"'It makes you wonder,'" Stewart told the newspaper. "'In this area where we've been doing rampant predator control, we're seeing a disease show up. Frankly, I'd rather see a deer get eaten by a coyote than show up symptomatic for a disease like plague.'"

On average, records show that eight dogs a month have been mistakenly killed by Wildlife Services since 2000. In Wisconsin, 20 dogs have been killed, supposedly by wolves, since July during the harassment of bears by packs of dogs.

In a 2013 Salt Lake Tribune editorial, "Just cry wolf: Your cash for the asking," Peay, also founder of the hunting advocacy group Big Game Forever, is described as lobbying the Utah legislature for $300,000 supposedly to protect Utah from the federal government putting endangered Mexican wolves in Utah. This editorial points out: “But Peay's pitch for public money to fight this four-legged hobgoblin doesn't require much more from him than to cry wolf, just as the organization did last year and was promptly handed $300,000 with virtually no questions asked. At an appropriations hearing last month, when someone had the temerity to ask Peay what last year's $300,000 had bought the state, he saw no reason to get specific.”