The Seattle Times is out with a real bear of a story today, this one about Robert Wielgus, a professor and big carnivore researcher at Washington State University in Pullman, who recently agreed to step down from his position in exchange for $300,000 after, he claims, the university drove him out.
The saga goes back to Wielgus’s research on wolves. After wolves were reintroduced to Idaho in the mid-’90s (and gradually migrated to Eastern Washington state), Wielgus found that despite the concerns of cattle ranchers, wolves rarely killed cattle. He also found that by culling wolf populations, livestock attacks actually increased because wolf populations were destabilized. In fact, Wielgus found, ranchers who agreed to use non-lethal methods of controlling wolves were just as effective at protecting their cattle as those who shot them on sight.
Ranchers did not like this, and reportedly pressured state lawmakers to curtail Wielgus’s research, which, according to emails obtained by the Times, they did by threatening to revoke funding for the university’s medical school.
“ … Highly ranked senators have said that the medical school and wolves are linked,” reads an email sent from WSU lobbyist Dan Coyne to a colleague. “If wolves continue to go poorly, there won’t be a new medical school.”
In February, Wielgus (who did not immediately return request for comment) told the Spokesman-Review that his life at the university had become untenable. “I much prefer Moscow [Idaho] than Pullman,” Wielgus said. “I’m a pariah in Pullman. I’m like plutonium. No one will go near me.”
This was not the first time Wieglus’s research has been politicized (he’s also published data on grizzly bears that upset the left), but pressure from the university—which effectively shut down his lab—was so intense that it began affecting his health. “I just want a severance package, and I want to be free from their tyranny,” Wielgus told the Spokesman-Review.
With the settlement, Wieglus is free from WSU, but this episode is a reminder that while it is, perhaps, easier to argue about mobs of students silencing speakers on campuses across the U.S., it’s often the institution itself that cracks down on free speech and even scientific research. The Associated Press reported last month that the conservative Charles Koch Foundation was allowed to weigh in on the hiring and firing of professors at George Mason University, Virgina’s largest public school, in exchange for millions of dollars. And George Mason wasn’t alone: the Koch brothers have given huge sums to dozens of educational institutions, allegedly in exchange for controlling both scholars and scholarship. So while the trend of students drowning out unpopular speakers is a problem, as Wieglus’s case shows us, the problem doesn’t just lie with students; it lies with the administrators and lawmakers, too.
And, for more on how wolves impact ecosystems (spoiler: It’s cool as shit!!!) watch this:
