Connelly: Has twilight come for America's wolves?

BY JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy. 

 

         The Twilight saga, famously set in Forks,  gets one brief allusion in the Burke Museum's new exhibit on Wolves of North America, and the precarious reappearance of canis lupus in Washington:
         "Nowhere in Quileute beliefs do werewolves and vampires appear."  (Nor are wolves found on the Olympic Peninsula.)
         An intelligent student -- we'll call her Bella -- will find myths and stereotypes shattered by a visit to "Wolves and Wild Lands in the 21st Century," which opened Friday and runs until Sept. 5.
        Wolves inspire fear, dating from when European farmers were clearing forests in the Middle Ages. Canis lupus generates raw hatred in parts of the American West.  "They're killers: They do it for sport and then they leave their victim still alive for a lingering death," in the words of Idaho state Rep. Lenore Barrett.
         Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter recently signed legislation declaring wolves a state "Disaster Emergency."  He would destroy 55 of Idaho's 700 gray wolves.  "I'm prepared to bid for the first ticket to shoot a wolf myself," Otter told a recent hunters' rally.
         Then-Gov. Sarah Palin proposed in Alaska a $150-per-animal bounty to "hunters" who shoot wolves from planes:  As proof, they were to hack off the dead wolf's left foreleg and submit it for payment.  The Palin administration also proposed that state wildlife agents be given power to enter dens and slaughter wolf pups.
         Butch Otter will soon have the chance to shoot off more than his mouth.  Wolves were de-listed from the Endangered Species Act in Montana, Idaho and Eastern Washington as a provision of the recent budget deal between the Obama Administration and House Republicans.
         The results:  There is no more federal protection for two of Washington's three wolf packs.  The Salmo and Diamond packs live in wilds of the Selkirk Range of Northeast Washington.  The wolves are still protected under state law.  But new proposed state rules would allow permits to kill wolves that are preying on livestock.
        Alas, wolves repopulating Northeast Washington must pass through Idaho -- where Butch Otter is gunning for them --  to reach the relative protection of the Evergreen State.
         The Burke exhibit gives you not only a look at but a feel for wolves' family structure, hunting habits and The Howl.  It features wolf skeletons, full-size wolf specimens, wolf audio and outsized paw prints.
         Canis lupus is a key critter in the food chain, feasting on the old, the sick and the weak in elk and deer herds.  Wolves create balance:  Just look at Yellowstone National Park, where wolves were reintroduced (Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt carried the first cage) in 1995.
          Yellowstone's uncontrolled elk and deer had gnawed through plants and trees.  Overpopulation resulted in starvation.  Absent for 75 years, wolves have checked the population of hooved animals.  Visitors to the Lamar Valley can scramble up a hillside behind Soda Butte and observe the fabled Druid pack go about its fascinating, coordinated hunts.
           Wolves used to populate much of the "lower 48" states.  They are now gone from perhaps 95 percent of former habitat.
          They hang on in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan -- notably in Isle Royale National Park -- and have repopulated Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.  About 40 Mexican gray wolves, recently reintroduced, inhabit two national forests astride the Arizona-New Mexico border.
          In Washington, there has been hopeful news, and bad in recent years.
         A gray wolf was photographed sauntering through a kids' playfield in British Columbia's Skagit Valley Recreation Area, just north of the border.  A den was located on the south flanks of Mount Hozomeen on our side of the 49th parallel.
          The Lookout Pack then took hold up Wolf Creek in the Methow Valley, home to the state's largest mule deer herd.  The pack numbered as many as 10 animals, summering in the wonderful Twisp Pass-Copper Pass country on the east border of the North Cascades National Park.
           But poachers have taken their toll.  An alleged human being in the Methow tried to ship a bloody pelt via Federal Express.  Another wolf carcass was found alongside the North Cascades Highway.
           "Only two to three animals are still documented:  The female has been missing since May, and we believe killed by poachers:  The major reason for the decline of the pack is illegal killing," said Jasmine Minbashian of Conservation Northwest, who has studied the pack.
          We should be able to live with a few thousand wolves in remote reaches of the "lower 48."   Environmental groups are compensating ranchers for calves and sheep killed by wolves.   Three decades have passed since Barry Lopez's book "Of Wolves and Men" dispelled the notion that canis lupus preys on homo sapiens.
           Candidly, I find the Butch Otters of this world much more harmful to the human species, and the world in which we live, than canis lupus.
           Sadly, the blood lust persists.  Go to the Burke Museum and get your blood up to preserve and restore --  to the Selkirks and high Cascades at least -- these fierce but familiar predators.

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Updates: Wildfire Threatens Endangered Mexican Wolves

 

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News Brief, AZ Game and Fish Update, and More on Forest Fire in Mexican Wolf Recovery Area (posted 6/5/11)

A fire in eastern Arizona, called the Wallow Fire, has burned through the White Mountains and threatens the safety of Mexican wolf packs. Below, we have included information from a variety of sources, including a Phoenix KPHO news brief, an excerpt from a report from AZ Game and Fish Department, and a link to the White Mountain Independent, which is posting frequent updates on the fire. Our hopes are for the safety of the wolves and pups, as well as the human residents of the area. We will post more information as it becomes available.
Phoenix KPHO News: Wildfire Threatens Endangered Mexican Wolves, June 3, 2011Wildlife officers are on the ground in the area of the Wallow Fire to help any animals that could be affected by the fire.
One main priority is the survival of four packs of endangered Mexican wolves that live in the area.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department is worried the fire could destroy a den where one of the packs is raising some pups.
Officials say they can't remove the pups and return them later because the adult wolves would not accept them.
Some burnout operations have been conducted in hopes of protecting the dens.
You can view the KPHO story online here.
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Excerpt from AZ Game and Fish Department, June 3 Wildlife News
Wildlife officers assist with human and wildlife impacts as Wallow Fire grows
As the Wallow Fire continues to grow and impact eastern Arizona’s landscape – displacing residents and threatening livelihoods – wildlife officers are on the ground helping evacuate residents, protect structures and mitigate the effects on wildlife. The fire has burned nearly 106,000 acres as of early June 3 and is at zero percent containment.

An interagency team is monitoring the effects of the fire on the endangered Mexican wolf population that lives in the area.

Two of four wolf packs that are known to reproduce regularly in Arizona – the Rim and Bluestem Packs -- are in the immediately impacted area of the fire. Young pups have been confirmed for the Bluestem Pack, and the Rim Pack is displaying behavior that is consistent with denning activity. However, the fire’s impact on these wolves thus far has been low.

As part of a larger containment strategy, a low-intensity fire was ignited along the fireline north of the Black River to remove ground-level fuels and help prevent a high-intensity fire in the vicinity of the Bluestem Pack. This burnout was intended to reduce the intensity of the main fire when it burns through the denning area and is an important step promoting the survival of the pups associated with this pack.

“Fire is a natural part of the ecosystem for all wildlife, including this wild population of Mexican wolves,” said Chris Bagnoli, Arizona Game and Fish’s Interagency Field Team (IFT) Leader for the wolf reintroduction. “The team has to balance the desire to help protect the affected wolves, while also preserving the bond between the pups and the adults and not putting fire crews at risk. Unfortunately, removing the pups now and returning them to the den later isn’t an option as the adults will not accept them later.”   

The fire also has the potential to affect the Hawks Nest Pack, which is denning several miles away from the where the front line of the fire is as of June 3. The team will continue to monitor this pack as the fire progresses in their direction.

The Eastern Arizona Type II Incident Management Team, commanded by John Philbin, is also assisting in the wolf monitoring effort. The team has allowed project personnel to use a helicopter for survey flights, which have located both the Rim and Bluestem Packs by their telemetry collars. The information obtained from the collared wolves confirms that they are still located adjacent to den sites, indicating that the pups are most likely still alive.

“As an element of a fire-adapted ecosystem, these are wild wolves and like most wildlife, they have an amazing ability to move in response to wildfire,” Bagnoli said. “Forest service personnel reported seeing one of the Bluestem pack members and at least one pup of the year during operations Wednesday so we know that the pups are still being tended by the adults.”

The Interagency Field Team will monitor the after-effects of the fire and may provide supplemental feeding if the wolf’s prey base diminishes significantly immediately after the fire. The fire is expected to initiate regrowth in the next couple of years that will help provide plenty of forage for elk, mule deer and white-tailed deer. 

Mexican wolf reintroduction is a joint effort by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona Game and Fish Department, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, White Mountain Apache Tribe, USDA Forest Service, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service - Wildlife Services, and other local stakeholders.
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You can read White Mountain Independent updates on the fires here.

Photos, top to bottom: Collared Hawks Nest pack wolf, courtesy of USFWS, Camping in the recovery area, courtesy of Jean and Peter Ossorio, Mexican wolf in Hawks Nest territory, courtesy of Jean Ossorio

USDA wolf survey raises some concerns

Sunday, June 5, 2011 

 

Now that wolves have been delisted in Montana and Idaho, a key part of responsible management will be figuring out how best to address ongoing conflicts with livestock that share the landscape. And getting an accurate assessment of the real impacts that wolves have is critical to that endeavor.

So it was with concern that I read Tom Lutey's story ("Wolves killing fewer cattle in Wyoming than in Montana, Idaho," May 23), describing the results of a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with no mention of competing accounts of livestock loss.

The USDA cattle report, which comes from speculative and anonymous unconfirmed reports from ranchers, indicates a total of 4,437 head of cattle were lost to wolves across Wyoming, Montana and Idaho in 2010. For comparison, the 2010 annual wolf report issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicates there were just 188 confirmed cattle losses to wolves. The latter are verified by field agents based on evidence collected from the site of the incident in addition to the rancher's report.

Are more livestock lost to wolves than we have resources to confirm? Yes. Is it likely the number is more than 23 times higher? Not a chance.

Experienced investigators know how hard it can sometimes be to confirm that an animal was killed by a predator, let alone killed specifically by a wolf. Simply blaming those extra livestock losses on wolves doesn't make it so. Nor does it help Montana and Idaho plan for a future where wolves and livestock can better coexist.

Mike Leahy
Rocky Mountain Director
Defenders of Wildlife
Bozeman

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Wolf center hopes pups will open hearts, pocketbooks

BY DIANE TOROIAN KEAGGY 

STLtoday.com | Wednesday, June 1, 2011 1

David Carson Abby, a 6-year-old Mexican Gray Wolf, greets some of her puppies as they poke their heads outside of their den at the Endangered Wolf Center in Eureka on May 31, 2011. Abby had six pups on May 1, and the puppies have just started exploring their surroundings outside of the den. David Carson • dcarson@post-dispatch.com

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Mexican Gray Wolf Pups at Endangered Wolf Center in Eureka, Mo

Six Critically Endangered Wolf Pups Born

The Endangered Wolf Center is posting video footage of its six newborn Mexican gray wolves on the Internet, hoping to generate plenty of "awwws" along with $3 million to overcome the worst fiscal crisis of its 40-year history.
The center's breeding program, the biggest in the nation, must move from Washington University's Tyson Research Center in far west St. Louis County. The university asked the center five years ago to find a new home so it could expand its own programs.
"We can't shut this place down," said Ralph Pfremmer, chairman of the wolf center's board. "We are unique in our ability to keep the species alive. The chances of the Mexican gray wolf going extinct are greatly enhanced if we're not here."
The center wants to raise awareness through its new "pup cam." Its website, endangeredwolfcenter.org, and its Facebook page will feature video clips of parents Abby and Perkins raising their family.
Regina Mossotti, the wolf center's director of animal care, hopes the public's boundless appetite for YouTube videos of hatching birds and tumbling kittens will extend to these steely-eyed predators.
"We have yearlings that were born last year, the new puppies that are only a month old and Mom and Dad, so people can see some pack behavior you rarely see in captivity," Mossotti said. "This is going to help them be successful if they are released into the wild. You'll see everything from the puppies playing, to tugging on the yearlings' tails, to the yearlings being disciplined by Mom and Dad because they are getting too rough with the puppies."
The Endangered Wolf Center was founded 40 years ago by Marlin Perkins, a longtime director of the St. Louis Zoo. Today the center is home to some 30 Mexican gray wolves and six red wolves. Both species are critically endangered.
The center has a $700,000 annual budget, raised entirely from grants and private donations. After learning that it needed to relocate, the center bought a $5 million piece of land in Jefferson County which, in retrospect, it could not afford, Pfremmer said. The center is selling that property to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. For its new site, the center hopes to lease an 111-acre parcel near its current location from the St. Louis County Parks and Recreation Department.
"We've got to move, and that's going to cost money," Pfremmer said. "We've got to buy new pens and a visitors center. The service we provide the community is highly educational, and we need to raise awareness to the gem we are and the scientific importance of our work."
To that end, the center has reached out to previous donors, stepped up its online presence and changed its name from the Wild Canid Survival and Research Center to the Endangered Wolf Center because, really, who knows what a canid is?
"We are in a crisis situation where we are trying to rebuild the image," Pfremmer said.
The center has its work cut out. It does not have daily hours like the St. Louis Zoo or even the World Bird Sanctuary. Reservations are required for tours and events, such as its nighttime wolf howls. The center drew some 40,000 visitors last year.
"It's a magical experience to hear the wolves howling at night, but we're not a petting zoo, we're not a zoo," Pfremmer said. "We have very strict requirements about human touch. We encourage the wolves not to like us because we want to get them reintroduced into the wild."
And wolves are not cuddly like elephants or pandas. But they play a vital role in the ecosystem. Only 50 Mexican gray wolves live in the Blue Range wolf recovery area on the New Mexico-Arizona border. Poachers have killed many of the wolves released in the area.
"In the early 1900s, the government actually paid people to kill wolves," Mossotti said. "They thought if they killed them there would be lots of deer and elk, and it would be a hunters' paradise. But what they found is elk and deer ended up starving because there was no natural predator for them. They were decimating the trees and shrubs down to nothing, which hurt the animals that relied on that food source. People don't understand that, but our job is to educate them. It's hard for us to do that in the situation we are in now."

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Battle in Augusta to focus on protection of wolves

Posted: June 5

By Deirdre Fleming
Staff Writer

Federal wildlife officials will hold what is expected to be a contentious public meeting in Augusta this week on whether protections are warranted for wolves in the Northeast.

click image to enlarge

Wednesday's meeting at the Augusta Civic Center will help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decide whether the region should continue to be included as part of the gray wolf's range. The agency also is considering whether the Eastern wolf, now listed as a subspecies of the gray wolf, warrants its own protection here as a unique species.
The issue is controversial. Wolf advocates hope federal protections could help wolves re-establish a viable population in Maine. Sportsmen, on the other hand believe a viable wolf population could harm the state's deer population and even make killing coyotes illegal.
The gray wolf is on the federal Endangered Species list and its listed range currently includes several western states and most of the Northeast, so it is illegal to kill them in Maine. The Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove the Northeast from the gray wolf's listed habitat, because they have no evidence that gray wolves exist in Maine.

The Eastern wolf is not protected anywhere in the United States and no known breeding populations exist in this country -- there are viable populations in Quebec and Ontario. But because it is considered a subspecies of the gray wolf, killing them is also currently illegal in Maine.
But Fish and Wildlife believes the Eastern wolf should be considered a separate species. If this happens, killing them would become legal unless the service decides they warrant federal protection of their own.
Holding public meetings is the first step in the service's "National Wolf Strategy" -- one meeting will take place Wednesday in Augusta. About 55 people attended the first meeting in Wisconsin on May 18, but more may attend the Maine meeting, and it is expected to be heated.

"It's safe to say any action taken regarding wolves would be controversial, whether that applies to protection or removing protection," said Martin Miller, the service's Northeast region chief of endangered species. "You can expect it to be a challenge because of the history of wolves."
For years there has been significant interest in whether wolves exist in Maine.
A nonprofit group, The Maine Wolf Coalition, was founded in 1994 to support wolf recovery here. Two years ago, about 50 volunteers participated in a two-year project attempting to document the presence of wolves in Maine by recording howls in northern Maine woods, said Daryl Dejoy, president of the Wildlife Alliance of Maine. Results were inconclusive.

Wolf advocates doubt any species of wolf will receive protection here.
"I don't hold out much hope that they'll list the Eastern wolf here if past history is any indication," said John Glowa, president and founder of The Maine Wolf Coalition.
"I'm pessimistic because I've worked for the past 17 years to help wolf recovery, and the service does next to nothing and has done nothing to protect wolves," he said. "This is their way of getting out of the wolf business in the East."
The review of the Eastern wolf's status in the Northeast could take several paths -- one of the most controversial would be placing them on the federal Endangered Species List.
Miller, the agency's regional endangered species chief, said that if a viable Eastern wolf population is found to exist and receives protection under the Endangered Species Act, it would be illegal not only to shoot wolves, but also coyotes, under the "similar appearance provision" of the act.
"Coyotes are a similar species or subspecies, so we would treat them as if they were listed," Miller said. "Shooting, killing, or trapping would be prohibited."

Many Maine hunters target coyotes, with encouragement from the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, in order to reduce predation on the whitetail deer herd.
Wolves are already being killed in Maine despite the federal protection of the gray wolf, Glowa said.
The service has evidence of wolves shot in Maine, New York and Massachusetts, said Meagan Racey, the service's public affairs specialist in Hadley, Mass.
Neither the gray nor Eastern wolves are listed by Maine as endangered species.
Jerry McLaughlin, president of the Aroostook County Conservation Association, formed to help the deer herd, said hunters in northern Maine will fight any effort to increase the wolf population in Maine.
"We've got a problem here with coyotes, we don't need wolves," said McLaughlin, who formed the 250-member association three years ago.

The Sportsman's Alliance of Maine also vehemently opposes any wolf recovery efforts here.
"SAM has always opposed wolf re-introduction in Maine. If wolves naturally re-migrate into Maine, we believe that they should be treated as any other species. But barring that, a re-introduction would constitute a major disruption in the balances in our ecosystem that would be intolerable to the public," said Matt Dunlap, SAM interim executive director.
Maine law currently prohibits the reintroduction of wolves into Maine. Miller said if the service decides that recovery of an endangered population is necessary through reintroduction, the agency would work with the states to achieve a solution.
Miller said the Eastern wolf could only be listed as endangered here if a breeding population is located in the eastern United States.
"You can't list a species that does not exist," he said.

Miller said the service hopes to complete the work of taking the Northeast off the gray wolf's listed range by the end of the year, but the review of the Eastern wolf could take much longer.
"We're not trying to search out wolves," Miller said. "This is part of (the Eastern wolves') historic range. Is it secure and viable (there)?"
Dejoy, of the wildlife alliance, said he's not sure whether there is a breeding wolf population in Maine, but he is certain the state and federal governments don't know absolutely.
"There is definitely evidence they're finding wolves throughout New England, and they come from somewhere and are going somewhere," he said. "It's certainly not proof of a breeding population, but at least there is proof of a transient population."

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Wolf packs kill 4 calves on Montana ranches, 1 wolf killed

• THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  
• June 04, 2011

HELENA, Mont. — Officials say two wolf attacks on private ranches south of Butte and another attack at a private ranch west of Helena has resulted in the deaths of four calves and one of the wolves.
Nathan Lance of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks tells the Montana Standard in a story published Saturday that the attacks took place on ranches near Dell, Polaris and Avon.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service killed one wolf from the Bannack pack believed to have attacked and killed a calf west of Dillon. The pack has three wolves remaining.
Officials say wolves killed two calves on a ranch near Avon. Federal trappers have been authorized to shoot any wolves spotted on the ranch.
Trappers are also authorized to shoot one wolf near Dell.

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Cry, Wolf--A Must Read

By Ralph Maughan On June 1, 2011 ·

Did a Campaign of Fear and Intimidation Lead to the Gray Wolf’s Removal from the Endangered Species List?

There have been a number of analyses of the recent congressional wolf delisting in the Northern Rocky Mountains. One recent piece places much of the blame on “environmentalists.” It is available by subscription only the the High Country News, How the gray wolf lost its endangered status — and how enviros helped. The author, Hal Herring, writes that environmentalists filed one lawsuit too many. I find this doubtful except that the suit did alter the details of how the delisting took place. The anti-wolf forces were well in place in decade or more ago, making most of the same arguments they make today, including the supposed overall decline of elk, and the endless prediction that wolves will soon kill little children. It was just a matter of time until the three hostile states gained control.

I don’t think Herring is as hard on environmentalists as the story’s headline implies. Herring does correctly identify “the horde of [anti-wolf] Western politicians.” but he does not connect that fact to the use of lawsuits as the only feasible way to defend wolves from a very premature attack on them.  The lawsuits were the excuse that Senator Jon Tester and others used to justify the congressional rider to the 2011 budget bill that delisted the wolf, but Tester believed he needed something like the action he took so to defeat his Republican 2012 rival Denny Rehberg, keeping his seat and maybe the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate.
Herring is right when he wrote, “As a horde of Western politicians harnessed the anti-wolf fury, determined to get Congress to intervene, 10 of the groups involved in the fatal lawsuit panicked. Suddenly, they sought to compromise, offering a “settlement” that resembled the partial delisting they had previously sued against. There was no chance that Judge Molloy would accept the settlement . . . .”  Herring is also probably right that the initial state wolf hunts did not damage the wolves as much as some environmental groups predicted. My view is it was the second, third, and fourth hunts that worried them more.

Cry, Wolf in the Earth Island Journal by James William Gibson tracks closer to my experience in the trenches. Gibson places the blame on right wing extremists stirring up hunters in the states with  their wild tales of likely wolf attacks on people, supposed destruction of game herds, fear of wolf borne spread of disease, and intense anti-federal rhetoric. The national pro wolf groups did not have many people on the ground, leaving the grassroots wolf supporters more open to intimidation by the far right wingers. Gibson does tie the rise of the right wing wolf extremists into the rise of general right-wing hatred of Barrick Obama. I think he is right, and this has been underreported. The real crazy stuff, such as the wolves were a U.N. plot to steal land was present from the start, but it was very marginal until the summer of 2010 when the tea party arose and pretty much took over the Republican Party, thus mainstreaming ideas that had been on far shores of politics for the last century.

Supporters of wolf restoration played the game about as well as they could, given their modest resources. They could not have predicted or influenced the more general political trend that brought the far right to power in the region and nationally. The unexpected disinterest and weakness of President Obama pretty much left them without any politically powerful friends,expect maybe the courts, which they used.
On the bright side, wolves did spread and multiply quickly, a sure indication that they fit into the present-day ecosystem well. Their present number is quite a bit higher than the early proponents of wolf restoration hoped for, although it is the long term population that counts, not a single peak in the vastness of time. It is good fortune that the huge size and ruggedness of Idaho’s backcountry protects them. I think Jon Marvel is right as he stated (in Herring’s quote), “We think that Montana will establish (somewhat) moderate (wolf-hunting) seasons, and that Idaho may try to eliminate wolves in some specific areas, but that, absent the use of poison baits, wolves will survive in the backcountry even with continuous efforts to eliminate them.”

There is going to be a lot more anti-wolf talk between now and 2012 because Republicans want Rehberg in the Senate. They think Tester is vulnerable on wolves. With a majority in the U.S. Senate the strange new Republican Party might well end the hated Medicare, Social Security, minimum wage, unions, consumer safety laws, environmental protection and much more. “Crying wolf” for them could at long last end in their successful hunting down, killing and feasting on the grim remains of America’s middle class society.

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