Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Wolves, like this on in the Cascade Mountains, are receiving the ire of the Yakima County Farm Bureau even though only one livestock loss has been attributed to wolves in Washington in more than five years.

Tempers flare in Pacific Northwest – Though there are fewer than 30 wolves in Washington, and the state’s wolf management plan has only recently been approved, wolf opponents are already pushing for more aggressive control actions. Legislators are proposing a significant decrease in the fine for illegally killing wolves from $4,000 to $1,000 and relisting wolves as a “game” animal instead of endangered. The Yakima County Farm Bureau is opposing the state’s wolf plan outright. Some of their members want all wolves to be eliminated, even though there has only been one confirmed livestock loss to wolves since they returned to Washington more than five years ago.

At least some landowners are taking a more measured approach. Dan Studley, quoted in the Yakima Herald, says he’s not too concerned about wolves:

As the story points out, Defenders has already chipped in $15,000 in start-up funds to help Washington get a compensation program off the ground. We are also organizing another series of workshops to help local, state, federal and tribal wildlife managers enhance their skills in field investigations and nonlethal deterrents.

Montana county considers wolf bounty – This week, anti-wolf zealots in Jefferson County, Montana are pushing to reinstate a wolf bounty program that would pay people for killing wolves. Only three cattle were lost to wolves in Jefferson County in 2011 according to state compensation payment records, but rather than taking steps to learn to live with wolves, county commissioners are considering a bounty to encourage all wolves to be killed. But not all residents of Jefferson County are on board with the proposed bounty. One hunter, quoted in the local paper, said that the state should be given a chance to manage wolves responsibly before counties take more aggressive action. Another person suggested that cougars and coyotes are likely taking more elk calves and fawns than wolves are, and another said bounties often amount to legalized fraud. Read more in the Helena Independent Record.

Wood River overseas – This summer we were lucky enough to have Pete Haswell, a young biologist from the UK Wolf Conservation Trust, volunteering on the Wood River Wolf Project. He spent his days and nights with our field team tracking wolves and sheep through the central Idaho wilderness, and when he returned, he had some great stories to tell. One night he came within 60 feet of a wolf in the Phantom Hill pack and exchanged late night howls with other packs as well. More importantly, he got to learn first-hand about the nonlethal tools we use to deter wolf attacks, which he hopes to utilize in his work in Eastern Europe. Pete also created an interactive map to keep track of known wolf locations in relation to grazing bands of sheep. Read more about Pete’s adventures in Idaho in the latest issue of Wolf Print, the quarterly magazine of UKWCT (see pg. 14). Pete also wrote a blog post for Defenders during Wolf Awareness Week.

Video of OR7 in his Oregon days – While OR7 remains in northern California in the shadows of Mt. Lassen, his legend continues to spread. This week a video surfaced of the lone male wolf from his Oregon days. The goal of the group named “Oregon Wolf Education” that sponsored the video is “to educate people on how the recent invasion of the Canadian gray wolf is affecting our lives.” But the video also tells a different story of a lone wolf that repeatedly moved through cattle pastures without causing trouble, due at least in part to the effective use of a range rider. Decide for yourself whether the short video portrays OR7 as a serious threat or just another wild animal sharing the landscape:

OR-7 from Pahsimeroi Pictures on Vimeo.

And in case you missed it, OR7 has also made news in the New York Times and TIME magazine!

What does the data show? – Understanding wolf behavior and their interactions with both wild ungulates and livestock isn’t easy. Wolves share the landscape with other animals that target the same prey, so it takes some careful analysis to determine the impact of any one species on another. That’s why Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is leading an in-depth study of predator-prey interactions in the Bitterroot Valley, where elk herds have declined in recent years. There are two years remaining in the study, but so far state biologists are learning that cougars in the area may be having a bigger impact on elk populations than wolves (last year, cougars killed 13 tagged elk calves and wolves killed three). The results of the study should yield important information about the relative impact of wolves on elk. Read more in this feature story from the Missoula Independent.

OR7 on the move? – The current whereabouts of OR7 (aka, Journey) are unknown, though he is believed to still be roaming northern California in search of a mate. California Department of Fish and Game published a map of the lone wolf’s journey but is updating it infrequently to protect OR7 from poachers.

Unfortunately, California wildlife managers can’t protect OR7 (or any wolves, for that matter) from the whims of Hollywood, whose directors seem eternally hell-bent on portraying wolves as vicious man-eaters. In the latest incarnation of cinematic “lupophobia,” Liam Neeson and his team of marooned roughnecks must fend off a pack of snarling wolves in the frozen Alaskan backcountry.

In an LA Times story yesterday, Director Joe Carnahan says “The Grey” was actually intended to show the dangers of man’s intrusion into nature, not to sully public perception of wolves. Defenders’ California Director Kim Delfino was quoted, pointing out that the wolves in the movie do not reflect reality since they rarely ever attack humans. But at this critical juncture for wolves, reinforcing erroneous stereotypes of wild wolves as man-hunting demons only makes our job of protecting and restoring them more difficult. Defenders has already sent letters to the movie studios asking them to help educate moviegoers with the real facts about wolves. Check out our mythbusting fact sheet and help us spread the truth.

Montana considers extending wolf hunt – Since September, Montana hunters have killed at least 137 wolves, not including wolves killed by state and federal wildlife agents in response to livestock depredations. The hunting season has already been extended once by Montana’s Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission. Now they’ve given initial approval for another extension that would allow hunters to kill wolves in the Bitterroot Valley until April 1, right before pregnant mothers begin denning and have pups.

Wolves hunt two bull elk in Yellowstone. Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Park Service.

In spite of a $100 bounty on wolves from the Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, only three wolves have been killed so far in the area, which has a quota of 18 wolves that can be legally harvested during the hunt. By repeatedly extending the wolf hunt, Montana wildlife managers appear to be using their quotas as population reduction targets rather than upper limits for management purposes. By proposing to extend the hunt just in the Bitterroots, they’re no longer targeting wolves that are harassing livestock in order to help ranchers but simply responding to hunters who complain that wolves are taking too many elk. However, elk herds in this area were declining for a multitude of reasons well before wolves returned. In fact, researchers have determined that the primary cause of decline was increased harvest of female elk by humans, specifically to reduce the population. Further, extending the hunt into peak breeding season could prevent dispersing wolves from replacing breeding wolves killed earlier in the year.

Overall, we’d like to see Montana taking a much more measured approach, especially while the impacts of statewide wolf hunting are still largely unknown. The FWP Commission is accepting comments through Feb. 13, and final adoption will be considered at the Feb. 16 meeting. More details here.

Suzanne on the radio – As promised, here’s the link to our wolf expert Suzanne Stone’s interview from last week on the Christopher Gabriel Program on AM 970 WDAY. She explains why the return of wolves to California is such a big deal, the role of wolves in the ecosystem, and the potential to restore wolves in other parts of the country. And if you just want to hear her howl, jump to the 21-minute mark!

How coal is killing America’s freshwater mussels

Mussels act as a water filter, keeping our rivers clean and healthy. But species like the tan riffleshell can no longer keep up with coal pollution. More than a third of freshwater mussel species are critically imperiled or already extinct.

Who cares about some little mussel that inhabits a few rivers in eastern Tennessee and southwest Virginia? Well, if you happen to live in the area, news that the tan riffleshell is on the verge of extinction could mean that your water isn’t safe to drink. For the rest of us, it’s yet another sign that pollution is taking a very serious toll on the environment.

These endangered mussels are the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” for Appalachian rivers, and they’re just one of 10 species identified in a new report released today called Fueling Extinction: How Dirty Energy Drives Wildlife to the Brink.

Like all freshwater mussels, the tan riffleshell makes its living by eating small particles in the water. These so-called “filter feeders” remove sediment and other pollutants, thereby keeping our streams healthy enough to support other plants and animals, including ourselves. So when these little shellfish start disappearing, that means one of nature’s vital water filters is broken and can longer keep up with all the pollution being dumped into the river.

North America once boasted some 300 species of freshwater mussels, according to the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society. But as a result of land development, over-harvesting and chronic pollution over the last 200 years, 38 mussel species are already thought to be extinct and another 77 are considered imperiled.

Today, the greatest threat to mussels comes from various by-products of coal mining and coal-burning power plants. These pollutants contaminate our waterways with heavy metals and other environmental toxins that can kill mussels as well as countless other plants and animals.

Mussels aren’t the only ones threatened by fossil fuel development, however. More familiar imperiled species include:

• Bowhead Whale: The remainder of the endangered bowhead whale population is at risk from contaminants and noise from off shore oil drilling and deadly collisions with ships. An oil spill could easily wipe out the small population of whales, which exists only in Arctic waters.
  

  This Kemp's ridley sea turtle was rescued from the Gulf oil spill.

• Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle: According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Kemp’s ridley is the most seriously endangered of all sea turtles, and they only breed in Gulf waters. In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf oil disaster, 156 sea turtle deaths were recorded – most of them Kemp’s ridleys.
• Whooping Crane: There are just 437 whooping cranes in the wild today, after overcoming near extinction in the 1940s. But the proposed Keystone Pipeline would run along the crane’s entire migratory path from Canada to Texas, and could destroy the flock with toxic waste , collisions and electrocutions from power lines, and the risk of oil spills.

Drilling in the Arctic. Spilling oil in the Gulf. Building a pipeline across the country. Removing mountaintops to get at more coal. All of these actions have dire consequences for our land and wildlife. Fossil fuels are dirty and dangerous, and they’re pushing many at-risk plant and animal species toward extinction. Oil company executives take home millions of dollars every year while the rest of us have to clean up the mess. It’s time to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and rescue these species from the brink.

To learn more about the top 10 U.S. species threatened by fossil fuels, visit http://fuelingextinction.org.

Read more about the importance of freshwater mussels on Defenders blog and in our magazine.

Watch the interview below with “mussel man” Monte McGregor, a malacologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources:

Defenders' president and CEO, Jamie Rappaport Clark

Last week, the National Journal’s Energy and Environment Experts Blog asked, “What’s in store for 2012?” Read about what environmental priorities Defenders president and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark thinks Congress should focus on this year.

The damages of last year’s record-setting droughts, floods and fires are estimated to have cost the country more than $52 billion. Not to mention the costs to our natural resources. The Texas Forest Service estimates as many as 500 million trees throughout the state were killed by the year’s horrific drought —a full 10 percent of the forests in the Lone Star State. And according to the top international climate scientists that comprise the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the natural disasters of last year were only a preview of the extreme weather to come.

Instead of waiting for 2012 to deliver worse and potentially deadlier punches, Congress should take this opportunity to fortify our natural defenses and prepare ourselves for what’s ahead. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Max Baucus (D-MT) have taken the first important step in that direction. In November the two introduced the Securing America’s Future and Environment (SAFE) Act, a bill that outlines the countless benefits that healthy natural resources provide to our country’s safety, economy and well being, and provides a roadmap to help them adapt to a more hostile climate. From combating pests in forests in order to prevent fires to restoring watersheds that protect drinking water supplies, the legislation offers common-sense solutions to protecting our communities, natural resources and wildlife in an uncertain future.

2011 was a record-setting year for floods, droughts and fires. Photo courtesy USDA

Without a doubt, the coming year will be one of belt tightening and tough budgeting. The SAFE Act does not appropriate money but does provide a clear outline of how our resource agencies can strengthen and protect our invaluable resources through new planning and coordination. The bill is an investment plan; each step taken to help our natural resources adapt to a changing climate now will save us time, money and energy down the road.

We may not know what the coming year will bring. But by passing the SAFE Act, Congress can ensure America is ready to meet the challenges of the future head-on, in 2012 and beyond.

Learn more:

Read the full question and see what others are saying on the National Journal’s Energy and Environment Expert Blog.

Learn more about the SAFE Act and how it will protect American communities and natural heritage.

David Gaillard (far right) during a recent trip with his fellow colleagues and "citizen scientists" to collect hair samples from grizzly bears in Montana. Click the image above to see Dave's blog post and video from the trip.

One of the last emails Dave ever sent landed in my inbox on Friday afternoon. While most of us at Defenders had already headed home for the long holiday weekend, Dave was still thinking up new and better ways to protect the critters he cared so much about. He had compiled a list of conservation successes for 2011 for his beloved “meso-carnivores”—wolverines, lynx, fishers—and mentioned wanting to do a similar recap for each quarter of 2012.

That’s just the kind of guy he was. For two decades, Dave was deeply dedicated to protecting the wild animals and wild places that make the Northern Rockies so special. Whether he was tromping through the backcountry with “citizen scientists” in search of wolverine tracks, or defending critical lynx habitat from oil and gas drilling, he was always focused on a mission much larger than himself. And he did it with a warm smile, infectious laughter and an uplifting spirit that made us all want to cheer for the underdogs he was working hard to save.

Here’s a look at just some of the great work that Dave was involved with over the past year:

We here at Defenders will miss Dave very much, but we take some solace knowing that he died doing what he loved to do most: savoring the rugged wilderness under a beautiful Montana sky with his beloved wife.

Dave, your life was an inspiration for us all. Rest in peace, dear friend.

Readers: If you have any thoughts or memories to share, please feel free to add a comment below. You can also make a donation in Dave’s honor by visiting www.defenders.org/dgmemorial.

In Memory of Naturalist-Conservationist David Gaillard, 44

Northern Rockies Conservationist Dies In Avalanche

Written by Todd Wilkinson (Authors Bio)

[This post originally appeared on January 2nd 2012 on WildlifeArtJournal.com]

Heartbreaking is the only way to describe it.  On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve 2011-12, the American conservation community lost a young, fearless and inexhaustible advocate.

David Gaillard setting up a remote camera. Photo courtesy of WildlifeArtJournal.com.

David Gaillard, 44, of Bozeman, Montana, died in an avalanche while cross-country skiing the Hayden Creek drainage, located in the Absaroka Mountains just beyond the  back northeastern doorstep of Yellowstone National Park.

A proud graduate of the Yale School of Forestry and Williams College, Gaillard came West in 1990 seeking to groundtruth what he learned in the classroom.  He worked for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Predator Conservation Alliance and, for the last five years, Defenders of Wildlife. His special interest was with carnivores, which are key indicators of ecosystem health.

Gaillard was at his most passionate in giving voice to a suite of forest and mountain dwellers many of us take for granted because they are so elusive and seldom seen.  The animals on this list include the wolverine, Canada lynx, fisher, and pine marten.

“People will protect the things that are right before their eyes,” he told me in 2011 as I was writing a story about wolverines, then being considered for federal protection as a result of a listing petition that Gaillard himself helped craft.  “If people can’t encounter these animals directly, then I at least want them to realize they are out there—and they need our help.  Otherwise, they could easily disappear without anyone knowing the difference.”

Gaillard, a lanky, red-headed outdoorsman, loved traversing through snow on skis and snowshoes. He wasn’t the kind of conservationist who saw himself as a town crier;  rather, he was a celebrator of wild places.  During the course of his career, he attended countless public meetings and dared to testify before hostile audiences that automatically equated species protection with loss of jobs. He delighted most in sharing anecdotes about the life histories of wolverines and lynx, encouraging folks to learn what their tracks look like in the snow and to take up the mantle of “citizen science” by sharing information they gleaned from their own backcountry adventures.

In 2011, as the U.S. Forest Service in Wyoming deliberated over whether it will open the Hoback Basin and Wyoming Range to oil and natural gas drilling—bringing industrial strength development to an important wildlife corridor—Gaillard erected remote controlled cameras.  He wanted viewers to objectively see for themselves that the areas targeted for energy production were used by a wide variety of critters, including hunters and outfitters drawn to mountains unblemished by pumpjacks and air pollution.  For an example of David’s handiwork, enjoy the video below (click on the lower corner of player to bring it to full screen).

Gaillard had many friends in the conservation movement. Not long ago, Defenders magazine published a story about wolverines and global warming written by Douglas Chadwick and in it Gaillard was quoted:  “Nobody can say for sure what the future may bring,” he said. “But I want to be able to look my daughter in the eye and say we are doing everything we can to prepare lynx, wolverines and other wildlife that she loves for the big changes ahead.”

Gaillard delivered on his promise.  His daughter can always know that her Dad did everything he could to remind us that wild places matter.  Condolences go out to David’s family and close friends.