Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Suzanne Stone, Northern Rockies Representative

In 1999, a female wolf from Idaho crossed over into central Oregon before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracked her down, darted her, caged her and then returned her to Idaho. She was the first known wolf to return to Oregon since the mid-1930s, when the species was officially eradicated. Her journey set efforts into motion that led to the creation of the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan. Other legislation, knee-jerk county decrees and countless news stories followed, all speculating on what impact wolves might have as they returned to their historic homeland.

I served on the original team that helped draft the earliest versions of what eventually became the state’s wolf plan. That’s where I met Carl Scheeler, wildlife biologist for the Umatilla tribe in northeast Oregon, who would continue to help the state craft conservation strategies that were adopted in 2005. Carl is a great biologist and also good with people. His sometimes irreverent humor was always well timed to lift discussions that had become muddied or polarized. He seemed to know that, no matter what, things were going to work out. His optimism helped many of us endure the endless (and often thankless) work of forging a plan that would secure the restoration of wolves while meeting the needs of diverse residents.

Carl always looked forward to the day that wolves would be documented on the Umatilla reservation, and would call from time to time with reports of tracks, sightings and other hopeful signs. It wasn’t until last year, however, that his hopes were finally fulfilled. Carl’s department assisted the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) in efforts to confirm the first wolf den site near the reservation. ODFW wolf biologists documented four pups last summer, and Defenders helped the tribe purchase several infrared, motion-detection wildlife cameras to continue monitoring the pack. In the fall, tribal biologists used the cameras we provided to document the alpha male of the pack. Then, just a few weeks ago, they captured this footage of the pack. We don’t know what startles the young wolf during the video, but notice how he submissively wraps his tail under his hindlegs. That’s normally the response of a lower-ranking wolf or pup when frightened.

Last week, Carl and I met with local ranchers and tribal and state wildlife managers to discuss nonlethal strategies for reducing conflicts between livestock and wolves on the reservation. We talked about the use of carcass disposal, increased human presence, fladry and other deterrents to reduce wolf and livestock losses. After the meeting, we followed up on a tip from a wildlife manager of another possible pack near tribal lands. It’s a beautiful national forest area that looks like the expansive valleys and rolling mountains in Yellowstone. There were loads of elk and plenty of deer sign in the large, open meadows and gorgeous red-barked Ponderosa pines towering above us as we drove through the rolling hills. After driving over washboard-pitted dirt roads with a blizzard bearing down on us, we found the spot where the tracks were reported. Tracking conditions were pretty good in the thin blanket of snow that covered most of the ground. Eager to confirm a new pack, we examined the tracks and quickly determined they were canine, but not wolf. Wolves have huge feet and leave a track that typically measures about five inches in length and three to four inches in width. That’s about the size of my hand, which is useful when I don’t have a ruler handy. Unfortunately, these were dog tracks – a big dog to be certain, but not his wild ancestor.

I always welcome the chance to return to the Umatilla country, and it’s even more powerful now with wolves back on the reservation. As one tribal leader assured me, “Wolves are welcome here and we hope to never lose them again.” Defenders will be part of that effort to ensure that wolves have a secure future on their historic homeland that they once again share with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla.

Congressmen urge continued wolf protections in lower 48 – The federal government has given up on wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes and turned management over to the states. But wolves in the rest of the country still need help if they’re ever going to recover. That’s why 52 congressmen signed a letter this week asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to maintain protections for wolves in the Northwest, southern Rockies and Northeast, where wolves have yet to reclaim important parts of their former range. Initiated by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the letter received broad support across the country, demonstrating that wolf conservation continues to have national significance. We also sounded the alert to our supporters, who answered in spades: more than 46,500 people contacted their representatives and encouraged them to sign on to this letter.

We hope the Fish and Wildlife Service will take this into consideration as it puts the finishing touches on its status review of wolves in the lower 48. Their job isn’t done. In places like Colorado, Utah, and California, wolves are struggling to gain a toehold and still need the benefit of Endangered Species Act protection to even have a chance of recovering.

Nonlethal methods help Oregon ranchers and wolves – Wolf management in Oregon has offered an interesting counterpoint to the widespread wolf-killing taking place in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Because of an ongoing legal dispute, Oregon wildlife managers have been prohibited from removing wolves, including members of the Imnaha pack that had been previously implicated in livestock depredations. As a result, Oregon ranchers have had to rely on nonlethal methods of protecting their livestock from wolves… and it has worked! The wolf population has steadily increased over the past two years while there have been virtually no livestock conflicts whatsoever. In Idaho the trend has been the opposite, with hundreds of wolves being killed while livestock losses have increased.

“The Idaho numbers show ‘you can’t manage wolves using conventional wisdom and assumption,’ said Suzanne Stone of Defenders of Wildlife in Idaho. ‘Using these old archaic methods of managing predators by just killing them is not working.’”

This just goes to show that a little nonlethal goes a long way, but only if ranchers actually use the tools they have available. As Ben Franklin once said, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Read more in USA Today.

Hunting and trapping taking a toll on wildlife – No one knows exactly how many wolves are left in Montana, but a report from the Billings Gazette shows that at least 377 have been killed in the last 14 months. Here’s the tally:

• Hunters – 128
• Trappers – 97
• Wildlife Services – 113
• Ranchers – 7
• Other – 32

There were an estimated 650 wolves in Montana at the end of 2011, but that number is likely to dip for 2012, according to the Gazette report. We’ll know for sure when Montana releases its official wolf count later this month.

A story in the Missoulian also shows that wolves aren’t the only animals getting caught in wolf traps. Last year Idaho trappers admitted to catching more non-target animals (147) than they did wolves (123). Deer, elk, moose, cougars, coyotes, skunks and ravens were among the victims of Idaho trappers, and at least 69 of those animals died as a result. And in Montana, at least 45 dogs were caught in traps this year, three of them set for wolves.

Jonathan Proctor, Rockies and Plains Representative

The Montana legislature meets in Helena, our state’s capital, every other year for just four months. Our elected representatives have a lot of work to do in that time, but for a few anti-wildlife legislators there seems to be plenty of time to beat up on bison. A whopping 10 anti-bison bills have been proposed this year, including one to allow private landowners to shoot any bison that sets hoof on private land and force the state to remove the carcass, another to allow county commissioners to veto bison restoration efforts, and one even calling for all wild bison to be removed or shot on sight.

Defenders is working overtime to stop all of these bills. We’re working closely with a diverse group of bison supporters to testify against these bills and tell the public what is going on in Helena. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with tribes, sportsmen and other conservation groups, we’re rallying all bison supporters to let the legislature know that Montanans want wild bison and oppose these awful bills.

Working together is the only way we will succeed in Montana’s legislature, and we’ve had some great success so far: At least five bills have already been defeated! But each bill that remains and is still moving is detrimental to our efforts to restore wild, genetically-pure bison to places within their historic Great Plains landscape. We want to see every piece of damaging legislation defeated.

According to a recent poll, 68 percent of Montanans support the return of wild bison to public and tribal lands in the state. But you’d never know it from some of the voting results in the legislature. Apart from the bills that we have already defeated, one anti-bison bill passed the House 61-37, and three bills passed the Senate by wide majorities. But they are not yet law and we still have a short window in which to stop them.

Spokespeople from the Assiniboine, Gros Ventre and Sioux tribes of the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap Reservations in eastern Montana have been working especially hard, showing up to oppose these bills and challenge those who repeatedly claim that “nobody in eastern Montana wants these bison.” These tribes not only want wild bison, but are actively working to restore them to their reservations.

For many years Defenders has worked with Robert Magnan, Director of the Fort Peck Reservation bison program, to restore genetically pure Yellowstone bison to tribal lands. He has repeatedly traveled the eight hours to Helena to testify against many of these bills that would stop any further bison restoration, including to tribal lands. Sadly, he’s had to make the same arguments this year that he made in 2009 and again in 2011 to defeat similar anti-bison bills from state Senator Brenden (R-Scobey). Defenders has been there each time as well.

We’ve also had a long collaborative partnership with Mark Azure, Director of the Fort Belknap Reservation bison program. We hope to help Fort Belknap reintroduce genetically pure Yellowstone bison later this year, but these bills threaten this plan. Mark has traveled to Helena again and again to testify against several of the bills, and recently wrote a guest column that appeared in many Montana papers.

Tribes with treaty rights to hunt wild bison on public lands, such as the Salish, Kootenai and Nez Perce tribes, have also actively opposed these bills. Should any of these bills become law, “I guarantee there will be litigation,” said John Harrison, an attorney for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Western Montana, in a recent news article. “When (tribes) talk about treaty rights, it’s as sacred to them as the Constitution is to American citizens.”

These Native American tribes are our greatest allies for wild bison. They have stepped forward as the leaders in wild bison restoration, even while many governmental agencies remain largely silent and noncommittal. Sportsmen’s organizations are also turning their attention more and more to restoring wild bison on the Great Plains after a long history of restoring wildlife such as deer, elk and wild sheep. Their involvement is important because they have a lot of clout at the state level.

My testimony against these bills on behalf of Defenders’ 4,500 Montana members and supporters focused on the collaborations on wild bison conservation. In addition to working with tribes to restore wild bison to tribal lands, we have also been working with others to secure more protective policies for dealing with Yellowstone bison when they step outside the park. As a member of the “bison citizens working group” on Yellowstone bison, we met for more than a year with ranchers, landowners, local businesses and other bison advocates to find common ground on the management of Yellowstone bison when they leave  the park. We found many things we could agree upon, and several of them are being implemented now, giving bison additional freedom to roam out of the park without being killed. These are small but important steps. If this diverse group of Montanans can come together on behalf of the state’s wild bison, we expect the legislature to take our results seriously and not ruin our efforts with these anti-bison bills. Together, we are fighting these bills so that the iconic creatures that once roamed the Great Plains by the millions can be seen wild in key places of the American west once again.

Click here to support our efforts to fight anti-bison bills in Montana and other legislation that threatens wildlife.

Sigh of relief for Montana wolves – After six months, the wolf hunting and trapping season in Montana is finally over. At least 223 wolves were killed, with the latest harvest totals showing 131 wolves taken by hunters and another 92 killed by trappers. This is a substantial increase over last year’s total of 166 wolves killed, which can be largely attributed to the addition of trapping this year and the removal of quotas across nearly all hunting districts. More troubling, however, is that the Montana legislature has already made it even easier to kill wolves next season by allowing the use of electronic calls, decreasing the cost of out-of-state wolf tags, and permitted each hunter and trapper to kill more wolves. As our Rockies & Plains Director Mike Leahy told the Flathead Beacon, the expanded regulations are unwarranted and unscientific:

 “We disagree with the whole framework of wolf management right now,” he said. “We think the population should be managed and that can include a sustainable level of hunting. But most of the changes are aimed at trying to drive the wolf population down.” — Mike Leahy, Defenders of Wildlife

Open season in Wyoming’s flex zone – While Montana is closing their season, Wyoming is expanding theirs. Today begins open season in the so-called flex zone that borders Idaho and stretches southeast from Jackson Hole. From Oct 15 through February, this area is managed as part of the Trophy Game Management Area, where only licensed hunters are allowed to kill wolves through December, subject to quotas. For the rest of the year, it’s considered part of the predator zone that covers over 85 percent of the state, where wolves can be killed anytime, anywhere, by almost any means. Forty-two wolves were killed in the trophy game area during Wyoming’s first hunting season that ended in December, and another 32 wolves have been killed so far in the predator zone – more than half of the known wolves in the entire predator zone (details here). The flex zone is window-dressing for the Wyoming wolf plan that supposedly allows wolves a couple months to disperse. What it more likely does is lure wolves into some of the best wolf habitat in the state – on the Bridger-Teton National Forest, no less – where they and their pups can be killed as soon as denning starts around March. With at least 74 wolves killed since October, wiping out an entire pack could spell disaster for an already dwindling population.
The kill-at-will approach Wyoming has adopted is exactly the kind of flawed policy we knew would happen if wolves prematurely lost their Endangered Species Act protection. That’s why Defenders is suing the U.S. Department of Interior to restore Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection for wolves in Wyoming – click here to support our legal efforts.

Stop the insanity in UT – If you want to hear special interest politics at its worst, listen to this. At a recent meeting of the Utah State Legislature’s Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environmental Quality Appropriations Subcommittee, Don Peay, founder of the anti-predator group Sportsmen for Fish and Wildife, asks for $300,000 to lobby against wolf recovery. Not only does he have the gall to ask for taxpayer money to fund his personal crusade against wolves, he also tells the committee members some real whoppers. He claims that Idaho has lost $50 million in recent years because of wolves but offers no proof; says wolves are destroying jobs, private property and rural economies in Montana without offering examples; and speculates that the return of Mexican wolves to Utah would destroy all the game. Oh, and to top it off, he takes credit for stripping federal protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies by side-stepping the Endangered Species Act with a congressional budget rider. Sadly, his blatant fear-mongering and self-serving view of wildlife earn him plaudits from Utah’s anti-wildlife legislators.

To hear some crying wolf for yourself, follow this link and click on the “Wolf Re-introduction” tab to jump to the 22-minute mark.

Livestock guardian dogs video – Our colleagues at People and Carnivores in Montana put together a great video about using dogs to deter attacks on livestock. They highlight several breeds, each with unique characteristics that make them effective at keeping wolves and other predators at bay.

For years, we’ve been helping ranchers across the country purchase and deploy guard dogs to help keep their animals safe, and we’ve seen really impressive results. All our partners in the Wood River Wolf Project have used dogs along with other nonlethal deterrents, successfully keeping livestock losses to an absolute minimum. In five years, fewer than two dozen sheep have been lost to wolves. We owe much of that success to some very dedicated dogs.

 

Washington wolves under legislative attack – Our top wolf expert Suzanne Stone was in Washington this week meeting with political leaders and agricultural representatives  to discuss the future of wolf management. She reports from the front lines that new legislation could undermine the state’s efforts to restore wolves:

“Washington stakeholders spent four years working to develop a comprehensive, science-based wolf management plan that underwent statewide public review.  It is a balanced plan that promotes nonlethal deterrents to help livestock owners protect against losses to wolves. It also allows wolves to be killed if they become habituated to killing livestock and provides compensation to livestock owners to cover documented losses.  But now powerful ranching advocates in the state senate are making an end-run around the plan to strip protection from wolves and allow their constituents to serve as judge, jury and executioner in killing wolves on private and public lands.  Without state oversight to ensure that wolves are even responsible for the losses blamed on them, innocent wolves could be killed by those who oppose their very presence in Washington.”

We’re asking wolf supporters in Washington to help us oppose state Senate bills designed to stop wolf recovery in its tracks. We need your voice to stand up to those who want to  cripple the plan and eradicate wolves. Please call your local legislators and tell them to VOTE NO on all senate wolf bills (SB 5187, SB 5188, SB 5193) . Access contact information for the senator in your area here.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced last week that the wolf population had nearly doubled since last year. That’s great news, but there are still only about 50 wolves in the state. We’ve got a long way  to go before Washington’s wolf conservation objectives are achieved, so let’s keep those numbers growing!

Fladry works – For years we’ve been promoting flag fencing, known as fladry, as an effective nonlethal tool for keeping livestock safe from wolves. We’ve worked with many ranchers who have used it effectively to protect both cattle and sheep, but now we have video evidence to prove it. Last year, through the support of donors, we provided Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife with  fladry that field biologists have used several times to successfully deter wolves from livestock.  These biologists cleverly tested the fladry with a video camera recently by stringing it around a cow carcass – a serious temptation for a hungry wolf. Even after repeated visits over several days, the wolf never crossed the fladry line. See for yourself:

Wyoming collars more wolves – There’s a lot to complain about when it comes to wolf management in Wyoming. At least 74 wolves have been killed since the state took over wolf management in September – 42 in the trophy game area and 32 (out of approximately 50 wolves) in the “predator zone,” where wolves can be killed at anytime  . But Wyoming Game and Fish does deserve a little credit for continuing to carefully monitor its wolf population. Early last week the department announced that they had collared 16 wolves in the trophy game area, putting a collar on at least one wolf in nearly every major pack. While collaring alone doesn’t protect wolves –as we’ve seen with the killing of several iconic, collared wolves from Yellowstone—it will help ensure that state and federal biologists have the information they need to accurately assess the health of the population. Without this information, wildlife managers can’t make informed decisions about how their actions are affecting the wolf population. Good management must be based on good data, and at least they’ve got that second part down.

Elizabeth Fleming, Florida Representative

With an estimated 100 to 160 animals left in the wild, the Florida panther is one of the most endangered mammals in the United States, and the last surviving puma subspecies in the eastern U.S. Once ranging throughout much of the southeastern part of the country, the panther has been restricted to a fraction of its historic range by past persecution and today’s unchecked development. Highway expansions continue to sever panther habitat, and collisions with vehicles take a terrible toll on these wide-ranging cats each year – a record 19 Florida panthers were killed while trying to cross roads in 2012.  And since urban and suburban areas now border panther habitat in many locations, human-panther interactions are on the rise.

The economic downturn provided a respite from the rapid development that had been gobbling up panther habitat. But now that the economy is picking up, plans are underway to build several new highways across rural parts of Florida that would fragment panther habitat and lead to more development and additional deaths on roads. New subdivisions are under construction, large scale developments and towns are being planned and lands important to panthers are currently offered for sale.

We have a limited window of time to protect and restore undeveloped tracts of land and connected habitat before they are lost forever. Right now is the time to act. That is why Defenders is launching the “Give Panthers a Brake” campaign — to raise awareness about the plight of the critically endangered Florida panther. We want to highlight the major threats to these beautiful felines: loss of habitat, collisions with vehicles and lack of tolerance for living with a large predator. The more Floridians know about these threats to their State Animal, the better chance we have to ensure a future for these majestic big cats.

To help raise awareness about Florida panthers, we’re kicking off this campaign at the home of Florida’s aptly-named pro hockey team: the Florida Panthers! We’re trying to raise enough money for a huge advertising blitz in the stadium throughout the month of March. We’ll be able to place our message on the scoreboard, the giant video screen at the entrance, even on the radio during home games, all to get the word out that the real panthers – the four-legged ones – need a BRAKE!

Another big part of this campaign is to reduce the number of panthers killed on roads each year. Defenders is working to make existing roads safer for panthers to cross, and to prevent new roads that would sever important conservation lands and wildlife travel corridors. And we are encouraging Florida residents and visitors to remain alert, obey speed limits and watch out for wildlife while driving at all times, but especially at night when panthers are most active and visibility is low.

We also recognize that helping people coexist with the Florida panther is vital to building the acceptance and support needed to save this subspecies. Through partnerships, education, research, outreach and advocacy, we work to increase understanding of these wild predators to help people and panthers share the landscape.

The last piece of the puzzle is giving Florida panthers more room to roam! We are asking federal agencies to make it a priority to secure habitat and travel corridors for panthers by creating and expanding new national wildlife refuges and offering incentives to private landowners to ensure that the lands panthers need the most will never be developed.

There are plenty of ways for you to get involved in the Give Panthers a Brake campaign, too — click here to learn more! Together we can make sure the Florida panther can continue to be an icon of the Florida landscape for generations to come.