May IAK special issue - 41

Ken Mills, Wyoming Game and Fish Department wolf biologist, has been highly involved with wolf management in the state. (Photo by Mark Gocke/WGFD)
so that kind of got me interested in the policy
side. The country was really on fire - Vietnam,
civil rights - and environmental interests
had started to peak. It became my passion
and interest. I ran for election my first year
back in Teton County on a wildlife ecology
platform, and as I look back I'm pretty sure
nobody knew what I was talking about. But
after my 45 years of public service it was a good
choice with good opportunities.
Mills: Certainly the wolf issue was something
you were aware of and had thoughts about
long before 1989 when you were appointed
director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
What's the history there and your thinking?
Turner: As I think back I must have been
pretty naive, and maybe a little arrogant, but
I was certainly aware of the national interest
to return wolves to the Greater Yellowstone
Ecosystem. I had to admit before my old bones
were carried over the great divide, wouldn't it
be great to hear a wolf here in our backyard,
here in Jackson Hole and Yellowstone? I grew
up in the cattle business. I know ranching
and I know hunting and fishing and what the
concerns are for maintaining healthy big game
herds. I'd been a legislator, so I understood the
interests and had a strong predilection to the
people of the state owning a resource and then
being able to manage it.
I was honored to be appointed director of
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by President
Bush. I thought wolves are such an emotional
issue, but maybe coming from the West I could
forge a solution to the wolf reintroduction
issue that would be compatible with people
in the Rocky Mountain West and still meet
the objectives of people around the country
who were interested in wolves. I understand
the passion for wolves.
I said we've got to find a way under the
Endangered Species Act to reintroduce wolves
in Yellowstone. For 30 years western delegations
had not only said no, but hell no, we
do not want wolves back in Yellowstone. As
we tried to forge a compromise, I spent time
on Capitol Hill with the delegations of our
friends from Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and
some of the other states trying to bring them
along and say let's work together to find a way
Wyoming Wildlife | 41
" For 30 years western
delegations had not only said
no, but hell no, we do not want
wolves back in Yellowstone. "
- John Turner

May IAK special issue

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May IAK special issue

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