Mosbach, October 2nd, 2001

Dear Mr. Krause,

 we – four students of a German bilingual biology class – are working on a project on the reintroduction of the gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park. We have read your statement concerning the Yellowstone Wolves Conflict and we have got further information on this topic from different sources. After a long period of investigation, we decided to state our opinion in this e-mail.

From the point of view of a farmer your arguments are quite convincing, but by studying your problems, we have found a lot of possibilities to refute them. There´s a great variety of ways to protect the livestock from wolves attacks. The most important step is to minimize situations that attract wolves to ranches. For example, when an animal dies, the carcass should be buried or burnt immediately to avoid the attraction of wolves. Farmers should also confine pregnant animals to areas close to occupied buildings during calving and lambing season.

By the way, cattle used to aggressiveness and good mothering skills are better able to defend their babies against predators and if cattle and sheep are pastured together, the sheep are offered some protection by the cattle against predators. In areas where there´s a high density of wolves, ranchers should keep closer tabs on livestock by patrolling their pastures more often. A combination of guardian dogs and special fences could offer a higher rate of safety.

All ranchers assume a certain level of risk that they will lose livestock to illness, extreme weather conditions and predators. In the rare cases, where wolves kill livestock, government agencies normally remove the wolves and ranchers are reimbursed for their losses by a compensation fund. (In northwestern Montana wolves were responsible for less than 0.0004% of all losses caused by predators).

Before the wolves were released into Yellowstone National Park they were acclimatized, which means they were kept in pens for weeks, so they will claim the new area as their territory and are less likely to stray from the park. Out of the wolves`fur birds build nests and wolves`dens are used by further animals. Raven, foxes and many other animals eat the remains of animals killed by wolves.

But the most important fact for us is the preservation of the ecosystems. Where large predators are present, ecosystems are healthier, more resilient, simply more complete. A perfect example of an out-of-balance ecosystem was the Yellowstone National Park before the reintroduction of wolves when huge populations of elk, deer and bison had caused dramatic changes in the park´s vegetation. A minor important fact would also be the rising tourist attraction in the Yellowstone National Park.

Although there would be a great amount of other points to mention, we think that these are the most convincing to state our opinion. With regard to these arguments you could perhaps re-think your judgement.

We are of the opinion that it is more important to think about nature than about one´s personal concerns.

We will follow the developments in the Yellostone Wolves Conflict further on.

 Sincerely yours,

                           Kathrin, Julia, Tobias and Florian