Wolf hatred unites the right by emphasizing wolves’ connection to the government.

Fascinating but very sad story about the struggle of the radical right against re-introducing wolves in their former natural habitats, and their victory, in a essay by J. William Gibson:

Introducing the essay, he writes:

“My piece on the right-wing’s successful demonization of wolves in the Rockies came out in Earth Island Journal as the cover story.

The reintroduction of wolves to the Rockies in the mid-1990s represented a political implementation of enchantment.

But the Rockies were the homeland of America’s paramilitary right-wing. And they bitterly resented wolf reintroduction, seeing the wolves both in archaic terms as demons and as icons of the federal government. My story is about how right-wing fantasies about wolves swept the region, leading to Congress’s recent delisting of wolves from the Endangered Species Act.”

Excerpt:

“For the last few years, a new version of an old war against the American gray wolf has raged in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Almost two decades ago, spurred by environmental activists with a vision of restoring a historic wolf population that had been extirpated, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) captured 66 wolves in Canada and released them into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, where they flourished. To naturalists, wolf reintroduction seemed morally right, a chance to remedy a previous generation’s crime of wolf extermination.

But to many in the region, the resurgence of wolves became a source of rage. Wolves killed livestock, infuriating ranchers. Many hunters saw the wolves as competitors for deer and elk. Yet the fury against wolves went deeper than what the animals actually did. For decades, the Rocky Mountain states have been the center of an extreme right-wing culture that celebrates the image of man as “warrior,” recognizes only local and state governance as legitimate, and advocates resistance – even armed resistance – against the federal government. To members of this culture, wolf reintroduction became a galvanizing symbol of perceived assaults on their personal freedom. Resistance was imperative. But whereas attacking the federal government could lead to prison, killing wolves was a political goal within reach – something the individual warrior could do. So advocating for the killing of wolves became a proxy battle, an organizing tool to reach out to all those angry about environmental regulations, gun laws, and public land policies. Since the early 2000s, and with increasing virulence since 2009, anti-wolf activists have promoted the image of wolves as demons – disease-ridden, dangerous, and foreign.

The fear-driven demagoguery has worked. Afraid for their lives, pro-wolf voices like Nabeki have retreated from speaking out at public forums. Mainstream hunters, ranchers, loggers, and politicians from both political parties have signed onto the anti-wolf stance. With the public debate dominated by wolf paranoia – and fearful of wider losses across the West – conservation groups were pushed into a legal compromise that ultimately failed.

The result is an impending slaughter. On April 11, Congress removed gray wolves in Montana and Idaho from the endangered species list and legislated that in those two states, plus Wyoming, all but 300 to 450 of the region’s estimated 1,650 wolves may be killed. The remaining wolves will not necessarily disappear as a regional species, but their small numbers mean they will become “ecologically extinct,” serving no function within the mountain ecosystem. How this all happened is yet another example of a dysfunctional political system in which fear – both irrational fear and fear harnessed for political gain – determines policy. “