Wolf D. Fuhrig
13 hours ago
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The Idaho legislature recently passed a bill to create a “Wolf Depredation Control Board.” It is to administer a fund for killing some 500 wolves at a cost of some $400,000 in state funds. That would leave no more than 150 wolves, or 10 packs, in all of the large territory of Idaho.
Amaroq Weiss of the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group with more than 675,000 members, bemoaned the plan: “Political leaders in Idaho would love nothing more than to eradicate Idaho’s wolves and return to a century-old mindset where big predators are viewed as evil and expendable. The new state wolf board, sadly, reflects that attitude.”
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 protected the gray wolves in the Rocky Mountains, but three years ago Congress lifted that part of the law. Since then, reports spoke of 1,592 wolves killed in Idaho and Montana. Idaho’s Department of Fish and Game, for example, sent a hunter-trapper into the “Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness” to get rid of two wolf packs. “Yet again, Idaho has put a black eye on decades of tireless work to return wolves to the American landscape,” said Weiss. “Reducing these wolf populations to below even the absolute bare minimum sets a dangerous precedent and ensures that true wolf recovery will be little more than a pipe dream in Idaho.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required to review the wolf population and if the Idaho law threatens its existence. The agency must then decide whether to reinstate the protections of the Endangered Species Act. In Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer recently vetoed a bill that would have allowed ranchers and their employees to kill endangered Mexican gray wolves.
Idaho Conservation Officer George Fischer observed that “Wolves are causing an impact, there is no doubt about it; I don’t want to downplay that at all, but two-legged wolves are probably killing more or stealing more game than wolves. That is the shock-and-awe message.”
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game recently released its “2013 Idaho Wolf Monitoring Progress Report.” It found 124 wolf packs in Idaho at the end of 2013, fewer than the 117 documented at the end of 2012. Mean pack size was 5.4 at the end of 2013, approximately 33 percent smaller than the average of 8.1 wolves per pack during the three years before hunting seasons were established in 2009.
Wolves are the largest members of the dog family. In their relations with humans, they have long been adversaries although they rarely attack humans. Known to attack domestic animals, wolves have therefore been shot, trapped, and poisoned to near extinction in the lower 48 states. While a few packs of gray wolves survived, others have been reintroduced, particularly in the northwestern United States.
According to the National Geographic magazine, there are between 7,000 and 11,200 wolves in Alaska and more than 5,000 in the lower 48 states. Around the world, the total number of the species is estimated to be roughly 200,000 in 57 countries, compared to some 2 million in earlier times.
Wolves live and hunt in packs of six to 10 animals. They tend to roam large distances hunting for their preferred prey, such as deer, elk, moose, and caribou. A single wolf can consume as much as 20 pounds of meat after a successful hunt. Wolf packs organize in a strict hierarchy, with a dominant male leading and his mate following closely behind him.
This couple tend to be the pack’s only breeding adults while the other adults help care for the young. Wildlife observers in Idaho counted 39 cattle, 404 sheep, four dogs, and one horse killed by wolves in a single year.
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