| This study analyzes one scientist's role in the formation of a federal predator eradication policy that extirpated wolves from the trans-Mississippi West during the early 1900s. Vernon Bailey was a naturalist for the Bureau of Biological Survey (BBS), a small Department of Agriculture agency established in 1885 to survey and study the nation's flora and fauna. In 1906 and 1907 Bailey was sent to investigate Western ranchers' claims that wolves were inflicting millions of dollars in livestock and wild game losses annually. Bailey's putatively objective reports depicted a serious "wolf problem," and the agency's proposed solution---a concerted extermination program--satisfied a growing Progressive imperative for practical, economical, science-based contributions to the nation's commonweal. Based on Bailey's information, Congress reversed its decision to terminate the BBS and ultimately appropriated unprecedented funding for the Bureau's predator program. My research shows significant factual discrepancies between Bailey's field data and his published reports, suggesting the information was shaped more by personal and political pressures than by scientific precision. My research also shows that, while historians have generally seen Western livestock interests as the force driving predator control, the impetus for wolf extermination actually emanated primarily from the East, particularly from a Bureau fighting for its fiscal life, but also from the conservation agenda of Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt. Though killing wolves did reduce livestock and wild game depredations, removing this apex predator also introduced into many natural communities a new set of ecological problems, including deer and elk irruptions, overbrowsing of forage plants, degradation of habitats, and release of other predators, including the now-ubiquitous coyote. While Bailey's association with predator persecution is frequently noted, often misrepresented, and sometimes demonized in popular and scholarly histories, his biography has been little studied. This dissertation examines Bailey's background, his personal and professional connections, and the cultural, social, and political forces that influenced his participation in the policymaking process. It also reveals a shift in attitudes later in life, as Bailey came to advocate humane treatment of wild animals and to criticize a policy he had once so staunchly supported. |
