Modeling the relationship between wolf control and cattle depredation

Wolf control to reduce cattle depredation is an important issue to ecology and agriculture in the United States. Two recent papers use the same dataset having wolf population characteristics and cattle depredation, but come to opposing conclusions concerning the link between wolf control and cattle depredation. Our paper aims to resolve this issue by using the same dataset and developing a model based on a causal association that would explain the nature of the relationship between wolf control and cattle depredation. We use the data on wolf population, number of cattle, number of wolves killed and number of cattle killed, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Interagency Annual Wolf Reports over the period of 1987–2012. We find a positive link between wolf control and cattle depredation. However, it would be incorrect to infer that wolf control has a positive effect on the number of cattle depredated. We maintain that this link comes from a growing wolf population, which increases cattle depredation, and in turn, causes an increase in the number of wolves killed. While the wolf population is growing, we see both wolf removal and cattle depredation simultaneously grow. It is not until the wolf population growth nears the steady state, that removal of wolves has a sufficient negative effect to reduce or stabilize the number of cattle depredated.