Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West

Abstract

M. J. Robinson 2005. Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 473 pp. ISBN 0-87081-819-8, price (paper) $24.95. In our current political climate, major reforms to the Endangered Species Act, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act are working their way through Congress. This book focuses on the history of struggles among politicians, powerful ranching organizations, and mammalogists that elucidates the continuing struggles between the natural world and the laws that govern it. The book brings together a formative history on the dewilding of the western United States, with a focus on the history of predator control of wolves and an in-depth history of wildlife politics and those that drove the structuring of wildlife laws we currently use. The book also summarizes struggles of reintroduction programs across the west, the status of wolves in the western United States, and a ray of hope for mammalogists and others who enjoy the sight of predators in the wild. The book begins with a brief description of the west before it was tamed by the livestock industry. The author recounts explorers' tales of wolves so plentiful that they slept by fires and ran alongside explorers as they rode horses over mountain passes. He continues to paint a picture of what the west used to be, naming accounts of countless prairie dog colonies and bison, antelope, and elk herds seen by early explorers. These accounts are very interesting, taking place in many areas where these animals no longer exist. These accounts recorded early observations of the black-footed ferret's dependence on prairie dog colonies. The 1st chapters also describe the plight of bison, how this led to increases in wolf densities because of carcasses left across the landscape, and subsequent rise of the livestock industry thanks to the railroad system that was constructed throughout the western United States. The book continues with the …