A Researcher Got Paid $300,000 to Resign After He Said Shooting Wolves Is Bad

A Researcher Got Paid $300,000 to Resign After He Said Shooting Wolves Is Bad

6 years ago
Anonymous $roN-uuAfLt

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5knkk/a-researcher-got-paid-dollar300000-to-resign-after-he-said-shooting-wolves-is-bad

A wolf researcher at Washington State University published some research that ranchers in the state didn’t like. First, his funding was cut, so he sued the school. Now, he’s being forced to resign as part of a $300,000 settlement under that suit, ending a multi-year saga that’s pit academic freedom against powerful agricultural influence.

The contention began in 2014 when Robert Wielgus, director of WSU’s Carnivore Conservation Lab, published findings from research he had done on killing wild wolves to prevent them from killing livestock. In the study, published in PLoS One, Wielgus analyzed 25 years of data on wolf populations in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.