Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Montana hunt ends for season – In a unanimous vote, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission decided not to extend the 2011-2012 wolf hunt in the Bitterroot Valley. Chairman Bob Ream told the Associated Press on Wednesday: “The quota is a ceiling; it’s not a basement. If we haven’t reached the ceiling we haven’t failed. It’s been a good season and people should treat wolves like other game animals.” In comments submitted to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission Defenders agreed that the quota should not be treated as a target. Defenders also called into question assertions that wolves were to blame for declining elk numbers in the area as research into the causes of the decline is ongoing and as yet incomplete.

Thanks to all our supporters who voiced their concerns with the proposal, urging Montana to take a more measured approach to managing wolves. Your calls and letters helped convince the Montana wildlife commission that wolf management should be based on sound science, not unsubstantiated claims about the impacts of wolves.

Now that the extension has been denied, the wolf hunting season in Montana is officially over. A total of 166 wolves were killed this season during the hunt, filling or exceeding quotas in four hunting zones and coming close in several others. This summer, wildlife officials will revisit the overall quota of 220 wolves and consider modifying hunting restrictions for the next hunting season.

Wyoming wolf bill passes Senate committee – Wyoming’s revised wolf management plan, which would allow wolves to be shot on sight across a majority of the state, sailed through the state Senate wildlife committee with unanimous approval on Thursday (see full story in Casper Tribune). That shouldn’t be surprising, especially after Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead made the plan a focal point of his State of the State address on Tuesday. Mead told state legislators to approve the plan before concerned citizens have a chance to challenge it in the courts (see full story in Jackson Hole News & Guide). The controversial wolf plan has gained national attention as it would allow wolves to be killed along the John D Rockefeller Parkway that connects Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. Listen to the story on NPR’s All Things Considered:

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Idaho’s latest, craziest wolf kill bill – A bill circulating in the Idaho state legislature would take unchecked wolf-killing to all-new heights. A provision introduced by state Sen. Jeff Siddoway would allow ranchers to kill wolves using motorized vehicles, night vision scopes, electronic calls, traps with live bait, and ultra-light aircraft like powered parachutes.

The state has already foregone hunting quotas across most of the state and authorized the use of aerial gunning to kill up to 75 wolves in the Lolo zone of Clearwater National Forest. Now, state Sen. Jeff Siddoway wants to give ranchers carte blanche to kill wolves by practically any means. When will Idaho’s elected officials stand up and say enough is enough?

The bill comes before the state Senate Environment and Resources Committee on Monday afternoon. Please help us speak out in opposition to this awful legislation.

Read more in The Republic or click here to see the text of the proposed bill.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo courtesy of USFWS

BREAKING: The House of Representatives today voted to open the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and along almost every acre of our coastline including off the East Coast, West Coast, the protected eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Bristol Bay to oil drilling all under the guise of funding this year’s transportation bill.

The funding issue is a scam. Even the most generous revenue estimates from this reckless expansion of drilling will not be enough to fund proposed transportation projects in the bill. In addition, what small amounts of revenue might be generated from oil and gas leasing in the Arctic refuge would not be seen for ten years as oil companies will still need to explore, apply for drilling permits and start development. In short, H.R. 3408 is a fiscal gimmick that relies on unknown future revenues that are speculative at best to pay for transportation projects today.

Upon passage of the bill, Defenders’ president and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark, said, “Today, the House approved the most radical drilling-bill we have seen in recent memory. This fiscal boondoggle would industrialize the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to iconic wildlife like polar bears and the Porcupine Caribou herd, exposing thousands of miles of coastline to chronic pollution from offshore drilling and potential oil disasters like the Deepwater Horizon.

The Arctic refuge is the largest onshore denning area for America's polar bears.

The vote comes only one day after an exploratory well exploded on Alaska’s North Slope, spewing drilling mud, leaking natural gas and requiring the intervention of a company specializing in blowout control.

“Yesterday’s exploratory well explosion on Alaska’s North Slope demonstrates once again that drilling is a dangerous business. We can’t afford to take those risks with some of our most pristine and fragile places, some of which may never recover should a drilling accident occur. The Senate should reject this funding scam and look for realistic ways to meet our transportation needs without sacrificing the health of our environment.”

Stay tuned: See how you can help stop this dangerous drilling bill from becoming a law.

Watch out for Wyoming wolf bill – Wolf management will be on the top of the agenda for Wyoming legislators who convene for a short 20-day budget session next week (See Sublette Examiner for full story). Although the federal government has already issued its proposed delisting rule for wolves in Wyoming, the state legislature must first adopt a new wolf management plan. The draft legislation tracks with the provisions outlined in an agreement between Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in the summer. If adopted, that plan would allow wolves to be shot on sight across a majority of the state, including in our national forests. Another controversial provision would create a “flex zone” where wolves are hunted as trophy game for part of the year but treated as unwanted predators the rest of the year. Defenders and our conservation allies have been pushing the state to adopt year-round trophy game status across the entire, but time is running out. Unless the proposed management plan gets tied up in the legislature (which is still a possibility), we could see wolves once again lose their federal protection in Wyoming by the end of the spring.  The last time this happened, all known wolves in the predator zone were killed.

The alpha male of the Imnaha pack.

A tale of two wolves – It was the best of times. It was the worst of times… For OR-7, his greatest challenge is finding a mate during the February breeding season. For his brother OR-9, the journey is over.

OR-7, the now-legendary lone wolf that has made his way from northeast Oregon into California, has spent more than a month exploring new territory on his own without incident. OR-9, a 2 1/2-year-old male wolf also from Oregon’s Imnaha pack, was shot illegally last month by a hunter in Idaho. Idaho Fish & Game has let the hunter off with a warning, blaming the incident on reportedly bad information from a wolf tag vendor and showing their willingness to turn a blind eye on wolf poaching. Read more in the Wallowa County Chieftain.

The divergent stories of these two wolves put contrasting approaches to wolf management in stark relief. With the arrival of its first wolf, California Department of Fish and Game has been taking a measured and thoughtful approach. They’ve already held several meetings with key stakeholders and published valuable information dispelling common myths about wolves. In Idaho, however, where wolves have now been delisted, wolf-killing has reached an all-time high. To date, 285 wolves have been killed by hunters and trappers in Idaho and an untold number have been killed by poachers. Still more wolves have been removed by state and federal wildlife managers in response to livestock depredations. Idaho Fish and Game is also still planning to take it a step further by killing up to 75 wolves by aerial gunning in the Lolo zone of Clearwater National Forest in an effort to boost elk numbers for hunters.

These aggressive actions suggest Idaho is on a crusade to reduce wolf numbers rather than managing the species responsibly.  It is validating our deepest concerns about the inadequacy of the federal wolf delisting plan which allows the states to radically reduce wolf numbers to unsustainable levels.

Ruling restores vital role of wildlife experts in forest fire planning

Golden eagle.

WASHINGTON (Feb. 7, 2012) – The U.S. District Court of D.C. struck down Bush administration regulations yesterday that would have allowed National Fire Plan projects to move forward without consulting the government’s own wildlife experts. Defenders initially challenged the regulations in 2006, arguing that the regulations violated long-standing Endangered Species Act procedures that help protect the environment and imperiled wildlife.

The following is a statement from Mike Senatore, vice president of conservation law for Defenders of Wildlife:

“The U.S. Forest Service and other federal agencies should consult wildlife experts when considering projects that might affect endangered and threatened wildlife. That’s the simple proposition behind one of the most critical provisions of the Endangered Species Act. But the Bush administration ignored the opinion of its own scientific experts and tried to brush aside this common sense and legally mandated requirement. Regional wildlife directors knew it was wrong, environmental advocates knew it was wrong, and the American people knew it was wrong. Now a federal judge has finally thrown out these ill-conceived regulations, upholding our nation’s commitment to protecting imperiled wildlife. This decision makes it clear that the existing consultation process already allows for timely and effective forest fire planning without discarding vital wildlife protections.”

Background:
The Endangered Species Act requires that federal agencies consult with experts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to determine the impacts of their actions on endangered and threatened wildlife. Regulations issued by the Bush administration in 2003 altered this legal duty to severely limit the role of wildlife experts when considering projects under the National Fire Plan. Similar regulations to short-circuit the consultation process for registration of pesticides were previously overturned by another federal court. A much broader Bush administration policy that essentially eliminated all consultation requirements was issued at the end of 2008 but was promptly withdrawn by the Obama administration in 2009.

Defenders was represented in this case by Eric Glitzenstein of the law firm Meyer, Glitzenstein and Crystal.

Learn more about Defenders’ efforts to uphold the Endangered Species Act

Read more about the Bush administration’s attempts to undermine the Section 7 consultation process

By Doug Ramsey, Public News Service – AZ

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Listen to this story with biologist Philip Hedrick on the Public News Service.

PHOENIX – The number of endangered Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico continued to rise last year. State and federal biologists found at least 58 wolves in their latest count, up from 50 the previous year and 42 in 2009.

Arizona State University biology professor Philip Hedrick calls it good news, but says the best news is that the number of breeding pairs rose from two to six – although he says that’s far from enough.

“If you think about it, that’s only 12 animals that are contributing to the next generation for this year, so that’s not a huge number even though it’s a lot better than just two last year.”

The total wolf count, Hedrick says, needs to be much larger – perhaps four times as many – to produce a long-term stable and sustainable population. That wouldn’t sit well with ranchers in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, who long have complained that the wolves kill cattle and sheep.

The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service has worked with ranchers to keep the wolves away from livestock, noting that only a single problem wolf has had to be permanently removed in the past five years. Hedrick doesn’t consider it to be a major issue.

“In general, these animals haven’t caused a lot of problems. The amount of killing livestock or domestic animals has been pretty low – and, when that’s happened, there’s been compensation. So, there’s a fund set up to compensate people for that.”

An experimental program in New Mexico is using a form of chemical aversion therapy to train wolves awaiting release to avoid livestock.

Hedrick hopes the wolf population can grow substantially, to around 250 animals. Along with promoting genetic diversity, he says, the larger numbers will help the fragile wolf population avoid scenarios which could lead to their extinction.

“You have a disease that comes in, and many of the animals die. Or you have, in one generation, many more males produced than females. There are factors like this, if the numbers are low, then the probability of extinction is pretty high.”

The Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program began in 1998, with a goal of 100 wolves by 2006. Further wolf releases are being delayed while the Fish and Wildlife Service works on a full recovery plan.

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.