Wolf poachers get more than slap on wrist

A federal judge in Spokane on Wednesday strengthened the penalty against three members of a Twisp family who pleaded guilty to killing wolves from the first wolf pack spotted in Washington since the 1930s.

Senior U.S. District Judge Frem Nielsen confirmed $73,000 fines against William, Tom and Erin White. But he sentenced William White to six months’ home confinement and Tom White to three months.

Wolves have moved south from protected lands on the U.S.-Canada border to repopulate the Washington Cascades. e Teanaway wolf pack in the Cascade Mountains. (Photo courtesy of Conservation Northwest). 

Under a much-criticized plea bargain agreed to by federal prosecutors, the three poachers were to get off with probation.

The poachers’ crimes came to light when a woman, believed to be Erin White and giving a false name, tried to ship a blood-dripping parcel containing a wolf pelt to Canada from the Federal Express office in Okanogan.  She claimed it was a rug.

The two wolves killed were part of the Lookout Pack, first identified in 2008.  The pack was reduced to two (possibly three) animals and has not produced pups since the killing.  A pack in the Teanaway River, north of Cle Elum, is now the only breeding pack in the Cascades.

“These were very serious crimes which have gravely impacted Washington’s first returning and most important wolf pack:  The law enforcement community did a great service bringing these crimes to light and these crimes to justice,” said Mitch Friedman of Conservation Northwest, which has championed wolf recovery.

William White pleaded guilty to several charges, with evidence that he is a serial poacher.  He pleaded to conspiring to kill a wolf and export it, and to unlawfully importing a moose and deer poached in Alberta.

Tom White, his son, pleaded guilty to unlawfully killing two wolves.

Wolves are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, as well as by state law.  The Whites still face state charges for other alleged illegal hunting activities.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Eastern Washington came under criticism for making a plea deal that included no jail time.  The sentences included three years of probation, a $38,500 fine against William White, a $30,000 fine against Tom White, and a $5,000 fine for Erin White, Tom White’s wife.  It included confiscation of the gun used to kill the Lookout Pack wolves.

Wolves have lately made a comeback in several corners of Washington.  “The Northeast is kicking butt, and the Teanaway is doing O.K.,” Friedman said Wednesday.

Three wolf packs — the Salmo, Diamond and Huckleberry — have been confirmed in the Colville National Forest of Northeast Washington, in a region known as the state’s wild “zoo” because it is home to rare woodland caribou and moose.

A pack known as the Wedge lives in Stevens County.  The Touchet pack is found south of Walla Walla in the Blue Mountains. There are also apparently packs on the Colville Indian Reservation.
The current Congress removed Endangered Species Act protection from wolves in Montana and Idaho, much to the delight of Idaho’s wolf-hating Gov. Butch Otter.

As a result, wolves in Washington are in a curious legal state.  The packs west of U.S. 97, which runs north-south through Okanogan County, still enjoy protection under the Endangered Species Act.  The wolves east of U.S. 97 do not enjoy ESA standing, but enjoy federal protection as long as the species is still in recovery.

The Lookout Pack, apparently coming south from British Columbia, found a suitable home in the upper Methow Valley of Okanogan County.

The valley is home to the state’s largest mule deer herd.  Its high country is protected in the Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness Area and the North Cascades National Park complex is nearby.

Wildlife researchers have also photographed wolverines at nearby, 6,100-foot Harts Pass.  Wolverines have long been absent from Washington, aside from occasional encounters with the Huskies in the Rose Bowl.

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