Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Record elk harvest in Wyoming proves there are still plenty to go around.

Crying wolf while shooting elk – In recent years, whenever hunters have trouble finding elk, wolves take the blame. Over and over again we hear that wolves are decimating elk herds, putting outfitters out of business and making it hard on those just trying to feed their families. But here’s a little reality check: Wyoming hunters set a new record this year for killing 26,385 elk, the highest annual total ever recorded in the state’s history. Of course, some will say the reason so many elk were killed this year was because hunters were finally allowed to kill wolves too. But consider that the second highest elk harvest in Wyoming history was in 2010, when wolves were still fully protected under the Endangered Species Act. In fact, over the last decade Wyoming hunters have harvested an average of more than 22,000 elk each year, with more than 40 percent of hunters killing an elk. While there’s no disputing the fact that wolves do prey on elk, there are obviously still plenty of elk to go around. It’s time to stop pretending that all the elk have disappeared now that wolves are back on the landscape. Clearly, there are enough elk for all to share.

Wolf bill bonanza continues – It’s a mix of good news and bad news this week on the state legislative front out West. Here’s a quick run-down:

• (BAD NEWS) Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed SB 2, the appropriations bill that grants $300,000 to anti-wolf lobbyists with Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and Big Game Forever who want to prevent wolves from ever returning to Utah.
• (BAD NEWS) Montana Senate Bill 397, which would expand hunting, trapping, and snaring of predators where elk are below objective, is still alive and well. It has now passed the state senate and only one of the objectionable provisions – allowing the baiting of bears and wolves – has been removed.
• (MIXED NEWS) Montana Senate Bill 200 has also passed both chambers and is likely to be signed by the governor, though it has been significantly watered down since it was first introduced. It would still allow landowners to determine on their own whether to remove any wolves they deem a “potential” threat to livestock, pets or people. Still, it could have been much, much worse.
• (GOOD NEWS) Idaho House Bill 336 failed in the Senate after proponents got crosswise with the state Department of Fish and Game. The bill would have taken money away from the department for conservation programs and handed it over to ranchers for livestock compensation or to kill more wolves.
• (BAD NEWS) Oregon House Bill 3452, sponsored by the Oregon Cattleman’s Association, would expand the state’s authority to kill wolves that are deemed a threat to livestock. The legislation would not require ranchers to take any proactive steps to prevent or minimize their losses using nonlethal deterrents and would grant USDA’s Wildlife Service the authority to kill wolves without consulting state biologists.

Montana’s Wolf Advisory Council will meet for the first time in five years next Friday.

Montana wolf advisory council to reconvene – Gov. Steve Bullock is reconvening a long-dormant stakeholder group, of which Defenders was an original member, to evaluate the effectiveness of wolf management in Montana. The Wolf Advisory Council hasn’t met in five years but used to play a vital role in moderating ongoing debate over wolf management and finding common ground among diverse interests, including wildlife advocates, ranchers and state biologists. Hopefully the council will reaffirm and perhaps strengthen the Montana wolf plan, which is the most moderate in the northern Rockies but is constantly under attack in the state legislature. Their first meeting will be next Friday, April 12 starting at 8:30 a.m. at Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks headquarters in Helena and we will be monitoring the meeting. Live video streams will be available at FWP regional offices, and an audio stream will be available online. Public comment will begin at 2 p.m. Click here for more details.

Politicians crying wolf – Anti-wolfers in Congress served up some dubious assertions this week in a letter sent to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe, asking him to strip federal protection for gray wolves nationwide. For example, the letter claims that state governments are “…fully qualified to responsibly manage wolf populations…” If that were true, how do they explain killing more than 1,100 wolves within two years of delisting in the Northern Rockies, where populations in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are all steadily declining? Or how do they explain Wyoming allowing wolves to be treated like unwanted varmints across 85 percent of the state? And how do they explain the fact that Utah’s state policy is to prevent any wolves from ever returning at all? If that’s responsible management in the eyes of wolf opponents, I’d hate to see what irresponsible management would look like.

Here’s another whopper from the letter: “Unmanaged wolves are devastating livestock and indigenous wildlife.” Maybe if you define devastation as losing less than one percent of livestock annually. But if that’s the case, then livestock are devastated way more by bad weather, disease, theft, and other predators than by wolves. (See USDA’s most recent 5-year cattle death loss report.) It’s also clear from scientific research that wolves are helping to restore balance to ecosystems that were sorely lacking a top predator and being heavily overbrowsed by abundant and sedentary elk and deer on the landscape.

But the anti-wolf contingent in Congress and across the country has never cared about facts or science, only politics and fear. Unfortunately, our nation’s endangered species don’t have checkbooks, nor do they get to vote. So it’s up to the rest of us to hold our elected leaders accountable for their half-truths and misinformation. If your congressmen signed the letter in support of delisting, be sure to contact them and ask them to stop perpetuating myths about wolves. For more information, see this press release from the House Natural Resources Committee and coverage in the Deseret News.

Add another anti-wolf bill to the pile — Turns out we were overly optimistic about the Idaho legislature heading home last week. Apparently a few state legislators were happy to stick around so they could introduce a new bill that funnels money from the sale of wolf hunting tags to ranchers that lose livestock to wolves. If House Bill 336 becomes law, that money would go either be given to Wildlife Services to kill more wolves or be turned over to the Idaho Dept. of Agriculture. Even the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is opposing the bill so they don’t lose even more money for their conservation programs. Revenue from hunting tags is supposed to be invested back into wildlife management that benefits all residents, not handed over to individual ranchers for unconfirmed livestock losses. Further, the diversion will likely cost the state federal matching funds that support conservation. If the state is going to divert money anywhere it should be invested in nonlethal tools that will help ranchers coexist with wolves over the long run. Tell Idaho’s legislators to oppose this bill and support nonlethal management practices that promote coexistence.

Meanwhile, Senate Bill 397 is still moving forward in Montana. The bill would expand hunting and trapping of predators, including snaring of wolves, in areas where elk populations are deemed below objective. The traps and predator baits and hound hunting authorized in this bill also threaten grizzly bears, wolverines, and lynx. Our Rocky Mountain Director Mike Leahy testified against the bill this week at a committee hearing as did many hunting conservation groups, but it still passed 6-4 on a party-line vote. There’s still hope that it will be defeated, if not in the state Senate then in the Montana House of Representatives.

A long history – There are few people who know wolves as well as biologist Dave Mech. He wrote the seminal book on wolf biology and behavior in 1970, and was one of the early proponents of restoring wolves to the West. In a commentary on The Wildlife Society News he lays out nearly four decades of wolf conservation efforts, which gave rise to today’s ongoing wolf wars. We don’t agree with everything he has to say – for example, the number of wolves in Canada really has no bearing on how many wolves should be restored to the lower 48 – if that were true, other species like the bald eagle and grizzly bear would never have been recovered in the U.S. But his commentary is a tour de force that should give us all much to think about as we plan for the next four decades of wolf recovery.

Wolf numbers down in Idaho and  Montana – Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks announced yesterday that the state’s wolf population declined about 4 percent since last year’s count. A minimum of 625 wolves were tallied at the end of 2012 compared to 653 in 2011. The drop resulted from expanded hunting and the addition of trapping, and the state has already taken measures to increase wolf-killing efforts again next year. In Idaho, the population has declined twice as much. Idaho Fish & Game announced this week that they counted at least 680 wolves on the landscape at the end of 2012, down from 746 at the end of 2011. While these numbers aren’t as low as we had feared, given that more than 1,000 wolves have been killed in the last two years by hunters and trappers, it’s still troubling to see these states continuing to try to drive the population down.

Elk hunting trumps wolf recovery in Idaho – For years, anti-wolf extremists have been complaining that wolves are “decimating” elk herds. Yet recent actions by the Idaho Fish and Game Commission suggest otherwise. At their meeting in Boise this week, the commission approved new regulations to sell 2,300 more elk tags for next year (see details here). If elk are doing so well that hunters are being allowed to kill more of them, then shouldn’t wolves get a break? But, of course, that’s the point. The state has always been more concerned about maximizing elk hunting revenue than maintaining a sustainable wolf population. Wildlife managers are trying to micromanage both predator and prey populations instead of letting nature take its course. By suppressing predator populations, the entire ecosystem ultimately suffers.

Elk are doing very well in Idaho. So why not leave wolves alone?

The commission also decided to expand wolf hunting and trapping seasons across many parts of the state, but at least they seemed to be listening more closely to the concerns of wolf advocates. Wolf advocates outnumbered the anti-wolfers three to one at the meeting and gave insightful comments about ways to improve state wolf management. Our local representative Suzanne Stone spoke to the commission about the success of Defenders’ Wood River Wolf Project. The project area is the only place in Idaho with a heavy concentration of both sheep and wolves with almost no losses of either one. (See map of confirmed livestock losses. The Wood River Wolf Project is in the “Southern Mountains” zone.)

“If you truly want to reduce livestock losses, it’s more effective to take advantage of nonlethal deterrents like the fencing, lights, carcass removal, and other methods than rely on haphazardly killing wolves and breaking apart packs.” — Suzanne Stone

A few local vets expressed outrage at dogs being caught and injured or killed in traps and snares designed to capture wolves. Other wolf supporters talked about their concern over the declining wolf numbers complaining that wolves were being again persecuted and not responsibly managed.   Another resident spoke of her own personal sense of loss when the pack she enjoyed seeing and hearing near her cabin was wiped out by hunters.

Thanks to all of you for speaking up for wolves!

No wolves, big bucks – There was no stopping the Utah legislature from approving a sweet $300,000 handout to lobbyists with anti-predator groups Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and Big Game Forever, but we haven’t given up yet. We’re asking Utah Gov. Gary Herbert to veto this wasteful gift to special interests politics to fight imaginary wolves.

Read the latest editorial from the Salt Lake Tribune explaining what’s really behind the deal. Hint: it’s green and features some of America’s most celebrated dead white guys. A few snippets:

Consider a 2010 Utah Wildlife Board meeting when SFW president Byron Bateman presented then-DWR director Jim Karpowitz with a check for $391,000 moments before the Wildlife Board passed a controversial proposal largely crafted and promoted by SFW to reduce the number of deer-hunting permits by at least 13,000.

…

SFW and its officers also donate money freely to dozens of politicians.

One of the recipients was State Sen. Ralph Okerlund, R-Monroe, who received $6,500 in campaign contributions from Peay and Ryan Benson, co-founder of Big Game Forever. Okerlund, the Senate majority leader, recommended spending $300,000 this year on Big Game Forever’s anti-wolf lobbying campaign.

…

While SFW and its many subsidiaries might do some good for wildlife, those who donate thinking they are helping big game should realize that many of these groups’ officers have a heavy financial stake in the operation. And the continued commercialization of the public’s wildlife should cause concern that herds are being managed not on the basis of sound biology but in ways to produce more cash.

– Tom Wharton, Salt Lake Tribune, March 18, 2013

Bad wolf bills still lurking – While Idaho’s legislature should be going home today (thankfully), several anti-wolf bills are making the rounds in Washington and Montana.

Some state legislators just don’t like wolves.

In Washington, Senate Bill 5187  would eliminate vital protections for wolves while they are still endangered by allowing anyone to kill them without a permit based on perceived threats to livestock or any domestic animal, “across all lands, public and private.” Not only would ranchers make that determination on their own with absolutely no accountability, but they also wouldn’t be required to take any nonlethal steps to reduce conflict or protect their livestock. If this bill passes we can expect more dead wolves in eastern Washington, where some ranchers have been all too eager to have wolves killed.

By supporting this bill, the state is undermining its own wolf conservation plan, which represents years of stakeholder negotiations and public input from more than 65,000 residents.  Wolves have killed fewer than 10 head of livestock in the whole state in the last year.  We can’t let propaganda override good science and a good faith compromise made by the stakeholders who helped develop this balanced and comprehensive plan. Washington residents, don’t miss this call to action! Please click here to submit a comment opposing the bill.

In Montana, Senate Bill 200 would allow wolves to be killed if they are deemed a “potential” threat to human safety, livestock or dogs. The use of the word “potential” leaves assessment of conflict scenarios open to broad interpretation. Inevitably, this will allow for the unnecessary killing of wolves in situations where wolves are not actually posing a threat. Senate Bill 397 would allow provisional hunting and trapping of predators in elk hunting zones where elk populations are under objective. The law would expand hunting and trapping of wolves, black bears and mountain lions until elk numbers improve for two consecutive years. This includes allowing the use of neck snares to kill wolves, and the use of baiting and hound hunting to kill bears. Simply killing off more predators ignores the influence of weather patterns, hunting pressure, fire suppression, and development. All of these factors have a huge impact on habitat quality and availability and, thus, the number of elk the land can support. The proposal reflects both an anti-predator bias and a serious misunderstanding of wildlife management and ecosystem health.

Non-existent wolves more important than schools – In Utah, a little fear-mongering goes a long way. Despite a sharply worded editorial from the Salt Lake Tribune and a hilarious cartoon, legislators are moving forward with plans to hand over another $300,000 in taxpayer money to the leaders of the rabidly anti-predator group Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife for anti-wolf lobbying. Keep in mind that Utah currently has no known resident gray wolves. And even though the Grand Canyon eco-region has been recognized by numerous scientific studies as great habitat for Mexican wolves, there is not yet any plan to reestablish wolves in northern Arizona or southern Utah.  Meanwhile, funding for schools and other social programs is drying up faster than the Colorado River (see this comparison from Alliance for a Better Utah). The state gave Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and Big Game Forever $300,000 last year for their anti-wolf crusades, with no strings attached and no accountability for how the money was spent.  Nobody seems to know what these groups are doing with all this taxpayer money, but here is what Don Peay, the founder of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, has proposed doing to wolves:

“I know what the sportsmen of Utah would do [about wolves]! Worse case, we would go to the PETA pound and save 1,000 dogs about to be killed by PETA and HSUS and stake them out in wolf areas – well fed and cared for of course – but when the wolves killed these dogs, get the wolves killed. Or we would go and buy a bunch of ba ba sheep, stake them out in five acre pens and when wolves killed them, get the wolves killed.” — Don Peay, Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife

Unbelievably, the state is about to give these guys another $300,000.  Read the latest here. Our last hope is to convince Utah Gov. Gary Herbert to strike the expenditure with a line-item veto.

Finding the middle way – When dealing with the western wolf wars, it’s all too easy to pick a side (pro-wolf or anti-wolf) and ignore the rest. So it’s always refreshing when someone takes an outside perspective that sheds light on the vast gray area in between. A new wolf documentary from LinkTV’s Earth Focus does exactly that by telling the stories of the ranchers, tour guides, taxidermists and conservationists trying to chart a new path of coexistence between wolves and people. Defenders Rockies and Plains Director Mike Leahy offers some thoughts on how federal protections were unceremoniously removed from wolves without adequate state protections in place. Other long-time collaborators share their insights as well, including Carter Niemeyer, former wolf trapper and Idaho wolf recovery coordinator, Nathan Varley, Yellowstone wolf-tour operator, and representatives of People and Carnivores and the Blackfoot Challenge. Watch the full episode below:

And don’t miss UK journalist Jim Wickens’ blog series for a behind-the-scenes look at the people who bring this story to life.

New faces on Montana wildlife commission – Montana’s new governor, Steve Bullock, has appointed three new commissioners to oversee state wildlife management: Billings attorney Matthew Tourtlette, Chinook rancher Richard Stuker, and Wolf Point college director Lawrence Wetsit. We congratulate all three and look forward to working with them as well as returning commissioners Dan Vermillion and Bob Ream. Gov. Bullock has called on the commission to reinstate the wolf advisory council, which will hopefully steer the state away from ever-more aggressive wolf management practices.

The male wolf known as OR7 has been California’s lone ranger over the last year.

OR7 headed back home – After spending more than a year in the Golden State, the lone male wolf known as OR-7 appears to be headed home…at least for a little while. State wildlife managers say he crossed from northeastern Siskiyou County in California to southwest Klamath County in Oregon Tuesday evening. Who knows where he’s headed next… You can keep track with updates from Oregon and California.

Pacific Northwest update – Washington State senators debated two wolf bills during their March 8, 2013 session. Senate Bill 5188 takes wolf-management authority away from the state wildlife agency and turns it over to local law enforcement. Senate Bill 5187 would allow property owners and their designees too much discretion to kill wolves that they speculate may be threatening their livestock.  SB 5187 passed out last Friday with a vote of 25-23.  This is the strongest no vote made in recent years on a bad wildlife bill in the Senate.  Watch a televised hearing of the senate debate, including wolf champion Senator Kevin Ranker and other conservation minded leaders like Senator Christine Rolfes, beginning at the 13-minute mark. on the televised hearing: We are working with state legislators to defeat the anti-wolf bills in the House of Representatives.

Over in Oregon, Defenders is working with tribal biologists, ranchers and county extension agents at the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla reservation in Pendleton.  The tribe recently included a top news story on meeting with tribal officials last month.

Carl Scheeler, manager of the CTUIR Wildlife Pro­gram, said Defenders of Wildlife have been the Tribes’ strongest and most durable partner in the conservation community when it comes to wolf recovery.

“We’ve been working with Defenders since before B45 came into the state in 1999,” said Scheeler, referring to the first wolf that swam the Snake River from Idaho into Oregon. — Confederated Umatilla Journal

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.

Defenders has helped Oregon ranchers in the Wallowa Valley install fladry to deter wolves.

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.

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.