Is our wildlife management for stewardship or domination?

From SeaWorld to the suburbs of Chicago, people react to wild animals in inconsistent and incongruous ways.

Consider two recent situations with two very different results. A captive killer whale killed two humans at SeaWorld in Florida. Officials decreed that the killer whale shall live. A coyote killed a pet dog in Wheaton and residents declared that the coyote shall die.

These are not the only contradictory and confusing conclusions from wildlife-human interactions.

In 2003, a woman crossed a safety barrier at Brookfield Zoo, approached a fence and extended her arm inside a wolf cage to pet a wolf resting inside. The wolf clamped its jaws down on her arm. Officials killed the wolf.

In 2001, residents of the Eaglebrook subdivision in Geneva were up in arms over coyotes in their neighborhood and called for eradication of these native wild animals. A trapper was hired to take care of the problem. There were protests and counter protests.

In the meantime, many of the residents owned cats and allowed them to roam outside. It's fair to assume that at least a few of these cats killed native birds and rodents on their daily rounds.

In the late 1980s there was a citizen uprising against a deer culling program in Lake County. A protest was staged at Ryerson Woods. Among the protesters, "at least one showed up in a full-length fur coat," according to Joel Greenberg in A Natural History of the Chicago Region.

People are in charge here, but who's on death row and whose life gets spared is anyone's guess. Sometimes the officials in charge react quickly and decisively; sometimes ambiguity leads to endless indecisiveness.

Sometimes the humans at the helm react with emotion while tossing reason overboard. Sometimes wildlife dilemmas are met scientifically, sometimes superstitiously. Let's admit it. We're confused about our role vis-à-vis animals, and often we just don't know what to do.

In the midst of our befuddlement, how do we play out our role in ecology and culture? We're good at some things and not so good at others. We've been quite successful, for example, at multiplying and filling the earth with ourselves, a feat driven by biology and backed by religion. Having dominion over other species is part of the deal.

Regardless of whether you look at this from a religious point of view or an ecological point of view, dominate is what predators do. What makes us Homo sapiens different from other predators are opposable thumbs and highly evolved brains. We, therefore, have the ability to manipulate objects as well as ideas, to fashion tools and to fashion clever ways to use those tools, to manage resources both nonliving and living, and to be stewards of other life-forms.

This is where the ball of confusion starts rolling. Dominion we get. Stewardship we don't quite have the hang of.

Both dominion and stewardship involve humans deciding what lives and what doesn't. Killing is a part of living, wrote Barbara Kingsolver in her book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," in which she takes a good look at how and what we eat and where it comes from.

Author Michael Pollan wrote about Homo sapiens' niche as a hunter in his book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," wherein he posits the reality of killing as part of our omnivorous lifestyle.

Wendell Barry, Aldo Leopold and numerous others before them have also written of life and death, predator and prey, hunting and gathering, husbandry and harvesting, and reducing our huge human footprint on the planet.

But the current events involving killer whales and killer coyotes are not about eating, hunting, subsistence, food webs or footprints. They're about property and its value. They're about deciding who lives and who doesn't.

The notorious SeaWorld whale is lucrative property. I have a hunch dollar signs played a role in the clemency ruling. Pet dogs are property, too, and their owners pay thousands of dollars for the purchase, upkeep and maintenance of their pets.

People may bristle at this and argue that their pets aren't property, they're family. I understand both sides of the coin when my (expensive) dogs curl up at my feet and my cat purrs on my lap at the end of the day. In the case of the puppy-eating coyote situation, both property value and emotion landed Mr. Coyote on death row.

In essence, we exercise dominion over animals whether we're the CEO of a nationally renowned zoo, whether we're telling our pets to "sit," whether we buy a burger at McDonald's or a dozen eggs at the health food store. Dominion means we're in charge.

For many people, dominion sounds, well, too domineering. They'd rather focus on stewardship. In so doing, there are many ways to interpret the role. Some people interpret their role as steward to mean that no living thing should be harmed (let alone killed) for their well- being. These are the nouveau vegans and trendy vegetarian types.

Having been a vegetarian myself throughout the '70s and '80s, I know the mindset. But as I understand it, the vegan/veggie definition of "living thing" does not include ticks, mosquitoes, leeches, viruses, bacteria and their ilk. (Do vegans take antibiotics?)

On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are people whose idea of stewardship is summed up by the "whack 'em and stack 'em" philosophy. They have essentially dropped stewardship out of the equation and embraced a dubitable interpretation of dominion.

Another name for stewardship is wildlife management. If you can get past the oxymoron, listen to what professional wildlife managers say. Every one of them will tell you that wildlife management boils down to people management. Venomous vipers are a piece of cake compared to vitriolic vegans.

Populations of endangered grizzlies are easier to deal with than profit-hungry poachers. What can a wildlife manager do about people crossing "do not enter" signs at the zoo or defying "do not feed the wildlife" signs in the national park? Wild animals aren't the problem, people are.

What about domesticated animals? Be it cattle or dogs, chickens or hogs, domesticated animals are the products of dominion and stewardship. They are animals that have been bred to perform work for humans. Once domesticated, most cannot survive in the wild. They rely on humans for food, shelter, and health care. They need us to be their stewards.

Some domesticated critters escape the confines of domesticity. If these renegades survive and reproduce viable offspring, they become feral. Here's where people can really muddle the management and stewardship roles. Feral cats, for example, pose significant ecological problems as nonnative predators, yet there are avid cat lovers who feed feral cats and are adamant about helping them survive.

There are feral dogs as well. These, however, are not the lovable mutts in Walt Disney's "Lady and the Tramp" - feral dogs are serious trouble. They are often "put down."

So what are responsible, intelligent, reigning Homo sapiens to do? We may bellow "Off with his head!" - but whose head? Do we shoot feral dogs and feed feral cats? Do we take ferocious predators from the wild and turn them into profit-generating infotainment in captivity? Do we kill a native coyote because it didn't know the difference between a terrier and a rabbit, yet let pet cats outdoors to kill native birds? Do we trap nuisance animals that we ourselves have turned into nuisances?

The late Edward Abbey, known for his provocative and opinionated writing, said, "To a tapeworm, God created man to serve the appetite of the tapeworm." Perhaps it's just a matter of perspective, and maybe we aren't always in charge.

• Valerie Blaine is a naturalist who resides with her son, her dogs and her indoor cat in the woods of St. Charles. You may reach her at blainevalerie@kaneforest.com.