Courtesy of ODFW The Imnaha wolf pack’s alpha male after being refitted with a working GPS collar on May 19, 2011. It’s one of four wolves from the pack targeted to be killed by wildlife officials because of livestock depredation.
Wolves killed a lamb and probably killed a calf in separate attacks in late May, Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife reported.
On the evening of May 20, a herder working on private land along the South Fork of the Walla Walla River near the Umatilla-Wallowa county line noticed a disturbance in the flock and saw four wolves, one with a dead lamb in its mouth. ODFW personnel investigated the next day and confirmed the kill was done by wolves. Investigators found a “drag trail” of bone, blood and wool, but the rest of the lamb apparently had been consumed overnight. Tracking collar data showed that OR-40, of the Walla Walla Pack, was near the sheep bedding ground at 3 a.m. on May 21.
On May 23, a landowner checking cattle on private land in the Mud Creek area of Wallowa County found the remains of a dead calf. There was no clear evidence the 150-pound calf had been attacked by wolves, but marks on the rib, back and leg bones found scattered about the site indicated a predator with large teeth was responsible, according to an ODFW report.
In addition, the calf was consumed in one night, also hallmark of a wolf attack. Nonetheless, ODFW designated the incident a “probable” wolf attack rather than “confirmed.”
Tracking collar GPS coordinates showed two members of the Shamrock Pack, OR-23 and OR-41, were in the area at different times on May 22 and May 23.
A camera trap has captured the moment a
young wolf cub born at Camperdown Wildlife Centre appeared to the public
for the first time.
The zoo in Dundee unexpectedly witnessed the arrival of two rare
European grey wolf cubs after their parents successfully mated just two months after arriving at the zoo.
The footage shows the young cub popping out of the den at the bottom
left of the clip while it’s mother walks past. A child witnesses the
scene unfolding and shouts “Aww, there’s little babies round here.”
The adult wolves were known to have already settled in well in their
new surroundings although even staff have been surprised that they have
successfully begun breeding so quickly.
It was hoped they would contribute to the European breeding programme
although the earliest this was expected to be was next year. The new
additions are expected to be very popular with locals and tourists
alike.
Bradly Yule, Network Manager at Camperdown Wildlife Centre said: “We
are very excited to see our European wolves with cubs, this is an
important event in the role of our zoo and these pups will enhance the
population.
“They will also serve as ambassadors to help reduce the pressure on
wild environments where these wolves come from. The first time parents
have taken to parenthood extremely well and have adopted comfortable
roles in upbringing their cubs.
“Our male, Loki, has been feeding and sharing food with female, Aurora, who has been carefully rearing her young.”
The red wolf is the only wolf species found only within the United States.Credit
Mark Newman/Getty Images
Conservation groups submitted an emergency petition last week requesting that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service increase protection for the only wild population of red wolves left in the world.
Red wolves,
which are bigger than coyotes, but smaller than gray wolves, are the
only wolf species found completely within the United States. Trapping,
shooting, poisoning and destruction of habitat in the 1960s, however,
eliminated all but 17 of them from their native range, which was
primarily in the Southeast. In By 1980, red wolves were declared extinct
in the wild, and the last animals were gathered and bred, then
reintroduced in North Carolina in 1987. They were the first
federally-listed species to be returned to their native habitat, and
have served as models for other programs.
Recently the population has declined by more than 50 percent in just two years. There are only 45 to 60 red wolves now living in the wild, and they are threatened, mostly by hunters mistaking them for coyotes
and shooting them, said Tara Zuardo, a wildlife lawyer at the Animal
Welfare Institute. The wildlife service recently announced a review of the Red Wolf Recovery Program. It was prompted in part by pressure from North Carolina’s Wildlife Resources Commission,
a state-run conservation agency funded in part by the sale of hunting
and fishing licenses, which has called the program a failure and claimed
that wolves have damaged private land. Some changes to the program were
taken against the advice of some of the biologists of the federal red wolf program.
Red wolf pups taking a nap in May 2008.Credit
Ryan Nordsven/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The petition calls for the Fish and Wildlife Service, which has decreased its North Carolina staff and stopped reintroducing
pups into the wild, to establish two additional populations of red
wolves in swampy areas in Alabama, Kentucky and other southern states.
It also seeks an upgrading of the status of red wolves, which are
endangered, from “nonessential” to “essential.” The change in status
would grant reserved habitat to the species and require consultations
with biologists over how changes to land use would affect the wolves.
The petition aims to close loopholes in the Endangered Species Act: The
conservation groups also say provisions for “nonessential” species make
it easy to shoot red wolves without punishment.
Mating
pairs of red wolves establish territory that prevents coyotes from
making it their own, and unlike gray wolves in the west, the timid red
ones do not threaten livestock. Red wolves eat mostly small prey like
rabbits and nutria, invasive beaver-like rodents that have been destroying crops in North Carolina. But some private landowners are concerned
that establishing a critical habitat for red wolves will allow the
federal government to control use of their land, which they lease for
hunting deer and wild turkey, Ms. Zuardo said.
Even if the Fish and Wildlife Service were to end its project in North Carolina, it plans to continue working to establish self-sustaining wild populations elsewhere in their native range.
The head of a wolf was left dangling at a roadside in Asturias. Photo: Guardia Civil
Published: 31 May 2016
A wolf’s
head was left dangling from a roadsign in Salas, northern Spain on
Monday morning, the latest in a spate of macabre crimes against the
protected species.
The Iberian wolf, Canis lupus signatus, was hunted to the point
of near extinction by the 1960s but thanks to conservation efforts has
made a comeback over recent decades.
More than 2,000 animals form at least 250 distinct packs now roam the
Spanish countryside and have even reached as far south as the Sierra
Norte, a mountain range within 100km of Madrid.
But farmers are not always happy about the conservation efforts, which
have led to a huge rise in attacks on livestock. Between 2011 and 2015,
farmers made a total of 14,500 separate applications for compensation
for livestock killed by wolves in Asturias alone.
Although they are a protected species in certain parts of northern
Spain they can be hunted with the correct licence. For 2016, local
authorities in Asturias have given permission to cull 45 wolves in the
region.
However, Spain’s Civil Guard are concerned at a spate of recent
killings of wolves, whose heads have been decapitated and left on
display around Asturias. They have appealed to the public for
information that could lead to the wildlife killers.
The Association of forest rangers of Asturias (Avispa) believes that
the wolf decapitations are "revenge attacks" designed to challenge the
authorities stance on wolf management, a spokesman told the La Voz de
Asturias.
Some furry new arrivals have made their way into Belvidere.
Grey
wolves there gave birth to a litter of wolf pups. The baby wolves, just
2 weeks old, can be viewed during their animal encounter presentations.
Summerfield offers up-close experiences with many other animals like goats, lemurs, porcupines and hyenas.
"Next
weekend we start doing pictures with the babies," said Rick Anderson,
owner of Summerfield Zoo. "So a person can hold a wolf and get their
picture taken... and we educate them all about wolves and their role in
the wild."
Summerfield Zoo is open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Entry for adults is $9, $7 for seniors and children are just $5.
Wolves are one of North America’s
most fascinating indigenous species but they also pose a major threat to
cattle populations. While poaching wolves is illegal, culling of wolves
by government officials and trophy hunting have historically been used
to keep wolf populations in check. However, Guillaume Chapron of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Adrian Treves
of the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently conducted a study on
wolf populations in Wisconsin and Michigan and found that state laws
that opened up legal culling actually slowed population growth–a notable
problem for America’s wolf population.
The logic for legal culling is simple: it was assumed that these outlets for hunting would limit illegal poaching
and would encourage Americans to coexist with the wolf population. The
wolf population would continue to grow without hovering to the point of
extinction, as locals will not feel the need to illegally hunt the
animals. Including legal culling is a cornerstone of “carnivore management,” which
deals with carnivorous populations in the wild that can pose a threat
to human life but can also coexist with humans when handled correctly.
Wolves are not the only predators that conservationists have difficulty handling–African lions, grizzly bears and other large carnivores present a massive challenge. Consider that a set of brown bears released into the wild
in Italy last year had to be hunted down after they attacked several
humans. Whereas conservationists can hope to release animals like pandas
and elephants back into the wild, large carnivores that are held for
some time may never be able to return to the wild because they are so
dependent on a stable ecosystem that consistently supplies them with
their daily meat intake.
Wolves historically could have eaten bison but
now the bison is a protected animal, a population which the United
States has a vested interest in preserving. When
one species in the food chain becomes off limit, it is difficult to
deal with its predators. Farmers across the nation are eager to receive
the “right to kill” wolves who threaten their cattle but a survey conducted by Washington State University found that killing wolves who attack livestock can actually backfire. Researchers hypothesized that:
Killing an adult wolf can disrupt the entire
(complicated) social system of the grey wolf pack…killing adult wolves
may end up locking their offspring to the place where they were killed:
without parents to keep them sexually distinct and roaming, the way they
normally would, pups may settle down prematurely, having their own pups
earlier than normal, and sticking to the place where they became
independent — the place where their parents were killed.
These pups then go on to eat local
livestock, just as their parents did, rather than roaming to different
areas where they might be able to feast on rabbits and other small
mammals that have no financial value for ranchers. Wolves are imperfect
creatures, that simultaneously threaten human livelihood (ranching)
while also desperately dependent on humans for their survival
(conservation), but they are part of the American landscape and we are
responsible for their future. Containing a large carnivorous species is
not an easy task, but with new evidence suggesting that legal culling
and “right to kill” laws are not having the desired effect,
conservationists and government officials may need to rethink how best
to preserve the wolf population.
Jillian Sequeira is a member
of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in
Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing
graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and
all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com
Katmai National Park is one of
the most pristine wildlife preserves in North America. Located along
Alaska's Pacific coast, it's home to over 1,000 different species – and amidst all that biodiversity, you'll sometimes find unusual relationships between predator and prey.
Image: National Park Service/used with permission
For ranger Kaitlyn Kunce, one such discovery came during a recent marine debris survey in
the park, when she and her co-workers stumbled across a grey wolf
carrying its catch – and the meal choice was one they'd never
encountered before. Clutched between the wolf's jaws was a young sea
otter pup.
"The wolf travelled along the beach carrying the otter far from the
water line. It passed by us, took one glance back, then continued on," recalls Kunce.
"A predator of the land with a predator of the sea. Little is known
about the relationship between wolves and otters, but we saw a small
glimpse of it."
We've long recognised that the wolf population of the Pacific Northwest region
has a unique relationship with the ocean. Each summer, Katmai’s waters
fill with salmon returning from the ocean to spawn, and for the
local canids, it's a seafood snack that's just a dive away. Herring eggs
are also a common rotation at mealtime.
But for Kunce, seeing an otter-eating wolf was something new.
Image: National Park Service/used with permission
Over the past several years, anecdotal reports and scat evidence of
wolf-otter predations have left scientists with more questions than
answers. Were they actively hunting, or simply scavenging the occasional
washed-up carcass? In the case of Kunce's sighting, the wolf's underfur
was wet to the shoulders, indicating that the animal had at least
ventured into the shallows to retrieve its unusual meal.
Sea otters typically inhabit coastal waters where their favourite
foods – invertebrates like abalone and urchins – are most plentiful, but
they do occasionally come ashore to rest. Pups stay with their mothers
for nearly a full year, and female otters will often aggressively defend
their young in the face of danger.
It's possible that this young pup was sick or injured, or perhaps it
had become separated from its mother before the wolf found it.
When it comes to salmon, however, we know that the wolves are not
simply scavenging fish carcasses. Alaska Fish and Game biologist Dave Person has been monitoring packs catching, killing and eating salmon in the area over the past five years.
"They’re not as skilful as bears at fishing,” he says. "Most of the
fishing takes place when the tide is low, on the flats where streams are
crossing through the intertidal zone."
The otter-eating encounter might be unusual, but it's also an
encouraging sign. Until ten years ago, spotting an Alaskan wolf in the
wild was an extraordinarily difficult feat, so the presence of active
wolves here is a great testament to the overall health of the Katmai
ecosystem.
Early in the last century, Alaska's wolves were hunted with
virtually no controls, and bounties were commonplace. Well into the
1970s, misguided control policies aimed at increasing game
populations took a heavy toll. Trapping, poisoning and aerial gunning
hobbled the region's largest packs, and it took some thirty years for
these predators to bounce back.
Today, wolf and other top-predator control measures continue to be a
heavily debated topic in the state, but thanks to a strong focus on
reducing conflicts with farmers and hunters, Alaska is now one of the
largest wolf strongholds in the US. Estimates put the population at
7,000 to 12,000, and park officials are determined to keep it that way.
The National Park Service has set up a system of remote cameras
throughout Katmai in the hope of learning more about predator-prey
interactions like this one. "This isn’t the only relationship between
terrestrial and marine wildlife we don’t know enough about," explains Kunce, adding that evidence suggests local bears could also be preying on marine mammals.
"Maybe we will see a bear catch an otter or seal," she says. "Maybe
we will see more, maybe a wolf catching an otter, or maybe another
first."
You can follow along with the project and its discoveries on the NPS Changing Tides website.
Wolf attack an elk on an overpass in Banff National Park.
Christopher James Martin/For The Globe and Mail
Predator-culling programs, aimed to slow the decline of big game animals, are drawing international condemnation
, writes Mark Hume
Mark Hume
VANCOUVERThe Globe and Mail
From
his ranch near Ta Ta Creek in southeast British Columbia, Bob Jamieson
looks out at a wild and dramatic landscape that is gradually emptying of
big game animals.
The caribou are nearly extinct, and the
great herds of elk that once ranged across the Rocky Mountains, from
B.C.’s Kootenay River valley to the Alberta foothills, are dwindling.
Moose are in decline too, as they are across most of western
North America.
Mr. Jamieson, a systems ecologist and
environmental consultant, says the loss of those species is “a very
complex and difficult problem” that involves habitat loss, landscape
fragmentation by development – and the role of “a suite of predators.”
It is that last factor, he says, that
presents wildlife managers with one of their greatest challenges,
because controlling predators usually means killing animals such as
wolves. In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, wolf control is done through
liberal hunting limits or by paying bounties to trappers; those are
low-profile programs that draw little public criticism, but they also
have limited success. In British Columbia and Alberta, however,
controversial culls are under way in which government hunters track
radio-collared wolves and shoot whole packs from aircraft.
British Columbia and Alberta launched
their current programs to save herds of endangered caribou, but the
culls have generated international condemnation, with pop star Miley
Cyrus and global wildlife crusader Paul Watson among those joining in
the attacks.
Mr. Jamieson said the systematic killing
of wolves will always be controversial, but there is no getting away
from the fact that they – and other predators – play a key role in the
decline of species such as caribou, elk and moose.
“I’m here in a dry valley south of Banff.
I’m looking out at the west slope of the Rockies … we have a lot of elk
here, but we have lost two entire elk herds … and they are gone from
valleys where there is no human habitation,” he said. “There’s nowhere
for these animals to go to get away from the wolves.”
Killing wolves will not aid caribou recovery nor prevent their continued decline.
Dr. Paul Paquet, Raincoast Conservation Foundation
If you drive through the Kootenay River
valley along the west slope of the Rockies, and go up through Banff
National Park, you will see elk browsing along the roadsides and
standing like regal tourism monuments.
But Mr. Jamieson, who has lived in the
area for more than 40 years, says the elk are along the roads for a
reason – hoping to escape predators – and their high visibility gives a
false impression that there are lots of game animals around.
In fact, he says, game species have largely vanished from the back country where they used to be in great numbers. “It’s primarily elk [that have gone], but
there are relatively few moose and very few mule deer left in those
valleys,” Mr. Jamieson said.
Valleys he used to hike during the fall
rut to listen to male elk bugling are now largely silent – except for
the howl of wolves. And where elk are found, they are in decline. One
herd he’s monitoring has gone from 1,000 animals down to 200 in a
few years.
British Columbia’s South Selkirk caribou
population has suffered worse and is down to just 14 caribou, a number
so alarmingly low it triggered British Columbia’s wolf cull last year.
Critics of the cull, such as Dr. Paul
Paquet of the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, say the real problem
facing caribou is habitat loss, not predation.
“Wolves prey on caribou today as they
always have, but the role of wolves in the ongoing decline of mountain
and boreal caribou is a symptom of eroded and lost caribou habitat, not
an underlying cause,” he has written. “Killing wolves will not aid
caribou recovery nor prevent their continued decline. Other predators
(for example cougars and grizzlies), roaded and fragmented habitat, food
limitations and human intrusion into key habitat will perpetuate
caribou decline.”
The cull is seen by some as misguided
wildlife management at best, or evil at worst. Ian McAllister, whose
organization, Pacific Wild, has been leading a campaign to stop the cull
characterizes it as “the persecution of wolves,” not
wildlife management.
Mr. McAllister says wolves are being used as a “scapegoat” for other problems. But Mr. Jamieson says the real problem with the wolf cull is that it might not be going far enough. “The issue is not wolves, it’s the
combination of wolves, grizzly bears, black bears and cougars … the prey
species can’t handle the combined impact of those four animals,” he
said. “A lot of people [blame] habitat problems because they don’t want
wrap their head around the predator issue.”
Wolf attack an elk on an overpass in Banff National Park.
Christopher James Martin/For The Globe and Mail
Mr. Jamieson said a wildlife conference
on predator-prey systems, which drew leading experts to Revelstoke,
B.C., in April, made it clear that grizzly and black bears, wolves and
cougars are all preying heavily on elk calves, and it is reasonable to
assume young caribou, moose and deer are also being impacted. “There are three different studies on elk
now that show between the four predators, that 60 to 70 per cent of the
elk calves are dying before they even get through their first winter,”
said Mr. Jamieson.
Studies in Yellowstone National Park have
found that after wolves were reintroduced in 1995, the elk population
fell from over 19,000 to about 6,000 by 2007.
Research by wildlife biologist Shannon
Barber-Meyer of the U.S. Geological Survey found grizzly bears, black
bears and wolves, in that order, were the main predators.
Mr. Jamieson said while wolf predation
has long been recognized as a problem, recent research by David Vales of
the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe Wildlife Program has shown cougars can
also drive down game populations.
In an interview, Mr. Vales explained how the Muckleshoot, in Washington State, restored elk populations by culling cougars. “We began radio-marking adult cow elk and
calves in 1998,” he said. “By going in on the mortalities, we
[identified] the cause.” His study found that 70 per cent of the elk were killed by cougars. “I’ve always done a lot of modelling of
elk-wolf systems in Yellowstone and around Glacier [National Park] in
Montana, so I had some idea of the impact individual predators might
have. But I was really surprised how much cougars can impact an elk
herd,” he said. “It’s amazing, when we are out marking calves, how many
cats have come to check us out while we’ve got a calf in hand and it’s
screaming. We look behind us and there’s a cougar there.”
The study found cougars were killing about 50 ungulates (primarily elk, but also some deer) a year. One cat killed 73.
With that data in hand, the Muckleshoot
began hunting cougars. It took five years to normalize the ratio of
cougars to elk, because as cougars were shot, new cougars kept migrating
into the valleys to prey on the elk. (Research shows that a similar
thing happens when wolves are culled; new packs move in.)
But Mr. Vales said once the number of cougars dropped, the elk population rebounded dramatically.
“I don’t think [predator control] is a panacea in all cases, but in some cases it works really well,” Mr. Vales said.
Critics of predator control argue that if
nature is allowed to follow its course, a state of balance will be
found, with predators increasing or decreasing in sync with their prey. “That’s not really what happens,” Mr.
Vales said. “With the natural balance, cougars are going to wipe out the
elk … That’s sort of like what’s happening with the wolves [in B.C.
and Alberta].”
A
Mexican gray wolf in a pen on the Ladder Ranch in New Mexico in 2002. A
federal judge says he will rule within two weeks on the planned release
of captive wolves in New Mexico. (Richard Pipes/Albuquerque Journal)
A federal judge said Thursday that he’ll issue a written ruling
within two weeks on whether to grant state Game and Fish officials’
request to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s planned release of
up to 10 endangered Mexican wolves in New Mexico.
State officials also want the removal of two captive pups placed last month into a wild-wolf den.
One issue before U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson at a hearing
Thursday was whether federal consultation with the state, required under
the Endangered Species Act, means a state permit is required.
The feds didn’t have one when they “cross-fostered” two newborn pups
bred in captivity into a wild pack with pups of similar age on federal
lands in April, a move they deem essential to boosting the wolf
population’s genetic diversity and ultimately to its recovery. That’s
because state Game and Fish Director Alexandra Sandoval – later backed
by the full commission – denied permits requested by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
Lawsuits filed by a California law firm on behalf of New Mexico in state and federal courts contend such a permit is required.
The state, which is requesting a preliminary injunction, says
management of wildlife and fish is a function of the state, and that New
Mexico law bans importation of a nondomestic animal without an
appropriate permit. The department claims immediate and irreparable harm
without a court-ordered halt to more wolf releases, because as
top-of-the-food-chain predators, wolves must be managed along with their
prey – elk, deer and antelope.
Federal wildlife officials, meanwhile, say the planned releases are
too minimal to cause any harm to state interests, while there is a very
real threat to the Mexican wolf population, already at risk because of
the lack of genetic diversity.
As a Justice Department attorney for U.S. Fish and Wildlife argued
Thursday, a state permit – which the service was granted for previous
wolf releases – is not required if that would prevent it from carrying
out its statutory duties, in this case Mexican wolf recovery.
Since the end of 2014, the wolf population in New Mexico decreased from 110 to 97, according to Fish and Wildlife.
Paul Weiland, representing Game and Fish, told the court that the
primary reason for the denial of the state permit was the lack of a
comprehensive management scheme because the federal plan adopted in 1982
is no longer in place.
DOJ attorney Clifford Stevens responded, “There is a larger story to
what’s happening. … The (wolf) population is just not viable with the
current genetic makeup. There’s too much inbreeding. So the (Fish and
Wildlife) service has to go to the captive population.”
“Mexican wolves will dwindle and go extinct without releases of
captive-bred wolves to diversify the genetics,” Michael Robinson of the
Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement to the Journal. “The recently released pups should be allowed to stay, and family
packs should be released as well to establish a more robust population.”
Another environmental group, Defenders of Wildlife, will seek to
intervene in the federal lawsuit in the next week, the organization’s
state outreach coordinator, Michael Dax, said after Thursday’s hearing.
The International Wolf Center in Ely is welcoming two Arctic wolf pups.
The 4-week-old males flew in from Canada on Wednesday night, the center announced in a Facebook post.
The pups are kept separate from the rest of the pack until they are a
bit older – they’ll sniff and get to know the other wolves through a
fence, before being introduced into the pack sometime in August,
Communications Manager Abbe Pedersen told BringMeTheNews.
Wolf biologists and trained staff will hand-raise the pups, bottle
feeding them around the clock and positively conditioning them to
handling techniques, as well as the sights and sounds of the center to
ensure the safety of staff members.
But on the other hand, they’re not pets, Pedersen said. The center
wants the wolves to remain wild animals, and they do not let visitors
pet the wolves or have hands-on interactions.
The center has been preparing for the arrival of the pups for months, by building an expansion
to its Wolf Lab. The Wolf Care Center was completed a couple weeks ago,
Pedersen said, and the pups are resting in their new facility.
Although she noted the little guys did keep some staff members up
last night – something anyone who has ever had a new puppy could
probably relate to.
Here are more pictures of the wolves’ arrival.
The International Wolf Center’s mission
The mission of the center: “To advance the survival of wolf
populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wild lands
and the human role in their future,” the website says.
They do not breed wolves – but they do maintain a live wolf exhibit,
featuring four adult “ambassador” wolves that help teach the public.
The live exhibit aims to enhance educational experiences for both visitors and for people watching through its online wolf cams and webinars.
They also have one older wolf who is in “retirement,” Pedersen said,
which means he is separated from the other wolves because he is older
and can’t compete.
The International Wolf Center will be hosting an educational one-hour webinar on May 31 to share the physical and behavior development of the new pups. source
A Lucas family
rancher suspects that a wolf with a history of killing his cattle has
fallen back on old habits near the southern border of Grand Teton
National Park. A half-eaten calf turned up Monday, and Russ Lucas said
that “two or three” other calves have gone missing from his herd of 150
that grazes the flats between the Gros Ventre River and East Gros Ventre
Butte. When the carcass of the week-old animal was discovered, Lucas
phoned Wyoming Game and Fish Department carnivore biologist Mike Boyce,
who examined the dead calf. “I went out and investigated it,” Boyce
said, “and based on the tracks at the kill site and the bite-mark
evidence on the calf we verified it as a wolf kill.”
Boyce turned the
case over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service because wolves are a
managed as “threatened” in Wyoming under the Endangered Species Act.
Fish and Wildlife personnel who are standing in for recently retired
Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Coordinator Mike Jimenez didn’t have
specific information about the incident. “We’ve had probably a half a
dozen different depredation incidents in the past week, and they’re all
around the range,” said Mike Thabault,
USFWS assistant regional director
for ecological services. “We’ve had some around Cody, we’ve had some
around the park, we’ve had some a little further south.”
Lucas’
suspicion is that the marauding wolves are the remnants of the Lower
Gros Ventre Pack, which claimed three of his cattle back in 2013. That
year wildlife managers killed 11 wolves out of the pack, but two
survivors were left behind, annual reports show. Lucas recalled just one
surviving lobo. “There was one wolf that they couldn’t take out,” Lucas
said. “She went up in the park. “And we feel like this could be the
same wolf from that pack,” he said.
More recently, annual reports show
the Lower Gros Ventre Pack has grown back to five animals. The quintet
of canines was credited for killing two cattle in 2015, though Lucas
said he hasn’t had any problems with wolves for a few years. It’s
unclear what, if any, retribution will fall upon the veal-eating wolf
pack.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services is the
agency that would typically kill depredating wolves at the request of
Fish and Wildlife. Mike Foster, Wildlife Service’s Wyoming director, did
not return phone calls Friday. Lucas said he tried and failed to get a
permit to lethally remove the wolves himself. He has held the permits in
the past, but has never successfully caught a wolf in the act of a
depredation. “Usually when you lose one calf you get a kill permit,” he
said, “and they wouldn’t give me a kill permit.”
Taxpayers, Lucas said,
foot a substantial bill when federal wildlife managers fly planes or
helicopters to aerially gun down depredating wolves, and their
operations might be targeting the wrong animals, he said. “It’s a hell
of a lot cheaper if I did it,” Lucas said. “And you get the wolf that’s
killing them.”
SALEM,
Ore. – The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has issued a finding
of a confirmed kill by wolves versus livestock in Umatilla County, and a
finding of a “probable kill” involving a calf in Wallowa County.
The Walla Walla Pack is believed to be behind the sheep attack on
private land near the south fork of the Walla Walla River. On the
evening of May 20, a herder noticed a disturbance in a band of sheep. He
investigated and found one dead lamb and four wolves. One of the wolves
had a sheep in its mouth. The next day, he reported the incident to the
livestock owner who called ODFW to investigate.
Investigators reported a drag trail with small bits of bone, blood
and wool in it. The top of the drag trail had a scuffle area consistent
with wolf predation. The sheep’s remains were at the end of the trail.
In addition to the eyewitness report. ODFW reports that OR-40, a
radio-collared wolf with the Walla Walla Pack was within 50 yards of the
area early in the morning, following the attack.
The “probable” wolf attack occurred on private land in the Mud Creek
drainage in Wallowa County on Monday. ODFW reports that a landowner
found the remains of a mostly-consumed dead calf that had been alive the
previous evening. Investigators examined the carcass of the six-month
old calf the day it was reported, and estimated it had been killed the
night of May 22 to the early morning hours of May 23.
The investigators found blood stains in the grass indicating an
attack scene, but report there was no definitive evidence that the
predator that killed the 150-pound calf was a wolf. The report does
point out that the feeding patterns on the calf indicated a predator
with large teeth and the remains appear similar to other calves that
have been consumed by wolves.
In addition, wolves of the Shamrock Pack were in the area. OR-23 was
just 0.6 miles north of the carcass site at 7 a.m. Monday, and OR-41 was
three miles north of the carcass on the night of the predation.
“The crushing of carcass bones, along with the large amount of
carcass material consumed in a short period of time is similar to that
observed on other confirmed livestock depredations by wolves,” the
report states. “This combined with the known presence of collard wolf
OR-23 0.6 miles north of the carcass the same morning the carcass was
found, are adequate to indicate the probable cause of death as wolf
depredation.
Walla Walla Pack wolves
Additional information from the ODF&W can be found
at the link below.
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The sound of wolves howling is a common one at the Wildlife Science Center in Columbus.
But that haunting sound has been eclipsed lately by the sounds of whimpering puppies. The adorable and energetic 5-week-old pups are helping answer questions in captivity that cannot be answered in the wild.
(credit: CBS)
The center is in partnership with Duke University to study cognition and social interaction by bottle feeding the pups. “They’re so different than dogs. They’re capable of movement and
interaction so much earlier than dogs,” said Peggy Callahan, the
center’s founder and executive director.
And they are involved in more than one study. The North American grey
wolf puppies are actually being used in a study to help learn about the
breeding struggles of the Mexican wolf. “We are always looking at things before it gets tested on a very
endangered species, so we are using contraceptives on these guys that
prevents breeding. But then the question is, ‘Is it going to be
reversible?'” Callahan said. “Because if you interfere with breeding
success with even one or two Mexican wolves, that has profound
implications for the database, the DNA of those wolves.”
The six puppies in the study are part of four litters, but not all
the females were able to reproduce after being taken off the
contraception. “There are implications that there is some long-term impact on
fertility, and that’s unfortunate,” Callahan said. “No big deal for us,
but it’s a big deal for the Mexican wolf.”
Sean, the surrogate wolf pup dad. (credit: CBS)
Callahan also has a K-9 helper named Sean, a German Shepard who acts as a surrogate parent. “No matter how much time I spend with them, I can’t mimic that dog
behavior down to the letter like he can,” she said. “So it gives them
comfort. He corrects them, he makes them go to the bathroom, he’s just
amazing.”
The puppies already weigh 10 pounds at 5 weeks old. As adults, that
subspecies of gray wolf, called the tundra wolf, tops out at about 130
pounds. You can see the adorable pups in person for the first time Saturday, June 11 at their annual spring festival — The Canine Carnival.
BREAKING: After the US Fish and Wildlife Service abandoned its mandate to restore the critically low wild red wolf
population, numbers plummeted from around 120 two years ago to 45 or
less, making the red wolf one of the most critically imperiled species
on the planet.
On May 24, The Center for Biological Diversity, along with other conservation groups, filed an emergency petition to require USFWS, the federal government,
entrusted with protecting and recovering rare, threatened and
endangered species, to fulfill their responsibilities and save the red
wolf from extinction in the wild. Red wolves,
once the darling of American endangered-species recovery innovations,
have been thrown under the bus by an agency cowed by pressure from
strident (although numerically small) anti-wolf and and anti-government
forces.
“Red wolves face the very real possibility of vanishing
from the wild if they don’t get the help they need,” said Brett Hartl,
endangered species policy director at the Center for Biological
Diversity. “Sadly the Fish and Wildlife Service seems more concerned
about appeasing a small minority of anti-wildlife extremists in North
Carolina than preventing the extinction of these wolves.”
What makes this federal betrayal of red wolves worse is that it flies
in the face of recommendations by its own scientists to actually
strengthen recovery efforts. The press release states, "Records
recently obtained via the Freedom of Information Act demonstrate that
the Service’s red wolf biologists recommended strengthening protections
by eliminating loopholes in regulations that have facilitated excessive
illegal shootings of red wolves. As recently as 2013, the Service had
considered following these recommendations and had even drafted new
regulations. But the biologists’ recommendations were ignored, the
regulations were never finalized, and the red wolf continues to suffer
unsustainable levels of mortality." So the USFWS has dropped the ball
in violation of its own expert's advice and against the wishes of a
large majority of the public who strongly feel the survival of this shy
and elusive small canid is imperative.
The emergency petition requests that the US Fish and Wildlife Service
revise the current red wolf regulations in order to reduce red wolf
shooting deaths, establish additional wild populations of red wolves
(which will also boost sorely-needed genetic diversity), and,
importantly, reclassify all reintroduced populations of red wolves as
“essential” experimental populations. Currently, wild red wolves are
classified as “non-essential,” which severely limits the protections
they receive under the Endangered Species Act.
This one change should ensure that shot, trapped, poisoned or other
intentionally-killed wolves will be treated as crime victims and the
perpetrators held accountable to the full extent of the law.
“It is completely arbitrary that this lone wild population of red
wolves, which was reintroduced almost 30 years ago, is still classified
by the Service as a ‘non-essential’ species,” said Tara Zuardo, wildlife
attorney with the Animal Welfare Institute. “The Service has turned its
back on this species, and is undermining rather than bolstering red
wolf recovery.”
Red wolves are shy, inoffensive, even skittish, mainly hunting small
nuisance species like invasive nutria, rodents and plentiful rabbits.
These beautiful singers are family-oriented, elusive and deeply
beneficial to ecosystems they call home.
As revealed in a follow-up press release, the groups note they "may
pursue relief in federal court" if Fish and Wildlife does not respond
within 45 days. "Red wolves face the very real possibility of vanishing from the wild
if they don't get the help they need," said Brett Hartl, the Center for
Biological Diversity's endangered species policy director.
Organizations that filed today’s petition include the Animal Welfare
Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Endangered Species
Coalition, the South Florida Wildlands Association, WildEarth Guardians,
Wildlands Network, and the Wolf Conservation Center. Learn more about
red wolf conservation and the Center for Biological Diversity, here. To help the Center in its fight to save this uniquely American Southeastern wolf, donate to their Wolf Defense Fund here.
Zana,
a 4-year-old Mexican gray wolf, tends to her 1-month-old puppies at
Brookfield Zoo’s Regenstein Wolf Woods habitat. | Jim Schulz/Chicago
Zoological Society. Jordan Owen
Three Mexican gray wolf puppies that were born one month ago at
Brookfield Zoo have begun emerging from their den, and might be visible
to springtime visitors to the zoo.
The puppies were part of a pack of five that were born to parents
Zana and Flint on April 25, but two were placed with a wild wolf pack in
Arizona as part of a recovery program for the species, according to a
release from the west suburban zoo.
In addition to the three newest arrivals, a female and two males, the
pack includes four yearlings who were born last year. The puppies have
not yet been named.
“The current pack at the zoo mimics those in the wild. Wolves have a
very complex social structure, and we are excited that guests will be
able to get a firsthand look at the interactions among all the animals,”
associate curator of mammals Joan Daniels said in the release.
Zoo visitors might see the yearlings helping their parents caring for
the pups by regurgitating their food for them and also hear their
howls, yips, squeals or growls.
Mexican gray wolves used to be an endangered species, but are now a
naturally functioning population with regular births occurring,
according to the release.
A
Mexican gray wolf in a pen on the Ladder Ranch in New Mexico in 2002. A
federal judge says he will rule within two weeks on the planned release
of captive wolves in New Mexico. (Richard Pipes/Albuquerque Journal)
