Control of the Wild

by David Stalling

There’s a persistent idea among many Montanans that proximity equals understanding — that living near the mountains, forests, and open ranges grants a deeper, almost exclusive knowledge of “the wild.” It’s an identity as much as a belief: to be from Montana is, in this view, to be closer to something raw and authentic that outsiders can’t grasp.

But that assumption deserves scrutiny, because the version of the wild being defended is often far from truly wild.

What many people celebrate is not an untouched ecosystem but a carefully managed one. Predator populations are controlled or eliminated to protect game animals. Wolves are culled, grizzlies pushed back or monitored, all to maintain herds of elk and deer at levels that suit human recreation. Roads cut through landscapes that would otherwise be inaccessible, making it possible to traverse vast areas with ease. Forests are logged, fires suppressed or selectively allowed, rivers diverted or managed. What results is not wilderness in its original sense, but a curated environment — one shaped, simplified, and stabilized for human use.

Fire offers one of the clearest examples of this contradiction. Western forests did not just tolerate fire; they evolved with it, and in many cases depend on it. Periodic burns cleared underbrush, recycled nutrients, and maintained the open structure of many ecosystems. Fire was not an anomaly but a rhythm. Yet for decades, policy and public pressure have pushed toward suppression — toward the idea that fire is an enemy to be controlled or eliminated. The result has often been forests choked with fuel, more prone to the kind of massive, destructive fires that follow long periods without smaller, natural burns. In trying to make the landscape safer and more predictable, we have often made it more volatile.

And still, this managed landscape is spoken of as if it were pure and untamed. That contradiction reveals something deeper: a desire for the idea of wildness without its full reality. True wildness is unpredictable, indifferent, and often dangerous. It includes predators that don’t respect property lines, ecosystems that don’t conform to human timelines, and natural processes, like fire, that can disrupt human plans without warning. But when those elements are reduced, excluded, or tightly controlled, the remaining landscape becomes something else — something safer, more navigable, more familiar. It becomes, in effect, a domesticated version of the wild.

This helps explain another tension: the simultaneous reverence for and fear of the wild. People may claim deep respect for nature, but that respect often depends on nature staying within certain boundaries. When predators return in greater numbers, or when fire is allowed to play its natural role, anxiety rises. Calls for control follow. The wild is welcomed, but only as long as it behaves.

The irony is that this controlled version of nature is then used as a benchmark to judge others. Outsiders — those who live in cities or different regions — are dismissed as ignorant, as people who “don’t understand” the wild. But understanding is not simply a matter of geography. Someone who studies ecosystems, who reflects on human impact, or who has experienced different landscapes may see more clearly the extent to which this “wild” has been altered. Distance can sometimes offer perspective that proximity obscures.

In the end, the issue isn’t who has the right to claim understanding. It’s about recognizing what is actually being valued and defended. If the landscape is heavily shaped by human decisions, then honesty demands acknowledging that fact.

Calling it wild doesn’t make it so. And guarding that label too fiercely can prevent a more meaningful conversation about what true wildness is, and whether we are willing to live with it on its own terms rather than our own.