{"id":421,"date":"2020-11-30T08:50:17","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T08:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=128974"},"modified":"2020-11-30T08:50:17","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T08:50:17","slug":"what-does-coexistence-with-large-carnivores-actually-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/11\/30\/what-does-coexistence-with-large-carnivores-actually-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does Coexistence with Large Carnivores Actually Mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mexican wolf. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In Mexican wolf country, ranchers and agencies bandy about the word \u2018coexistence\u2019 as if it means an end to conflict between humans and lobos. If only that were true, and that the playing field were somehow level.<\/p>\n

Let us review, shall we?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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1<\/span><\/span>: <\/strong>to exist together or at the same time<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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2<\/span><\/span>: <\/strong>to live in peace with each other especially as a matter of policy<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Coexistence is not \u2013notably \u2013 existing together only until it becomes inconvenient or burdensome and then calling in Wildlife Services to kill or remove your neighbors. I\u2019m sick to death of these ranchers in Mexican wolf habitat who claim to practice coexistence but always, always,<\/em> have the trump card of killing, capturing, or removing wolves in hand. Maybe we need to review the definition of \u201cexist<\/a>\u201d as well?<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just that they claim to practice it either. It\u2019s that they take a metric ton of money premised on their willingness to reduce conflicts, both from federal<\/a>* and private<\/a> sources. They suck up federal<\/a> and private<\/a> compensation money when their cows get killed by lobos (even when confirmations are sketchy, at best). And don\u2019t even get me started on the artificially low federal grazing fee<\/a> for public lands livestock. And really don\u2019t get me started on the truckload of other subsidies these folks get for the privilege of producing a tiny fraction of U.S. beef on national forests and arid BLM lands. I<\/a>. Can\u2019t<\/a>. Even<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Collectively, we throw a ton of taxpayer money at these folks and they still can\u2019t deal with sharing space<\/a> with Mexican wolves. Instead, they believe they are entitled to the have the cake they are already eating. It all seems insane until you realize that the whole cowboy myth is built on that same sense of entitlement<\/a>, whether it\u2019s wolves or bison or prairie dogs or southwestern willow flycatchers or \u2026 you name an imperiled species in the western United States and there\u2019s very likely a close connection to livestock being part of the problem. (It\u2019s a twisted and less-fun version of the Kevin Bacon game<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Unless you are a rancher who is willing to forego removals of wolves for livestock depredations, you aren\u2019t coexisting. You\u2019re pretending. And we see you.<\/p>\n

Note.<\/strong><\/p>\n

* Sorry if this is behind a paywall for you. It\u2019s about a new source of money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: $886,255 to a coalition of ranchers, conservation groups and tribes in the West to research and adopt nonlethal ways to reduce conflicts between wildlife and livestock.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mexican wolf. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. In Mexican wolf country, ranchers and agencies bandy about the word \u2018coexistence\u2019 as if it means an end to conflict between humans\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}