Can ‘wolf haters’ and ‘wolf lovers’ talk without howling?

For more than three decades, Peggy Callahan has talked to the public about wolves as founder and executive director of the Wildlife Science Center in Stacy, which has 81 captive wolves that are used for research and educational programs.

Over the years, Callahan has also learned to speak to the wolves. On a warm day earlier this summer, she cupped her hands around her mouth and unleashed a wolf-like howl, prompting a chorus of howls echoing in return.

“It is a beautiful thing,” she said. She said the wolves’ response was to “remind one another of rank. They know my voice, so they’re answering someone they know.”

Callahan has raised these animals — gray wolves, red wolves and Mexican gray wolves — since they were pups. She founded the center in 1991, after a federal wolf project she worked for ran out of funding. She raised money and started a nonprofit to prevent the wolves from being euthanized.

In the years since, she’s heard just about every argument for and against wolves. She said the rhetoric that has intensified in Minnesota over the past year echoes past debates.

“The accusations were the same then as they are now. Wolves are wiping out the deer population. And wolves are threatening our kids and our pets and livestock.”

After a significant drop in the deer hunting harvest in northern Minnesota last fall, a new grassroots group called Hunters for Hunters held a series of packed meetings across the region, blaming wolves for the poor hunt.

Several lawmakers have amplified their concerns. They’ve called for wolves to be removed from the endangered species list and for Minnesota to hold a state hunt to reduce their population.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources estimates there are about 2,700 wolves in the state, a number that has held steady for years. The agency has said that while wolves play a factor in the deer population, the drop in hunter harvest is mostly due to severe winter conditions the past several years.

At a meeting in Carlton, dozens of people raised their hands when asked if they knew anyone who had illegally killed wolves on their property. Currently wolves are considered a threatened species in Minnesota, meaning they can only legally be killed in self-defense.

“There is definitely a groundswell of strong anti-wolf rhetoric out there,” said Grant Spickelmier, executive director of the International Wolf Center in Ely.

‘Wolf lovers’ and ‘wolf haters’

Spickelmier and Callahan occupy a somewhat lonely position in the state, in the center of an emotional and often fractious debate over wolves. Some see the animals as a feared menace to livestock, pets and a prized hunting tradition. Others view wolves as majestic predators that play a critical role in the ecosystem. They’re revered by many of the state’s Ojibwe people.

Callahan said she gets flak from both sides, from both the wolf “lovers,” as she calls them, and the “wolf haters” — those who want to end federal protections and implement a hunt to reduce their numbers.

“What I get from them is, the minute I show any kind of affection toward my animals, they’re like, ‘Oh, she’s just a woman who loves wolves.’ I just get pigeonholed right off the bat.”

On the other side are those who want to bolster protections and ban hunting. Some oppose the killing of any wolves, even those that kill livestock or pets.

And those “wolf lovers” have taken aim at her, too, especially after she was featured in a 60 Minutes segment.

“After we had a piece with Anderson Cooper, there was a guy that wrote to us and said he was making it his lifelong project to shut us down. Because we have wolves living in boxes,” she recalled.

Callahan is frustrated by both camps. She sees one side stoking age-old fears and myths by trumpeting “this histrionic Big Bad Wolf business.” But she said many wolf advocates will “be in tears” over one wolf dying, even when federal trappers kill wolves for targeting livestock or pets. She said that program “buys tolerance for wolves on the landscape.”

Callahan said she wants wolves to thrive on the landscape. But she supports taking them off the endangered species list. She even hosted federal officials when they announced two attempted delisting efforts in 1998 and 2004.

And Callahan would not oppose a well-managed wolf hunt, something that last took place in Minnesota a decade ago after they were delisted in 2012 for three years. She says her position on the matter has cost her financial support.

“It’s a very small percentage of people that are on these extremes, but they’re the noisy ones,” she said. “Very, very noisy. And so it’s hard to ignore them.”

Data and respect

Grant Spickelmier can sympathize. The International Wolf Center in Ely is clearly “pro-wolf,” he said, in the sense that it operates on the belief that wolves play an important ecological and cultural role in Minnesota and beyond.

But the center, which was founded by longtime wolf researcher Dave Mech, focuses on adding facts to the conversation about wolves.

“We come from the perspective that scientific data is really important in decision making,” said Spickelmier.

But Mech also realized that people could take the same data and come to different conclusions about how to manage wolves, based on their values and beliefs, Spickelmier said. That’s why the center emphasizes fostering respectful dialogue around wolves.

“That’s what we were founded on. And that's what we're going to continue to do,” he said.

Keeping that conversation going, he said, is a key part of the center’s work, especially in today’s polarized political environment, where people tend to retreat to their camps where they only talk to people who feel the exact same way they do about an issue.

“As educators we feel like it is really important that we are seen as a trustworthy or accessible resource, even for people who don't like wolves that much,” said Spickelmier.

So the center refuses to get involved in politics. Staff don’t take a position on delisting or a wolf hunt. They don’t file petitions or lawsuits. Spickelmier acknowledges that’s upset some members.

But to really make people more open to other points of view, Spickelmier says it comes down to building relationships, and trust. That’s what the center strives to do in Ely.

“What we hope is when somebody comes in who maybe is anti-wolf, or has some concerns about wolves, I think what they are surprised by is how open we are to that discussion,” he said. “We don’t dismiss their concerns. We try to answer them as objectively as we can without belittling their fears.”

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