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Making Peace in the Wolf Wars
Update: 2024-10-14
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Wolves and ranchers are constantly in conflict, with wolves hunting cattle and ranchers hunting wolves. Despite their differences, Daniel Curry wants to help both sides and be a peacemaker in the Wolf Wars.
Guest: Daniel Curry, range rider and wolf advocate in Eastern Washington
Guest: Daniel Curry, range rider and wolf advocate in Eastern Washington
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Transcript
00:00:00
[MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:02
Constant Wonder Kids is a Constant Wonder Podcast.
00:00:06
Hi, Wonder Kids.
00:00:08
It's Paige.
00:00:09
In a lot of stories that we read, there are good guys and bad guys.
00:00:13
For every brave night in Princess, there's an evil queen.
00:00:17
And for every superhero, there's a supervillain.
00:00:20
In our story today, we're going to talk about two groups that are pitted against each other, just like good guys and bad guys.
00:00:27
But in reality, things are a bit more complicated than that.
00:00:31
We're talking about ranchers and wolves.
00:00:34
Ranchers are people whose job it is to raise cattle and other animals, kind of like cowboys.
00:00:40
They keep their herds safe from storms and make sure that they have enough to eat and drink.
00:00:45
One of the ranchers' biggest enemies is the wolves.
00:00:49
Wolves hunt and eat cattle who are weak are separated from their group.
00:00:53
If you're a rancher and you hear a wolf how-- You know that trouble is coming.
00:01:00
That's why ranchers want to hunt wolves and fight them off to protect their cattle.
00:01:05
But our guest today has a different view on wolves.
00:01:08
Wolves are just-- they're such a polarizing topic.
00:01:12
They have so much heat on them in so many different angles that they need a lot of help.
00:01:16
And I believe that they can teach us many things about being better humans.
00:01:21
This is Daniel Curry.
00:01:23
In the battle between wolves and ranchers, he stands in the middle and tries to help everyone.
00:01:28
He is a range rider, which means that his job is to ride his horse around and keep wolves away from livestock without shooting the wolves.
00:01:37
To do this job, you need an excellent understanding of wolves and how they think and behave.
00:01:42
You also need to care about the ranchers and their cattle.
00:01:45
And Daniel has a unique set of skills that makes him the perfect peacemaker in these wolf wars.
00:01:52
Where did Daniel learn so much about wolves?
00:01:55
A few years before he became a range rider, Daniel worked at Wolf Haven, a safe place in Washington for captive and displaced wolves.
00:02:03
The wolves live in areas called enclosures and are cared for by keepers called animal curators.
00:02:09
Daniel started out volunteering and fixing things around the sanctuary, but soon he was asked to do much more.
00:02:17
Animal curator asked me, are you comfortable coming into an enclosure and we actually need a blood sample from one of the red wolves and I need somebody to watch my back while I'm in there doing that.
00:02:27
I'm so excited to have that opportunity.
00:02:30
She did what she needed to do and we came back out and she's like, well, I really felt comfortable with you there.
00:02:35
Would you be interested in working in this?
00:02:37
That's like, of course, that's why I was volunteering.
00:02:40
The other animal curators were impressed with how comfortable Daniel was.
00:02:44
And soon he was working with wolves more and more.
00:02:48
The next time I was asked to go into an enclosure, it was a pretty powerful moment.
00:02:52
It was this little wooden box that was about three feet wide, about six feet long, and it was on the ground, and the wolves had kind of dug into it.
00:02:58
So they made it like a makeshift den box, basically.
00:03:01
And it was a girl named Gray that we were having to pull a blood sample from.
00:03:07
And so I went in there with the animal curator.
00:03:10
She was having trouble.
00:03:12
When you take blood from a wolf, you have to hold the wolf close so that you can see the vein that you need to draw blood from.
00:03:19
Daniel calls it pulling blood.
00:03:21
Daniel had to get very close to the wolf, which can be scary because these captive wolves were not afraid of people, like a wild wolf would be.
00:03:30
Captive wolves are a lot less scared of people.
00:03:33
They're very habituated, their presence, and they are actually much more dangerous, potentially, than a wild wolf.
00:03:40
If I just walk towards them, they take off.
00:03:42
If you walk towards a captive wolf in their enclosure, they're like going to walk towards you.
00:03:45
So Daniel was there in the small wolf den that was really just about the size of a refrigerator with Gray the wolf looking right at him.
00:03:55
We're laying on our bellies.
00:03:57
There's a wolf at the end of this box, and I'm not a small person.
00:04:01
There's not tons of room to move in there.
00:04:03
I've got my big spaghetti arm set that are trying to navigate this small space.
00:04:07
And I grabbed Gray's arm there.
00:04:09
And she let me process the whole thing.
00:04:12
I held her vein off.
00:04:14
My left hand pulled it with my right hand, put them in the tubes and handed them back.
00:04:20
That first time that I made physical contact with a wolf was extremely powerful.
00:04:26
When you're working with wolves, you're working with the natural social behavior.
00:04:29
I'm there, they're going to challenge you, and you're going to have to deal with that portion.
00:04:33
Or they're eventually going to submit to you.
00:04:35
And it's a way of giving themselves to you.
00:04:38
It's like a trust thing that they're handing you.
00:04:40
That's the only thing that they have to give, really.
00:04:43
Gray the wolf was willing to trust Daniel and let him take care of her.
00:04:47
It was an amazing moment.
00:04:49
And as Daniel kept working with wolves, he learned more and more about gaining and maintaining that trust.
00:04:56
When Daniel works with wolves, he uses a special pole called a y-pole to move the wolves around and keep a safe distance when he's unsure of how a wolf feels.
00:05:06
When you're working with him, they'll first challenge that y-pole.
00:05:09
He'll generally grab that thing and rip it apart and destroy it.
00:05:12
That's what you know there aren't submitting to you.
00:05:15
There is not trust.
00:05:16
They're saying, get out of here.
00:05:17
I want you here.
00:05:17
I'm going to attack that.
00:05:19
And you just have to remain calm.
00:05:22
The rule of thumb is a more excited, the more amped up the animal gets.
00:05:26
You have to compensate and bring that back to equilibrium by becoming more calm.
00:05:31
The other option is for them just to submit.
00:05:33
You would see wolves do it with each other.
00:05:35
One will roll on their back.
00:05:36
Maybe the peel will say, I'm not a threat.
00:05:39
Don't worry about me.
00:05:40
They'll actually kind of turn their head instead of making direct eye contact with you and looking at you as a potential threat.
00:05:45
They're going to turn their head almost to the side and they're submitting to you, and they're giving you their neck is what they're doing.
00:05:52
And that's when you can kind of gently place that y-pole on them.
00:05:55
When Daniel helps wolves, he doesn't just push them around with the y-pole, though.
00:05:59
He talks to them and tries to make them comfortable.
00:06:03
So during that whole process when we're working directly with these animals, I would sit there and slowly talk to them about what I'm doing.
00:06:10
Mainly for calming people around you and keeping them aware of what's going on.
00:06:15
Kind of giving them a timeline of like, OK, we're going to grab this leg now, guys.
00:06:18
It's a little right wolf to worry about it.
00:06:20
I want to take this revenge.
00:06:21
I'm going to slowly stick it in.
00:06:22
There's the famous vein.
00:06:24
And you're letting your partners know what's happening.
00:06:26
You're keeping that situation calm.
00:06:28
Some people aren't really comfortable around these animals because things can get crazy in those enclosures or on the wild pretty quick.
00:06:36
Despite the danger, Daniel is willing to get up close to these animals because he believes that he can help comfort and calm them.
00:06:44
So that's part of the reason I guess by talking to these animals while I'm working with them in this really close proximity, really intimate quarters.
00:06:52
I know that they're not understanding the words necessarily.
00:06:55
But I think I'm giving off an energy that they're like, OK, he's not attacking us, he's not hurting us.
00:07:02
But he is being very persistent and he is not stopping him.
00:07:07
As Daniel gained more and more experience with wolves, he began to hear about some problems in Eastern Washington.
00:07:14
Remember how wolves and ranchers were pitted against each other in the wolf wars?
00:07:18
Well, in 2012, something bad happened.
00:07:22
A pack of wolves killed a bunch of cattle.
00:07:24
And so a group of ranchers had the government go in and killed the entire wolf pack.
00:07:29
No one saw a better way to fix the problem.
00:07:33
What I saw happen in 2012 was a rancher lost a lot of cattle.
00:07:38
The wolves, every single one of them lost their life.
00:07:41
And as citizens of Washington, we paid an extreme amount of money to go on there and lethally remove these animals.
00:07:48
So I felt it in my heart that it was just a lose, lose, lose.
00:07:52
And I was like, there's got to be something that I can do.
00:07:53
And so I looked at a map of Washington and plotted all the wolf packs that we currently had at that time and it was right up in the northeast corner of Washington.
00:08:01
And I was like, I put my finger there and I was like, I don't know what town this is, but I'm going to move up there and I'm going to do something about it.
00:08:08
That town was called Colville, Washington.
00:08:11
And Daniel packed up his bags and moved out there.
00:08:14
He believed that he could do something to help the wolves and the ranchers.
00:08:18
But he didn't exactly know what that would look like.
00:08:22
In hindsight, now I'm like, wow, I remember that day when I was brought up to that area.
00:08:25
I was like, what are you going to do?
00:08:26
And as a guy, I was just figured out.
00:08:27
And it's not going to be that hard.
00:08:28
It's just wolves and cows, right?
00:08:30
There's a lot of hurdles that I did not foresee in the beginning.
00:08:35
One of the biggest hurdles was that the ranchers didn't trust anyone who cared too much about the wolves.
00:08:41
They were used to people coming in and trying to kick their cattle off the public land where the wolves lived.
00:08:47
But Daniel wanted to try something different.
00:08:50
That's like, well, I want to change this world.
00:08:52
I'm going to have to change my mind first.
00:08:54
Chicking ranchers off public land is not the answer.
00:08:57
It's not an answer that I ever want to see go through either.
00:09:00
And I've talked to a lot of colleagues and they're like, that is the answer of, like, it's not.
00:09:04
They deserve a right to be a part of this planet too, just like the wolves do.
00:09:08
So Daniel Curry went into town and started talking with the ranchers.
00:09:12
One of his first experiences was a big town hall meeting with all the wolf advocates and ranchers in one room.
00:09:20
I remember going to one of the first opportunities to speak in a public commentary in Calville.
00:09:24
And like, the capacity for the room was like 100, I think.
00:09:28
And there's 300 people there.
00:09:29
And I went and sat down near the most rancher family that could see Blair and cowboy hats.
00:09:35
They got the boots.
00:09:35
They get the whole family there.
00:09:37
I'm going to go sit with them.
00:09:38
So I go sit with them.
00:09:39
I moved up here to bring solutions to the table.
00:09:41
And I don't do that by sitting on that side of the room away from you.
00:09:45
I do that by sitting smack that with you.
00:09:48
Sitting with a group of ranchers, Daniel was getting ready to ask them to think about wolves in a different way.
00:09:56
My name gets called.
00:09:57
And so I walked up there and trying to just open my heart.
00:10:02
And I believe we all have spirits.
00:10:03
And I'm trying to just open my spirits and say like, just speak from that point.
00:10:06
Don't go on there and accusing.
00:10:07
Don't go on there and questioning.
00:10:09
Don't go on there judging.
00:10:10
This is something that is effective.
00:10:12
This community is an amazing community.
00:10:14
What I see, though, is two different factions, two different ends of the spectrum throwing rocks at each other because I can't come to an understanding.
00:10:22
And what I see is that your culture and the wolves lives, those are the only things that are getting hurt here.
00:10:32
I don't like to see that.
00:10:33
I believe that there's room for a win-win.
00:10:34
And then the crowd shifts and they're kind of like, I think you might be a wolf guy.
00:10:39
So I'm like, boo, boo, and I start booing me and I just kept talking to the best I could.
00:10:46
There's one guy in the audience that he didn't stand up.
00:10:50
He didn't even really look up.
00:10:51
I saw him, though, and he just yelled really loud, though.
00:10:54
He had a really loud voice and he just said, let him talk.
00:10:58
That's powerful.
00:10:59
There was one person in that audience that was brave enough to be like, I wanna hear what this guy says.
00:11:02
He's not coming here and attacking.
00:11:04
That was a really powerful moment for me.
00:11:06
And I remember at the end of it, everybody gets up and leaves and there's this family.
00:11:13
Happened to be the family that I was sitting next to, another one that I mentioned that was very extreme ranching looking and the matriarch comes up with that family and the rest of the family's behind her.
00:11:23
She's like, I just wanted to thank you.
00:11:24
And I was like, for what?
00:11:25
And she said, we're being brave enough to say that and that meant a lot to me and my family.
00:11:30
And I was like, this is how it starts.
00:11:32
And we just kind of shook hands and they went their way and I went my way.
00:11:35
I do a lot of volunteering at my time, but that's what paid me that day.
00:11:41
I know it works.
00:11:42
And I've seen it.
00:11:43
I've seen people go from, I hate wolves, the only good wolf is a dead wolf to, I understand them now in a different way.
00:11:49
I've had them say that and then I've had them say, these animals are beautiful.
00:11:54
And that's something that's like holy cow.
00:11:56
That's so amazing to see that kind of switch in a person.
00:12:00
- So Daniel started working as a range writer, helping the ranchers keep the wolves away from the cows all while keeping the wolves safe and moving towards food that they can eat.
00:12:12
One of the biggest moments that Daniel needs to intervene is when mama cows give birth to calves.
00:12:18
The cows and the calves are vulnerable to the wolves who would just love a yummy cow to eat.
00:12:24
- So you have a big mama cow, she drops a calf and then right on the edge of that calving pasture, imagine just wilderness it goes up to the mountains.
00:12:31
That's for the wolves that are trying to find their niche and find their ability to live.
00:12:35
These animals that are watching them from the hillside going, hmm, that's where all our food is, even these little cows, those are possible easy prey.
00:12:43
So what'll happen is they'll come down, they'll kind of start with just patrolling the edge, finding out like what's going on.
00:12:50
And they look at something and go, okay, I can go in there and get a cow, like a little baby calf, what is the risk there?
00:12:56
'Cause the game is obvious.
00:12:57
That's an easy game, easy prey if I can hunt it.
00:13:00
If I can get it away from its mom, it's very vulnerable.
00:13:03
So what you don't want is those guys who be sitting on the side of the fence haven't enough time to think about that.
00:13:09
It's Daniel's job to stop the wolves as they're pacing outside the fence and to do that, he has a couple of different tools.
00:13:16
We utilize tools like flageery, for instance.
00:13:19
It's like a electric fence that has put in a half to maybe two foot long red flags and they sit there and hang.
00:13:27
Wolves are scared of changes to their environment.
00:13:29
And so when they see flags on the fence and hear the noises they make, the wolves are afraid.
00:13:35
That flag will actually make it noises that sits there and moves in the wind.
00:13:39
Now they hear these little ticking noises all around them.
00:13:41
They see movement out of their corner of their eye and they're like, what was that?
00:13:44
Then we maybe have some fox lights or we maybe have some motion lights.
00:13:47
So I'm sitting in the field.
00:13:49
I have motion lights, the strategic areas.
00:13:51
I have game cams up to kind of watch the pattern of the animals.
00:13:54
They can smell a human out there.
00:13:55
They can't really see me.
00:13:56
They have these flags that are making this noise.
00:13:59
So then I get up and walk over there and they're like, wow, this is just too much action.
00:14:02
I cannot really have this happen.
00:14:05
When faced with strange sounds, bright lights and worst of all, a human popping up, the wolves are scared off to other areas, leaving the cattle alone.
00:14:15
The ranches are happy with their safe herds and Daniel makes sure to track the wolf packs and push them towards areas where they can find the food that they need.
00:14:24
Everyone wins.
00:14:26
A lot of life is just perspective.
00:14:28
So that actually has gone into other portions of my work.
00:14:32
When I'm looking at somebody and I'm hearing them talk, I try and switch to their perspective and try and understand like, what are they looking at?
00:14:39
Is it the same thing?
00:14:40
I think it's human nature to see the world revolving around us.
00:14:44
But I think it's really good to have in a pivoting moment where you're like, I am so small.
00:14:49
But in the other side, each action from each person can be such a powerful catalyst of change.
00:14:55
Daniel was able to make a change by being a peacemaker and the battle between the wolves and the ranches.
00:15:04
He cared about both sides and found a way to make a difference.
00:15:08
So the next time you come across two enemies like wolves and ranches, think about both sides.
00:15:13
Maybe you can make a difference, too.
00:15:15
Wolves and ranchers don't get along,
00:15:33
but with some help, they all can be long.
00:15:39
If we care about others and the things that they say, we can change the world today.
00:15:51
A quick word for you, parents.
00:15:57
I'm Marcus Smith.
00:15:58
I'm host of Constant Wonder, which is the source of material for Constant Wonder Kids.
00:16:04
We made this episode because Constant Wonder contains a lot of great stuff kids will love, too.
00:16:10
But you may be wanting more.
00:16:13
We've got a whole episode devoted to Daniel Curry and his work as a rangerider, helping wolves and ranches.
00:16:20
If you want to hear the full presentation, go find Constant Wonder wherever you get your podcasts.
00:16:25
The episode is called Making Peace in the Wolf Wars.
00:16:29
We actually think that you'll love more than just one episode of our podcast, which is an ongoing quest to find awe and wonder in all nature, human or wild,
00:16:39
vast or small.
00:16:41
The kind of encounters that move us beyond words.
00:16:45
Do you remember when you had time for Wonder?
00:16:47
Well, we suspect you still do.
00:16:50
Subscribe to Constant Wonder on your favorite platform.
00:16:53
Constant Wonder Kids was produced by Page Cremperman Darington with sound designed by Mitchell Townsley.
00:16:59
Senator Taylor is the executive producer.
00:17:02
Constant Wonder Kids is a production of BYU Radio.
00:17:05
(gentle music)
00:17:08
[BLANK_AUDIO]
00:17:18