Minnesota attorney David Gross discussed the wolf controversy with Examiner via e-mail recently.
Washington State’s wolf debate has taken on a new dimension with the announcement by the Department of Fish and Wildlife that a rancher in Stevens County has received a permit to kill a wolf if the animal is caught attacking livestock.
This happened Friday and it was apparently lost in the weekend news rush, along with a related development in Montana about that state's season on wolves, which will now allow trapping.
The unidentified Washington rancher lost livestock apparently to a cougar and wolves, according to a WDFW press release. The killings happened on the Diamond M Ranch a few days ago. The ranch is located near the tiny community of Laurier, east of the Kettle River and not far from the Canadian border, in an area called “The Wedge” which lies between the Kettle and upper Columbia rivers north of Kettle Falls.
The announcement comes just days after the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission voted to allow trapping during the 2012-2013 season, which opens for archery hunters on Sept. 1, and for back country rifle hunters on Sept. 15. The general rifle hunting season opens Oct. 15 and trapping will begin on Dec. 15. The season runs through Feb. 28. Wolf protectionists fought de-listing of the animals for several years, and with this new announcement, there is no doubt that they will be infuriated.
Montana also increased the bag limit to three wolves.
Wolf repopulation of the Evergreen State has been a hot topic since the WDFW adopted a controversial wolf management plan in December. This is the third incident since the plan was adopted, the WDFW said in a press release. Another incident also occurred in "The Wedge" area, the agency said. The Seattle-based Northwest Sportsman magazine has a report on the situation in Stevens County, noting that two calves were also injured and another one is missing from the ranch.
Why should this spark new controversy? Past experience says so. Wolf predation and management in Idaho and Montana led to lawsuits by wolf protectionists to prevent their de-listing under the federal Endangered Species Act. Wolf advocacy is a hot topic on the Northwest Hikers forum.
The controversy has created polar opposites, with western wildlife managers caught in the middle.
But give it to an outsider – a “flatlander” in Minnesota – to put things in perspective. This column discussed him the other day. Attorney David Gross recently criticized a leading wolf advocate, noting that “farmers who were victimized by stock predation had to apply for compensation to an extremely skeptical bureaucracy, which essentially refused to pay or made it more work than it was worth.”
At least here in Washington, WDFW Director Phil Anderson acted swiftly once kills on the Stevens County ranch were confirmed to have involved wolves. If the rancher actually kills a wolf, he will be subjected to an enormous amount of scrutiny.
Meanwhile, in its press release announcing the wolf predation and kill permit, the WDFW had this to say:
WDFW staff are monitoring the area and are prepared to use rubber bullets, floodlights and other strategies to keep wolves away from the rancher’s livestock. A department biologist is also setting up traps to capture and radio-collar a wolf. Radio collars can be used not only to track an animal’s movements, but also trigger alarms near livestock.On the Hunting-Washington and HuntFishNW forums, sportsmen are discussing the incident. It does not appear to have yet landed on the radar of hiking forum members. This column will certainly change that.
Hunters are especially attentive to the wolf situation. There are now several known wolf packs in the state, and the management plan calls for 15 breeding pairs, which translates to a lot of wolves. This alarms Washington’s big game hunters, who are fearful of heavy predation on the state’s elk and deer populations.
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