Wolf trapping plan generates huge public response
The public response to the plans for this year's wolf
hunt in Montana has been staggering: A whopping 6,500 comments have been
received on the proposal set for approval Thursday by the Fish,
Wildlife and Parks Commission.
That far outnumbers the 1,500 comments received on the 2011 wolf hunt plan and just about doubles the comments FWP took on last year's hotly debated proposal to relocate Yellowstone National Park bison, agency officials said.
Driving the renewed interest is a proposal to expand the hunt to include trapping for the first time, along with bow and rifle seasons.
"It's safe to say the real issue here is trapping. That's generated the single most response, on both sides," said FWP spokesman Ron Aasheim.
FWP commissioners gave an initial nod to trapping in May when wildlife officials told them that it is a necessary element to reduce the wolf population. Opponents decried the proposal as cruel and morally wrong, warning that other animals and pets would be caught in the traps.
Supporters of trapping and wolf opponents applauded the plan, with many saying it didn't go far enough because it prohibited snaring, which is a noose that captures an animal around the neck.
FWP has been under pressure by ranchers and hunters to do more to reduce the wolf population just a year after a congressional budget rider removed federal protections for the animal from Idaho and Montana. They complain that the rising wolf population threatens elk herds and livestock.
Last winter, hunters killed 166 wolves out of a 220-animal quota and the population rose at the end of 2011 by 15 percent to at least 653 wolves. That prompted wildlife officials to consider more ways to make the hunt more effective: trapping, the elimination of most quotas and expanding the length of the season.
Those proposals are up for final vote on Thursday.
Aasheim said some components of the plan have changed since the commission gave its tentative approval in May. The rewritten plan calls for trappers to buy a special trapping license, which would allow them to take three wolves instead of the one wolf that can be taken with a general wolf license.
Bow and rifle hunters would still only be allowed to kill one wolf.
Another change would require trappers to immediately release animals they did not target but which became captured in their traps, if those animals aren't injured. An injured animal would have to be immediately reported.
FWP also proposes relaxing the 24-hour reporting requirement for hunters in the backcountry. All hunters would be required to report a wolf kill within 24 hours but if the hunters are in the backcountry, that 24-hour period begins after they reach the trailhead.
Finally, the agency wants to open the general rifle season the day after the Oct. 14 end of the archery season, instead of taking a five-day break between seasons as originally proposed.
Those proposed changes will be discussed at Thursday's meeting, but Aasheim said the public comment period for other parts of the proposal, including trapping, is over.
In expanding the hunt, Montana regulators would replicate Idaho, where wildlife managers estimate the wolf population has dropped by at least 400 over the last year.
The Missoulian reports that hunters in Idaho shot 255 wolves and trapped 124 others this season. Biologists estimated Idaho had 746 wolves at the end of 2011.
source
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That far outnumbers the 1,500 comments received on the 2011 wolf hunt plan and just about doubles the comments FWP took on last year's hotly debated proposal to relocate Yellowstone National Park bison, agency officials said.
Driving the renewed interest is a proposal to expand the hunt to include trapping for the first time, along with bow and rifle seasons.
"It's safe to say the real issue here is trapping. That's generated the single most response, on both sides," said FWP spokesman Ron Aasheim.
FWP commissioners gave an initial nod to trapping in May when wildlife officials told them that it is a necessary element to reduce the wolf population. Opponents decried the proposal as cruel and morally wrong, warning that other animals and pets would be caught in the traps.
Supporters of trapping and wolf opponents applauded the plan, with many saying it didn't go far enough because it prohibited snaring, which is a noose that captures an animal around the neck.
FWP has been under pressure by ranchers and hunters to do more to reduce the wolf population just a year after a congressional budget rider removed federal protections for the animal from Idaho and Montana. They complain that the rising wolf population threatens elk herds and livestock.
Last winter, hunters killed 166 wolves out of a 220-animal quota and the population rose at the end of 2011 by 15 percent to at least 653 wolves. That prompted wildlife officials to consider more ways to make the hunt more effective: trapping, the elimination of most quotas and expanding the length of the season.
Those proposals are up for final vote on Thursday.
Aasheim said some components of the plan have changed since the commission gave its tentative approval in May. The rewritten plan calls for trappers to buy a special trapping license, which would allow them to take three wolves instead of the one wolf that can be taken with a general wolf license.
Bow and rifle hunters would still only be allowed to kill one wolf.
Another change would require trappers to immediately release animals they did not target but which became captured in their traps, if those animals aren't injured. An injured animal would have to be immediately reported.
FWP also proposes relaxing the 24-hour reporting requirement for hunters in the backcountry. All hunters would be required to report a wolf kill within 24 hours but if the hunters are in the backcountry, that 24-hour period begins after they reach the trailhead.
Finally, the agency wants to open the general rifle season the day after the Oct. 14 end of the archery season, instead of taking a five-day break between seasons as originally proposed.
Those proposed changes will be discussed at Thursday's meeting, but Aasheim said the public comment period for other parts of the proposal, including trapping, is over.
In expanding the hunt, Montana regulators would replicate Idaho, where wildlife managers estimate the wolf population has dropped by at least 400 over the last year.
The Missoulian reports that hunters in Idaho shot 255 wolves and trapped 124 others this season. Biologists estimated Idaho had 746 wolves at the end of 2011.
source
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Montana FWP sees uptick in lethal removals of wolves
A collared gray wolf from the Smart Creek pack southwest of Drummond roams the forest in the fall of 2009.
In June, 13 wolves from two packs roaming on ranches just
north of Helena were shot and killed for ongoing livestock depredation.
The wolves in the Granite Butte and Canyon Creek packs were more than one-fourth of the 45 wolves killed so far this year by agents with Wildlife Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The total removal of the seven-member Canyon Creek Pack, and the killing of six — about half — of the Granite Butte Pack, plus the collaring of one female came after the wolves killed livestock last year, then struck again in May.
“Granite Butte is still an existing pack west of Canyon Creek; they tend to go up and over the Continental Divide,” said Nathan Lance, a wolf specialist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “There are still some adults and pups in the pack.”
John Steuber, the Wildlife Services director in Montana, said the area north of Helena is one of about four places in Montana where wolves regularly get into trouble for harassing and/or killing livestock, mainly on private property.
“There’s places where we see chronic activity, like north of Helena and in the Big Hole, and we’re getting a little more activity in the Tom Miner Basin and Paradise Valley,” Steuber said. “One of the primary goals of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, like us, is to reduce livestock depredation where we know it’s occurring, and they follow certain protocols.”
Typically, FWP or Wildlife Services agents initially put radio collars on a pack member when depredation is suspected or confirmed to monitor the pack’s movement. If livestock depredation continues, FWP can ask Wildlife Services or the landowner to remove one or more pack members. If the livestock killing continues, entire packs can be taken out.
According to FWP reports, 771 wolves were killed between 1987 and 2011 for depredation reasons.
Despite two wolf hunting seasons, Montana’s canis lupus population has continued to climb after both natural and human reintroduction in the 1990s. In 2007, the minimum population was 422 known wolves in Montana, according to FWP. At the end of 2011, FWP said it had documented 653 wolves on the landscape.
With that increase, experts expected increased conflicts with livestock. FWP, which has responsibility for managing the formerly endangered species, authorizes Wildlife Services to lethally remove problem wolves.
“I think it’s safe to say that if we have more wolves, we’ll have more conflicts,” said FWP spokesman Ron Aasheim.
However, that wasn’t the case in 2011, when depredations dropped to 107 in 2011, down from about 140 reported incidents in 2009 and 2010. With that drop came a decrease in lethal removals, from 140 wolves in 2010 to 47 in 2011.
Steuber said he can only theorize about the reasons behind the decreases. It could have been the weather, with heavy snowfall making ungulates more susceptible and steering wolves away from livestock.
It could be that wolves are getting smarter and staying away from livestock. It could be that after two hunting seasons, wolves are shying away from humans. It could be that fewer ranchers are reporting losses or perhaps just quietly dealing with problem wolves themselves, using the informal “shoot, shovel and shut up” policy.
Yet that trend doesn’t seem as though it will continue this year. While Wildlife Services only removed 47 wolves in all of 2011, so far this year they’ve taken out 45 — putting them back on track with earlier years.
“This is the busy season,” Steuber said. “Livestock are in their summer range, farther away from ranches and homes so typically we see quite a bit more depredation. The wolves are denning with more mouths to feed.”
Both FWP and Wildlife Services say the uptick in the number of lethal removals this year from 2011 isn’t due to less tolerance for livestock depredations. Instead, they believe that 2011 was the anomaly, and 2012 is just resuming previous patterns.
“Last year, we took fewer than normal, but nobody really knows why,” Steuber said. “Wolf activity really picked up again in April this year. It’s been a busy season.”
source
The wolves in the Granite Butte and Canyon Creek packs were more than one-fourth of the 45 wolves killed so far this year by agents with Wildlife Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The total removal of the seven-member Canyon Creek Pack, and the killing of six — about half — of the Granite Butte Pack, plus the collaring of one female came after the wolves killed livestock last year, then struck again in May.
“Granite Butte is still an existing pack west of Canyon Creek; they tend to go up and over the Continental Divide,” said Nathan Lance, a wolf specialist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “There are still some adults and pups in the pack.”
John Steuber, the Wildlife Services director in Montana, said the area north of Helena is one of about four places in Montana where wolves regularly get into trouble for harassing and/or killing livestock, mainly on private property.
“There’s places where we see chronic activity, like north of Helena and in the Big Hole, and we’re getting a little more activity in the Tom Miner Basin and Paradise Valley,” Steuber said. “One of the primary goals of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, like us, is to reduce livestock depredation where we know it’s occurring, and they follow certain protocols.”
Typically, FWP or Wildlife Services agents initially put radio collars on a pack member when depredation is suspected or confirmed to monitor the pack’s movement. If livestock depredation continues, FWP can ask Wildlife Services or the landowner to remove one or more pack members. If the livestock killing continues, entire packs can be taken out.
According to FWP reports, 771 wolves were killed between 1987 and 2011 for depredation reasons.
Despite two wolf hunting seasons, Montana’s canis lupus population has continued to climb after both natural and human reintroduction in the 1990s. In 2007, the minimum population was 422 known wolves in Montana, according to FWP. At the end of 2011, FWP said it had documented 653 wolves on the landscape.
With that increase, experts expected increased conflicts with livestock. FWP, which has responsibility for managing the formerly endangered species, authorizes Wildlife Services to lethally remove problem wolves.
“I think it’s safe to say that if we have more wolves, we’ll have more conflicts,” said FWP spokesman Ron Aasheim.
However, that wasn’t the case in 2011, when depredations dropped to 107 in 2011, down from about 140 reported incidents in 2009 and 2010. With that drop came a decrease in lethal removals, from 140 wolves in 2010 to 47 in 2011.
Steuber said he can only theorize about the reasons behind the decreases. It could have been the weather, with heavy snowfall making ungulates more susceptible and steering wolves away from livestock.
It could be that wolves are getting smarter and staying away from livestock. It could be that after two hunting seasons, wolves are shying away from humans. It could be that fewer ranchers are reporting losses or perhaps just quietly dealing with problem wolves themselves, using the informal “shoot, shovel and shut up” policy.
Yet that trend doesn’t seem as though it will continue this year. While Wildlife Services only removed 47 wolves in all of 2011, so far this year they’ve taken out 45 — putting them back on track with earlier years.
“This is the busy season,” Steuber said. “Livestock are in their summer range, farther away from ranches and homes so typically we see quite a bit more depredation. The wolves are denning with more mouths to feed.”
Both FWP and Wildlife Services say the uptick in the number of lethal removals this year from 2011 isn’t due to less tolerance for livestock depredations. Instead, they believe that 2011 was the anomaly, and 2012 is just resuming previous patterns.
“Last year, we took fewer than normal, but nobody really knows why,” Steuber said. “Wolf activity really picked up again in April this year. It’s been a busy season.”
source
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