As gray wolves divide conservationists and ranchers, a mediator tries to tame all sides

When Francine Madden heard about a Wyoming man who killed a gray wolf after injuring it with his snowmobile and showing it off at his local bar, she was disturbed, but not very surprised.

She’s seen a lot during her almost three decades working as a mediator for wildlife conflict. She’s resolved disputes over gorillas in Uganda and tigers in Bhutan, but for 50-odd years, the management of gray wolves has been an intractable American problem.

Since 1973, the gray wolf has been on and off the federal government’s endangered species list. When the wolves are on the list, advocates say the protections help wolves’ place in the natural environment and allow them to roam the great American West as they did for hundreds of years — not be treated, as some say, “like vermin.” On the other side, some ranchers then say there are too many wolves and they have to bear the economic — and emotional — costs of lost livestock.

“I watch my animals die and get murdered,” Kathy McKay, owner of the 1,600-acre K-Diamond-K ranch in Washington state, told CBS News. She says she can’t sleep at night in fear for the lives of her animals, and she’s lost about 40 to wolves.

When the wolves are off the endangered species list, as they are now in certain states in the lower 48, advocates say wolves are killed indiscriminately. Attorney and advocate Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity, says wolf carcasses are “piling up” and there is a “cowboy mentality” around a species often not seen as worthy.

Enter Madden. Hired as a mediator by the federal government in December, this is her second time wading into the morass, albeit on a much larger scale. She facilitated Washington state’s 18-person working group on the gray wolves in 2015, helping to come to some policy decisions around population management.

Almost a decade later, she and her firm Constructive Conflict are back, this time at the national level. But in some ways, the sides have become more entrenched. Madden says she’s speaking to Americans who “feel their way of life, or what they care about, is under very real threat.” Yet she remains confident she’ll have all sides at the table starting in 2025.

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