THey are becoming everyones problem, but the truth hurts the pro-wolf folks, huh brent? Even with proven results from wildlife professionals, there will still be nay-sayers!

Study: Idaho wolves hitting cow elk hard
By ERIC BARKER
Of the Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune

Idaho Fish and Game biologists have established that wolves are the primary cause of death of radio-collared cow elk in the Lolo hunting zone, where cow elk numbers are projected to be shrinking by 13 percent a year.

The department could use that conclusion, from its continuing study of elk, to again seek permission to authorize federal trappers to cull wolves in the remote area of central Idaho. But officials would rather see wolves removed from the endangered species list so wolf packs could be thinned through hunting.

"I just think it's generally more acceptable with folks to manage populations through hunting than any other way," said Jim Unsworth, deputy director of the department at Boise. "We are going to monitor the delisting process. If that occurs, we are going to pursue the hunting option. That is certainly our preferred option."

In case delisting is delayed or the department gets tied up in lawsuits, Fish and Game commissioners told the department to look at the options available under federal wolf-management rules, Unsworth said. In 1996, the department sought permission to have government trappers kill up to 43 wolves in the Lolo elk-hunting zone. That effort eventually failed when it became clear the department could not prove that wolves were the primary problem facing elk in the area.

But two things have since happened: Federal wolf management rules have been changed so state and tribal agencies have to prove only that wolves are a major cause of elk or deer herds not meeting management objectives before they seek permission to kill wolves. And research biologists have collected much more data in their elk study and reached a stronger conclusion about the effects wolves are having on elk herds.

Wildlife biologists are using radio collars to follow cow elk in several elk-hunting zones across the state. When one dies, they investigate and try to determine what caused the death.

Their research paints a bleak picture for elk in the Lolo zone, where only about 75 percent of the cow elk survive each year. To maintain a healthy population or to grow a herd, survival has to be much higher.

"In the western U.S., you really need to be at 87 percent survival or better to have any chance of population stability or growth," said state wildlife biologist George Pauley at Kamiah. He and others have established that wolf predation is the chief cause of death among radio-collared elk in the Lolo zone.

"Of the known causes of death, 75 percent are wolves," Pauley said. "Wolves appear to be driving low cow survival."

Elk in the entire upper Clearwater Basin have been struggling for more than a decade. The population had been on a slow slide for years and then took a nosedive during the winter of 1996-1997. That decline occurred before wolf populations had grown strong enough to be the cause, and poor habitat was named as the culprit. Researchers say that because there are now far fewer elk in the basin, habitat should not be as big a problem. Their research tells them wolves are preventing elk from rebounding and are causing populations to continue to slide.

"The Lolo zone declined largely for other reasons, so it kind of became a cloudy issue," Pauley said. "More recently you could probably make the case it has declined by wolf predation."

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is making a second run at removing wolves from the endangered-species list. That process is expected to culminate in mid-January, shortly before President Bush leaves office.

Everyone involved in the process expects the delisting decision to be challenged in court. That is what happened last year when wolves were removed from federal protection for a few months. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming all planned wolf-hunting seasons that were to take place this fall. But a federal judge in Montana found fault with the delisting move and restored federal protection in the three states.

There are about 1,500 wolves living in the Northern Rockies region, with about 700 to 800 in Idaho.

The state has a management objective of 6,100 to 9,100 cow elk for the zone, but the current cow population is estimated at 3,254.

"I think it's a demonstration of the critical nature we have in the Lolo zone and, of course, everybody talked about wolves," said Fred Trevey, the Fish and Game commissioner representing the Clearwater Region.

Earlier this month, Trevey and the rest of the commissioners directed the department to move forward with a proposal to thin wolf numbers in the Lolo zone.

The department also is seeking permission to land helicopters in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area to place radio collars on wolves. If approved by the Forest Service, the collaring would occur during winter elk survey flights.

"If we see a pack of wolves, it would be pretty straightforward to go down and mark a few and get some radio collars on them," Unsworth said. "No one is back there when we are doing that kind of work, and I don't think it would have much of an impact on the wilderness."

Landing helicopters or using any type of motorized vehicles in wilderness areas is generally permitted only for emergencies and is opposed by wilderness advocates.

FWP just killed 19 here last week. They thought the pack was made up of 5 or 6. The pack had been killing livestock on a regular basis. Game counts are down 20-25% since the re-introduction of wolves in this area.

Any luck treeing cats yet??/ SEND (POST) PICS!!

One of our cats is close to 180 lbs now (Frank)and if he gets killed in Washington he may get in the book....(not if he is killed in BC however.....)

IV

180 is a hog! I hope he makes another season! He is probabaly hard on the local deer and elk, but what the heck, the cats still are not killing like the wolves are!

It's not the fault of the wolf.

The wolves are only killing livestock and decimating deer, elk & moose herds because they are lacking 2 important things in their diet: copper and lead...

I personally volunteer to supplement the diet of a wolf or two. It's the American thing to do...

And I am sure there are plenty of others who'd volunteer to do the same.

Shoot, shovel, STFU!
Wolfs are easy to manage if you just keep it simple.
MM

I jsut heard on the news today that 6 wis wolves were shot during deer season.

quote:

Shoot, shovel, STFU!

I think as time goes by, more and more, will have to be done in that manner, government is getting to big and to intrusive!

What do you think the chances are of seeing a wolf in the spring bear season in Idaho? I am hunting the west central part of the state?

i don't know about wolves, but you might chance upon some mighty big coyotes... black ones, white ones, multicolored ones... i hear most people just shoot them and let them lay. and typically, those people don't mention it to others....

but that's just what I hear...

Wolf pack near Kalispell eliminated after livestock killings
KALISPELL - Federal wildlife officials have killed the remaining wolves of the Hog Heaven Pack near Kalispell because of continued livestock depredations. Officials for USDA Wildlife Services shot 19 wolves over three days - Dec. 6, 2008.

At least 7 others from this pack removed earlier. How much does it take to feed 26 wolves per day?

Wolves may be delisted -- again -- this week
I wish Bush would fire bangs before he leaves office!


By CHRIS MERRILL
Star-Tribune environment reporter
Sunday, December 14, 2008 2:05 AM MST

LANDER -- The Bush administration could remove wolves from the federal endangered species list this week, an official said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had previously announced its intention to delist gray wolves in the Northern Rockies by the end of this year.

But Ed Bangs, the federal gray wolf recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said it is possible a new delisting rule could be out and published in the Federal Register on or before Friday.

"We're hoping to get it out [this week], but whether that happens or not, I don't know," Bangs said.

Critics reacted harshly to the news, saying the Bush administration is rushing to push through a flawed plan, simply to make sure it is enacted before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal's office -- in official comments sent to the Fish and Wildlife Service last month -- charged that the agency was in a "mad dash" to complete a new rule before the Bush administration steps down.

Bangs acknowledged that the release of a new rule in the coming days would be faster than he originally expected.

But he also said the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, H. Dale Hall, will make the final decision -- and there's a chance there won't be a new rule at all before Hall retires in early January.

The Bush administration removed wolves in this part of the country from Endangered Species Act protection in March, handing over management of the animals to Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. That decision was challenged in federal court by 12 conservation and animal rights organizations.

In July, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Montana sided with the conservation organizations and issued an injunction against the rule. He said the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to ensure genetic exchange between the three main wolf populations in the three states, and had changed its position on Wyoming's "dual status" plan -- first rejecting it and then accepting it -- without justification for the change.

All three states created trophy game zones for wolves. But Wyoming was the only state to establish a "predator" area for the animals where they could be shot on sight by anybody, without limits.

Wyoming's predator area was one of the items of concern cited by Judge Molloy in his injunction ruling.

In October, at the request of the Fish and Wildlife Service, judge Molloy "vacated" the 2008 delisting rule, essentially making it void. At the end of October, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reopened the public comment period on its previous plan to delist wolves.

In this current proposal each state must have a federally approved wolf management plan before the animals can be delisted there.

According to Freudenthal's office, the Fish and Wildlife Service has informed the governor that it will no longer accept Wyoming's plan unless the state alters its dual status classification for the canines.

But as of Friday Bangs said Wyoming still had a federally endorsed wolf management plan.

"Wyoming still has an approved plan, right now," Bangs said. "For that to change, the Service will have to formally notify the state that it has changed. That hasn't happened yet. Could it happen? Yes."

If Wyoming's plan is deemed acceptable and the wolf delisting proceeds, the animals would be removed from the endangered species list once again in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

But if the Fish and Wildlife Service rescinds its approval of the Cowboy Sate's plan, wolves in this state will still be considered endangered, and remain under the purview of the federal government.

Bangs said Hall is considering both options, and Bangs wouldn't say which option Hall is most likely to choose.

Bryce Reece, executive vice president of the Wyoming Wool Growers Association, said if the federal government delists wolves in Idaho and Montana only, it will only invite lawsuits.

The hope of the Wool Growers Association is that wolves be once again delisted in all three states, but not at the expense of Wyoming's dual status laws, he said.

"We've been strong proponents of delisting, but not delisting at any cost," Reece said. "Our membership met this week and reaffirmed our commitment to maintain the dual classification because it allows for a viable livestock industry. You can have wolves or you can have the livestock industry, but you can't have both."

If wolves were delisted and classified as trophy game animals statewide, it would "set up years and years of continual conflict between the livestock industry and the Game and Fish Commission," he said.

The classification of wolves as trophy game in the northwest corner of Wyoming, where the vast majority of the animals live, and as predators everywhere else, is written into state law.

Although there has been talk among some lawmakers of changing the statutes to designate wolves as trophy game animals statewide, such a switch would face strong resistance from many lawmakers, and could only be done with approval from both the state House and Senate, which do not meet again until next year.

Louisa Willcox is a senior wildlife advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is one of the groups that challenged the original delisting rule in court earlier this year.

She said she isn't surprised the Fish and Wildlife Service might be eyeing the coming week for publishing its new rule, because the agency is approaching a deadline of sorts.

"We expected that because if they want it to stick, if they want it to be implemented before Bush leaves office, they have to do it next week," Willcox said.

Once the wolf delisting rule is published in the Federal Register there will be a 30-day waiting period before it actually becomes the law of the land. If the Bush administration waits until after this coming week, the rule won't become law before Obama takes office -- and it could then be easily undone by the incoming administration, she said.

Willcox argued that politics rather than science is what's driving the timing of the new rule.

"There's no way that the fundamental issues raised in the Molloy ruling could be addressed without a law change in Wyoming," she said.

Suzanne Stone, the Northern Rockies Representative for the Washington, D.C.-based Defenders of Wildlife, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only had about 10 days to review 240,000 public comments.

"Rushing through a flawed plan that has already been rejected by the courts doesn't make any sense," Stone said. "So much for public involvement. The bottom line is that we need to treat wolves as a wildlife resource and not as a pest to be exterminated. The Service should have created a new proposed rule that could do that and still address the needs of our regional stakeholders, but it means putting science back on the table first."

Bangs said the Fish and Wildlife Service was able to review all the comments in such a short period of time because it employs a computer program created at Carnegie Mellon University.

The software is able to identify identical comments and lump them together into a single category, Bangs said.

"In the age of computers [non-governmental organizations] send out action alerts to huge email lists and they send everybody a canned statement," he said. "We had 240,000 comments and about 230,000 were emails, and many were identical."

The computer program was able to tease out 39,000 unique comments from the 240,000 total, Bangs said.

"The comment period is not a vote, it is looking for substantive issues," he said. "Every single issue is looked at by a person, but it allows you to deal with these identical emails more efficiently."

wyoming is not going to back up on its dual classification, "we" know what is best for "our" state,
trophy area/ large wildlife populations
predator area/ranches,farms and livestock
the feds accepted wyo's dual status as biologically sound and population sustaining.
its the wolf lovers and bleeding heart federal judges that can't seem to understand that a wolf or wolf pack stand NO chance of sharing habitat with livestock, the only possibly outcome is conflict and extermination.
MIGHT AS WELL DELIST, WE ALREADY HAVE