Canyon Park Yearling
Yellowstone National Park
May 2011
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Utah conservationists ask Interior Secretary not to de-list wolves.
Endangered species » Wolf populations in neighboring states deemed healthy.
By christopher smart | The Salt Lake Tribune
Published Sep 27 2012.
More than a dozen Utah conservation groups are asking Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to keep protections in place that would allow "natural re-introduction" of wolves into the Beehive State. In a letter to Salazar, the conservationists say they are concerned with a planned de-listing of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species list across the lower 48 states.
In addition, they fear for the health of the Mexican gray wolf population that straddles the line between northern Arizona and New Mexico. Join the Discussion Post a Comment Read All Comments (8) That sentiment is not shared by a majority of Utah lawmakers.
In 2010, legislation passed that directed the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to "manage wolves to prevent the establishment of a viable pack in all areas of the state where the wolf is not listed as threatened or endangered ..." In a related matter that is independent of the gray wolf, portions of southern Utah were being considered for an extension of the Mexican gray wolf recovery area. But according to the conservationists’ letter to Salazar, behind-the-scenes maneuvering may have been successful in removing southern Utah from consideration.
One of the letter’s authors, Kirk Robinson, Western Wildlife Conservancy, said in a Thursday interview that there are fewer than 100 surviving Mexican gray wolves and without a larger recovery area they likely will become extinct. In March 2011, the northeast corner of Utah — east of Interstate 15 and north of I-80 and I-84 — was de-listed as a recovery area for gray wolves.
Elsewhere in Utah, most notably the Uinta Mountains and eastern Utah’s Book Cliffs region, they remain protected.
Idaho and Montana were also de-listed in 2011 and the gray wolf populations there put under the management of state wildlife officials. Wyoming was de-listed last month. The complete de-listing of gray wolves across the lower 48 states had been scheduled for this Sunday but has been postponed for several months, Robinson said. "We want Salazar to know there is a growing constituency of Utahns who know what’s going on," Robinson said. "We want to bring a groundswell of opposition [to the de-listing of the lower 48 states]."
Conservationists would like to see gray wolves migrate into Utah from the north and Mexican gray wolves from the south in what Robinson called "natural re-introduction." story continues below story continues below That’s anathema to agriculture interests, said Randy Parker, CEO of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation.
He said wolf packs in Wyoming have decimated sheep and elk herds. Parker was among a multi-faceted group that developed the Utah Wolf Management Plan in the 1990s that was later adopted by the state Legislature. "We want the state of Utah to hold the line on the Wolf Plan and the state law," he said.
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Wolf Suit Should be Shot Down
Guest Commentary: Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?
Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? Not Coloradans, the majority of whom support wolves. And Colorado needs wolves and the many benefits they provide. It's time for the federal government to restore wolves to Colorado, starting with Rocky Mountain National Park.
WildEarth Guardians is litigating Rocky Mountain National Park's flawed 2008 management plan for failing to seriously consider wolves to control elk herds. In an editorial, The Denver Post complained that, "returning wolves to Colorado ... shouldn't be decided in court." The Post misunderstands our case. We've only requested that the court require the National Park Service to fully analyze a wolf restoration alternative pursuant to required federal planning mandates.
The park has a long-standing elk problem. Elk have destroyed aspen groves, browsed down streamside vegetation, and degraded the habitat for a multitude of species. The obvious solution: restore wolves. Their work can't be beat and it's free.
To the shock of many, the Park Service — the federal agency most dedicated to managing natural landscapes — decided against wolves and chose instead to use sharpshooters to control elk herds. Hunting is prohibited in national parks. The Post quibbles that sharpshooting is not comparable to hunting, but that misses the point. National parks are designated to preserve natural processes. Shooting elk returns us to misguided policies of the past when park rangers eliminated socially unacceptable species — including, ironically, wolves.
What The Post seems most concerned about is the so-called "controversy" of re-introducing wolves in the park. But The Post's concerns are without merit. Wolves might leave the park, but they would have more than 2 million acres of adjacent national forests on which to roam. Wolf restoration has negligible effects on the livestock industry. Even in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming (and prior to recommencement of wolf hunting in Idaho and Montana last year), wolves have killed less than 1 percent of the cattle and sheep inventories.
Finally, the effects of wolf predation on elk numbers are also insignificant. In fact, in those same states, elk populations have exceeded management goals. Wolf restoration makes good sense. What's in it for Colorado? In addition to myriad ecological benefits, there's money to be made. Wolf-watching tourism generated $36 million in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming in 2005. With wolf hunting and trapping in those three states, wolves are unlikely to migrate to Colorado on their own. We need to actively restore wolves to Colorado, starting in our national park.
Wendy Keefover is director of the Carnivore Protection Program for WildEarth Guardians in Broomfield. Mark Salvo is the group's wildlife program director in Phoenix.
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Stop killing endangered species
September 27, 2012
In other countries endangered species are lost due to habitat destruction, overhunting, and poaching. Here, in addition to the above, we have our state and federal wildlife agents killing endangered species. Under Washington state code, the primary mandate for the Department of Fish and Wildlife is to “protect, preserve and perpetuate” our state’s wildlife.
Gunning down wolves along with their pups to protect cattle grazing on federal land is abhorrent, a crime against nature, and goes against state code
.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, do your job and stop killing endangered species.
— Diane Weinstein, Issaquah
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Grey wolves killed for preying on livestock
In other countries endangered species are lost due to habitat destruction, overhunting, and poaching. Here, in addition to the above, we have our state and federal wildlife agents killing endangered species. Under Washington state code, the primary mandate for the Department of Fish and Wildlife is to “protect, preserve and perpetuate” our state’s wildlife.
Gunning down wolves along with their pups to protect cattle grazing on federal land is abhorrent, a crime against nature, and goes against state code
.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, do your job and stop killing endangered species.
— Diane Weinstein, Issaquah
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Hunters kill 19 wolves statewid
Friday, September 28, 2012
Season has been open 1 month
By KATHERINE WUTZ
Express Staff Writer
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The 2012-13 wolf hunting season opened Aug. 30, though trapping in most zones won’t open until November.
According to Idaho Department of Fish and Game records, none of the wolves so far has been in the Southern Mountains zone, which spans Ketchum, Sun Valley, Hailey and Carey.
No wolves have been killed in the Sawtooth zone, west of the Southern Mountains zone, though one has been killed in the Middle Fork zone and one in the Salmon zone, north and northeast of the Southern Mountains zone.
Idaho Department of Fish and Game spokesman Niels Nokkentved said Wednesday that it’s difficult to tell how many hunters bought tags for this season, as the department has switched to selling tags on a calendar year basis.
So far, 19,110 resident tags and 3,262 nonresident tags have been sold for the 2012 calendar year. Nokkentved said the total is slightly down from 2011, when the department sold 28,600 resident tags and about 3,000 nonresident tags.
Nokkentved said he didn’t know if tag sales would get a boost later this fall.
“I would have to speculate,” he said, and added that he did not know whether tag sales got a boost last fall.
New rules approved by the Fish and Game Commission this summer allowed hunters to buy up to five wolf tags per calendar year. However, hunters may only use two tags per year in the Southern Mountains zone. The Southern Mountains zone has a harvest quota of 40 wolves for the 2012-13 season. Trapping wolves is not permitted in this zone.
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Helicopter gunner kills 6th Wedge Pack wolf; effort concludes; alpha male, female dead
Sept. 27, 2012 .
The wolf was shot just south of the U.S.-Canada border in the third day of aerial shooting that claimed six wolves, agency director Phil Anderson said in a media release. The alpha male has been wearing a GPS since early summer, when it was caught and released by a state wolf researcher.
The state has been following the GPS signals of the alpha male to locate the pack, which officials have been targeting for elimination since Saturday.
The pack's alpha female was killed earlier this week, Anderson said. A younger female wolf was shot by an agency staffer on Aug. 7 during the first lethal efforts to curb attacks on cattle that started in early July.
How do you know you have the entire pack, considering WDFW originally estimated the pack included at least eight animals? WDFW state wildlife manager responds.A Spokesman-Review photographer has been attempting to get photos of the effort, but was told by agency staff on the scene that they could not include him in the activities or make any official comments. On staffer did say that none of them enjoyed what they were doing, but that they were doing their job.
“Directing the pack’s removal was a very difficult decision, both personally and professionally, but it was necessary to reset the stage for sustainable wolf recovery in this region,” Anderson said. “Now we will refocus our attention on working with livestock operators and conservation groups to aggressively promote the use of non-lethal tactics to avoid wolf-livestock conflict.”
With the latest operation concluded, Anderson said the department would continue to monitor wolf activity in the Wedge region as it is doing in other parts of the state. While some WDFW staff were working full time with the Wedge Pack for most of the summer, other staffers have been working to document wolf activity in Okanogan, Chelan and Kittitas Counties, the Blue Mountains and elsewhere in Northeast Washington.
Read on for more background and details.
From the WDFW media release issued this afternoon:
The department initiated removal of the Wedge Pack late last week in an effort to put a stop to its persistent attacks on livestock from the herd of the Diamond M Ranch in northern Stevens County. Since July, the wolves had killed or injured at least 17 calves and cows from the herd.
The pack takes its name from the triangular shape of the Washington state portion of its range, which is bordered by the Columbia and Kettle rivers and Canada. Its elimination leaves the state with seven confirmed wolf packs and four suspected packs, most of which range in the remote, rugged forests of Northeast Washington.
WDFW began to lethally remove wolves from the pack in early August, as its pattern of predation began to escalate despite non-lethal efforts by the rancher and the department to prevent the attacks. A WDFW marksman killed a non-breeding member of the pack on August 7, and about two weeks later, biologists found the decomposed carcass of a young wolf within the Diamond M herd’s grazing area. The young wolf had not been shot, and the cause of death could not be determined.
Teams of WDFW staff remained in the Wedge through August, trapping extensively and tracking the movements of the alpha male, which had been fitted with a location-transmitting radio collar.
However, Anderson said none of the rancher’s or the department’s efforts to change the pack’s behavior succeeded, and attacks on the Diamond M herd increased through mid-September.
“Ultimately, it became clear that this pack was preying on livestock as its primary food source, and that our actions had not changed that pattern,” Anderson said. “The independent wolf experts we consulted agreed with our staff that removal of the pack was the only viable option.”
With the support of key conservation and livestock organizations, the department announced on Sept. 21 it would remove the pack to create the opportunity for wolves that are not habituated to preying on livestock to re-colonize the region.
Anderson said he looked forward to continuing to work with interested groups on a broad range of non-lethal management strategies under the terms of the Wolf Conservation and Management Plan approved by the state Fish and Wildlife Commission in December 2011.
WDFW is urging livestock operators to enter into cooperative, cost-sharing agreements with the department that specify non-lethal measures they will use to minimize wolf-livestock conflict.
“Lethal removal will remain a wolf management option, but we will use it only as a last resort, after all reasonable non-lethal options are exhausted,” Anderson said.
He said he respects the opinions of the many citizens who contacted the department to share their support for or opposition to its actions. “We know these issues spark strong feelings among Washington residents across the state, which is why we are committed to conducting our business openly and transparently,” he said.
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Thursday, September 27, 2012
Images of the Day (2 Days)
Killing Wolves for Loss of Livestock is the Rancher's Fault.
September 26, 2012
I grew up with cattle and I've raised beef cattleon land shared with coyotes, and we've never lost a calf to any wild animal. Why? Because at calving time, we'd simply bring the cows closer to the house to protect them.
There is no excuse in this day and age to senselessly shoot wildlife to raise domestic animals [“State to kill 8 wolves tied to loss of livestock,” NW Saturday, Sept. 22].
This rancher who irresponsibly lost so many calves to gray wolves is using public land — that is, our land where these wolves have slowly been brought back from the brink of extinction. Yet he is blaming the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for not protecting his cattle and forcing them to kill an entire pack of wolves. This rancher feels not only entitled to public lands — an on-going scandal — but also to government resources to protect his herd.
Sounds likeone of Romney's entitled 47 percent to me.
— Elizabeth Vandeventer, Vashon
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Northwest Voices | Letters to the Editor
Killing wolves for loss of domestic livestock
Government not responsibleI grew up with cattle and I've raised beef cattleon land shared with coyotes, and we've never lost a calf to any wild animal. Why? Because at calving time, we'd simply bring the cows closer to the house to protect them.
There is no excuse in this day and age to senselessly shoot wildlife to raise domestic animals [“State to kill 8 wolves tied to loss of livestock,” NW Saturday, Sept. 22].
This rancher who irresponsibly lost so many calves to gray wolves is using public land — that is, our land where these wolves have slowly been brought back from the brink of extinction. Yet he is blaming the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for not protecting his cattle and forcing them to kill an entire pack of wolves. This rancher feels not only entitled to public lands — an on-going scandal — but also to government resources to protect his herd.
Sounds likeone of Romney's entitled 47 percent to me.
— Elizabeth Vandeventer, Vashon
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An Open Letter from the CA Wolf Center
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