolf Biologist Doug Smith made it clear at a recent FWP hearing that wolf biologists do not subscribe to the notion that Yellowstone wolves have become their own subspecies, stating plainly, “It’s a bad argument.”
Yet Fielder continues to demand lower wolf populations despite the state’s own statistics describing a stable situation between wolves and cattle. Last year, with over 2 million cattle in our state, only 137 cows were attacked by wolves. Far more died from disease, weather, and falls. Fielder claims to be a wildlife biologist, so he should know a year-round killing of wolves will lead to broken pack structures and more livestock depredation, not less.
This is a full-scale assault on wolves by Republicans. Fully supported by the Governor, who gives all he can to the cattle barons to buy their help in reshaping Montana into Texas. They know what they are doing. They want more depredation to give them an excuse to eradicate wolves. Fielder, state ringleader for trappers, wants our state to sanction insane cruelty like the killing of pups, newborns, or still in the womb. All so people who live to torture animals can make money doing it.
Idaho’s treatment of wolves is a global disgrace. Fielder and his friends at the Foundation for Wildlife Management (the group paying trappers bounties) would make Montana worse. The wolf-related legislation they’re pushing must be stopped. Democrats must stand together and fight the lies and fearmongering.
Wolves belong in Montana and across the West, they’re driving a new and growing economy in communities around Yellowstone. If that model can be used across the state, it would bring in far more money to Montana than livestock grazing on our public lands.
Fielder and the cruelty of trapping do not belong in Montana, we must learn to coexist with wildlife.