Wolves explain America's urban-rural divide
53 comments
·February 2, 2025latentcall
bee_rider
I wonder if a better strategy would be to, rather than relying on the ranchers to submit claims (hard to measure, unlikely events falling on people randomly), they could just tax all tourism and come up with some formula to pay out to all the ranchers based on their expected harm (easier to measure, law of large numbers).
JackYoustra
I mean this is ideal, yes, but you're going to end up having probably at least one person get really screwed and before a lightning rod for scrapping the whole system: we see this again and again, most notably in state cases regarding trans sports where it ends up being banned as a matter of law over literally one person rather than something more sensible, like deferring to individual league rules instead of making it a legal question.
bombcar
Loans were mentioned. Perhaps the wolf-guys can offer low or zero-percent loans (or guarantees) to the cow-guys.
They say the wolves are good for tourism, but would all the ranchers disappearing also be good for tourism?
fsckboy
>The richest ones with the most land won’t be affected nearly as much as the small guys
are you saying they will all lose the same stock on a weighted basis, but rich ranchers can last longer all the while losing money till they too are small ranchers with a wolf problem?
hansvm
Interpreting it charitably, it's like what happens with maternity leave.
If you have 1 employee who needs to go on leave, you're required to pay benefits (maybe a salary), the work she was doing still needs to be done, and you have to replace whoever you hire as a substitute when she comes back, then you're going to be in a real pickle. [0]
If you have 1,000 employees, approximately the same work gets done, and it's just the cost of doing business. You're able to effectively self-insure against that risk.
The wolf thing is similar. If you're poor, have one cow, and a wolf eats it, that's your livelihood down the drain. If you have 10,000 cows then even a multi-day onslaught from a pack of wolves as you work out the details of why your herd is shrinking is just the cost of doing business.
[0] That isn't arguing against maternity leave, just that saddling individuals with a society-level goal isn't often a great use of resources. In this case, instead of a communal tax for the things society values, you randomly cripple the small businesses you claim to support. Taxes hurt your reelection chances though, whereas pushing the risks to ordinary people (no matter the extent of the worst case) rallies the electorate around your welfare initiatives and concentrates the damage on a group to small to hurt your election. As a side-cost (one I assume is intentional, but I might just be a bit jaded), large companies are unharmed.
nickff
Thanks for sharing! It seems that many well-intentioned government policies cause disproportionate harm to smaller businesses and other entities (like charity). Perhaps something should be done to compensate for this (such as making reimbursement inversely proportional to capital or revenue).
CalRobert
I don't mean this to be insensitive but one thing I don't understand...
If the ranchers are barely scraping by, maybe they shouldn't be ranchers?
I mean, I spent a while trying to be a photographer but it was hard and paid really badly. So I stopped being a photographer.
Obviously that sucks and it's good to have a safety net for people to fall back on but I don't see why someone being a rancher now means they have to be forever.
Mordisquitos
Even if we accept the premise that 'if doing [X] is barely scraping by, you shouldn't do [X]"' is indisputably rational and easy to process for one's one circumstances, you must see that making the choice to be and no-longer-be a photographer is trivial compared to the choice of being and no-longer-being a rancher. The difference in the levels of personal, financial, emotional, and lifestyle investments required to take up or abandon either career choice (for a versatile meaning of 'choice') is astronomical.
fundad
It seems the lifestyle they enjoy makes it worth barely scraping as owners of very desirable land. Otherwise it would be worth starting over somewhere else where there are jobs that need to be filled. A lot of people woking jobs in cities and towns are barely scraping by too.
I wish we had a healthy safety net in the US but people in need live different lifestyles beyond ranching.
Galatians4_16
Incentivizing large corporate ranching conglomerates is not the solution, as agricultural diversity is our strength, especially in products and sources. Maybe small time ranching could be encouraged through tax rescindment programs?
Retric
What agricultural diversity? The 89% of farms are “small” and produce 18% of the value on 45% of the acres. They are generally more hobbies than business, and as such rarely efficient enough to be the sole source of income for people. Non commercial farms are plentiful, but not necessarily useful.
“Family farms” are more impactful, but that’s including operations with 50,000+ acres and large workforces.
username332211
While on the level of an individual farmer that makes sense, what about the whole of society?
From what I understand, in archeology driving marginal land out of cultivation is one of the prime indicators of a civilization in terminal decline.
Advanced civilizations tend to rely on irrational productivity quite a bit, hence things like the post-COVID labor shortage.
latentcall
I understand what you’re saying but as another commenter pointed out, many ranchers are in incredible debt. The same is for farmers. You get trapped in a cycle you can’t break from without a miracle.
jghn
I think you're making GPs point. We see this exact argument being used against more urban types? "If they didn't want to be saddled with crippling student loans, they shouldn't have gone to college to get a degree leading to an exciting career of basket weaving".
Great, but they did and now they're hosed. Just like in this case, perhaps those ranchers shouldn't have become ranchers and thus caused themselves to go into incredible debt. But they did and now they're hosed.
One can choose whether or not that we the people should help them out when in this situation, but we should apply that with more quality.
frankfrank13
My stepdad has owned his ranch for 30+ years, before that he worked it while his dad owned it. He hasn't had a "normal" job since the 80s. I can tell you confidently he is barely scraping by, but there's not exactly a lot of options. The mortgage on these ranches are typically very low interest, but VERY long time horizons, for much much more than a typical home. Add loans for tractors, livestock, etc you're talking about a mountain of debt.
Sure I don't recommend young people getting into it, but I don't think you really understand long-time ranchers here.
HeyLaughingBoy
Exactly. The bottom line is that (most) people aren't stupid. If they're doing something that doesn't seem rational, it's most likely because you aren't seeing it from their perspective and are lacking information.
If the ranchers had what they considered to be better options, they'd go for it.
hagbard_c
This answer probably explains the urban-rural divide just as well as wolves do. Photography is a hobby for most which turns into a career for some. If it doesn't work out like it didn't for you it is easy to just go back to hobby photography. Farming, ranching and forestry is a life for most, a career for many. If it doesn't work out you lose your farm, ranch or forest holding and will have to find another life.
jghn
Swap out "photography" for "enormous college debt for a degree that's unlikely to lead to a high paying career" and it starts to line up with the rancher example.
fundad
I don't understand either, everyone wants to be paid more but this is a demonstration of the power of rural America.
I read in a response that the alternative is conglomerate corporate ranching, that's because they have the necessary resources to protect livestock and withstand financial shocks. The article points out high real estate prices because people buy homes for recreation, it makes it hard for ranchers to hire employees who can afford to live in the area. We can import meat from nations that lower costs with more abundant housing.
zdragnar
We can purchase our food from overseas in peace time. Once the trade routes are disrupted or political embargos hit, suddenly you have 300 million mouths to feed and we can't get critical staples to feed them.
Having local production is a national security defensive measure. It makes sense not to JIT our food supplies.
frankfrank13
My folks have cattle in a small colorado mountain town, and for sure they hate the re-introduction. Basically they think this is being pushed for people who will in no way be directly affected (probably true), and that financial reimbursements will be too small and too difficult to actually obtain.
giantg2
Lol the article talks about the reduction in big game animals only as a benefit, but doesn't talk at all about how that might impact the massive hunting tourism industry there. Talk about the irony of the urban vs rural divide...
dgfitz
> In November 2020, a wolf reintroduction plan — which included a requirement that ranchers be compensated for livestock losses — passed with 50.9% of Colorado residents voting in favor. Just 12 counties out of 64 supported the measure, but nearly two-thirds of Denver voters approved
I think it’s pretty obvious the people that voted for the measure don’t feel the effects of it, just from that quote alone.
vaidhy
Very funny.. where is the compensation money coming from? Taxes, right? Who pays the most in taxes - the people in the urban area..
So, a bunch of people voted to spend their money to ensure wolves are reintroduced and you are saying they do not feel the effects of it?
Obviously, there is more far reaching consequences than just money, but that means you need to listen to the experts and take their opinion. If it is just majority opinion, it is clear what the opinion is.
defrost
From the aticle they're not feeling the full effects by a long shot.
Their taxes are being used to pay compensation for wolf kills, from the article that's the price of a single ungrown calf.
The cost to the rancher is, again according to the article, the loss of the full grown cow the calf would grow to AND a reduction (10% ?) in birth numbers and calf weights in the herd overall which witnessed the wolf attack on the calf.
The birth reductions and weight numbers come from agricultural stats which ranchers and farmers keep these past decades, it's a data driven business, and we can hope these are accurately reported.
These claims are being made but they're apparently swamping the compensation fund setup.
Perhaps if they want healthy rivers with more plant growth then they might achieve this by hunting more elk, even using elk bounties, rather than wolves that harrass and stress the herds.
giantg2
"Very funny.. where is the compensation money coming from? Taxes, right?"
Is it? In other states it comes from the department that oversees fish and game, which is primarily funded from hunting and fishing licenses.
dgfitz
You must not have read the article. They spend so little in taxes for any given individual it becomes a rounding error.
hagbard_c
No, they are not paying the costs no matter whether they're paying most of the taxes. To make them pay the cost you'd have to transplant these city dwellers into the boonies, denying them access to their favourite entertainments, keep the far away from all the things which they consider essential to their city lifestyles. Oh, they'll have food, they'll have a roof over their heads and they can surely find work at the local factory or supermarket so why are they complaining that they're being starved of all the things which make life worth living for them? The factory pays them, doesn't it? The roof does not leak? If they want entertainment they can go to a barn dance or to the local pub where the Good Ol' Boys are playing last centuries greatest hits so stop complaining about there not being any good coffee shops, avant garde theaters, second-hand bookshops with philosophy circles, activist cooperatives for the underdeveloped people in faraway places and that everybody keeps on wearing those silly feed store caps.
msandford
It's very easy to be generous with other people's resources. We see it everywhere.
That's why there's a Senate in the US. So that the rural folks get some kind of voice in these matters when they don't have enough bulk population to matter in the House.
madhadron
No, there's a senate to get the small states in the late 18th century to ratify the constitution. There's still a senate because various groups added states without enough population to pass the bar of statehood in order to get extra votes without having to actually have democratic support.
HPsquared
Simply counting votes is such a poor way of making decisions, it doesn't account for the strength of feeling in each voter. 51 people who are weakly in favour of something can steamroll 49 who are vehemently against.
fsckboy
>51 people who are weakly in favour of something can steamroll 49 who are vehemently against.
so you're saying Karen should get more votes?
darth_avocado
I’d like to hear solutions from you where 49 dedicated people don’t steamroll the lives of 51.
abracadaniel
On the other hand, eliminating wolves has a cost to it, which affects everyone and only benefits ranchers. Which is the more ethical outcome? Privatized gains and socialized losses, or socialized gains and privatized losses.
dgfitz
I suppose you also didn’t read the link. They were eradicating wolves 100 years ago, and hit their goal 50 years ago. They were then reintroduced.
It’s a quick read.
renewiltord
Ideally, only people who are affected by things directly should be allowed to vote for them. So I shouldn't have to pay for healthcare, education, or roads for others. And they shouldn't have to do it for me. Then we can release the ranchers from the urban people.
Everyone can pay their own risk level in insurance, we can remove social security and Medicare and allow for optional private insurance.
Emergency care is tough, but I think it's probably better to let people die than to have someone decide to spend another's money on a third person.
Power transmission for the rural is an issue, and for urban people whose power is generated rurally. But I'm sure the power companies can charge appropriately.
dgfitz
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jacknews
Those nasty newflangled wolves disrupting the 'traditional' beef industry?
caycep
If your worldview is shaped by the P&L statements of the ranching industry, it seems you would be totally blind to the ecological benefits of wolves reintroduction.
Denver residents probably weighed risks of higher costs of beef with the overall improvement of the Colorado ecosystem as a net positive.
Fomite
Denver taxpayers also end up supporting things like the CSU Extension system, which they won't ever see a direct benefit from.
mtnops
Direct benefit? Maybe not, if you don't have kids that participate in 4H, have a home garden, raise bees, or work directly in rural employment. Indirectly, we're talking about supporting agriculture and farming which everyone benefits from.
Fomite
Agreed - I'm rather fond of Extension programs. It's more a note that rural Colorado receives a great deal of benefit from Denver taxpayers, and that somehow never gets a hand wringing article about out of touch ranchers.
renewiltord
Pick an arbitrary person and an arbitrary thing and I will find a tenuous chain where the person benefits from the thing. I could probably justify a 90% marginal tax over $100k for you using this if you can give me your zip code.
Queries will cost $1 with quadratic increase.
silexia
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vaidhy
and the far right never cares about the environment, animal cruelty or anything beyond unsustainable resource extraction.
What a stupid statement..
null
I lived in Colorado for 10 years until very recently and this was a very emotional debate. The ranchers submitted claims that exceeded the reimbursement fund but if I remember correctly some of the claims were questionable and reaching.
My partner worked for Colorado Parks & Wildlife and that organization was largely in favor of this for obvious reasons.
However I do feel for some of the ranchers. Some are barely scraping by and wolves in the area is an additional stressor they have to worry about. Though I do think they are over exaggerating the effects this has had to some extent. The richest ones with the most land won’t be affected nearly as much as the small guys.