Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Locals denounce state?s wolf plan

Most speakers advise Fish and Game to take cautious approach on proposed wolf hunt

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By JASON KAUFFMAN
Express Staff Writer

Hailey resident Jon Marvel, the executive director of Western Watersheds Project, addresses Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials who gathered in Hailey Monday to listen to comments on the agency?s draft wolf population management plan. Marvel described the document as a plan to kill wolves. Photo by Willy Cook

Slow down.

Adopt a cautious wait-and-see approach to implementing Idaho's first managed wolf hunt.

The state's draft wolf population management plan is nothing more than a recipe for the wholesale slaughter of Idaho's wolf population.

The state should designate a number of wolf viewing areas throughout Idaho—places where wolves can go about their lives free from the threat of being shot or trapped.

Those, and a litany of other similarly inclined pro-wolf comments, were just some of the opinions that came out of a public hearing held in Hailey on Monday night. Held at the Community Campus in Hailey, the three-hour-long meeting indicated just how deeply opposed to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game's proposed wolf population management plan many Wood River Valley residents are.

Of the several dozen speakers who commented during the Fish and Game-sponsored open house, less than a handful indicated any level of support for the draft plan.

Most comments were similar to those made by Hailey resident Jennifer Montgomery.

Describing the plan as a "license to kill" and "unbalanced," Montgomery said the proposed harvest strategy it sets out should have been based on the opinions of a larger cross-section of Idahoans.

"Not just ranchers and the hunting industry," she said.

Pointing to studies that indicate wolves provide numerous ecological benefits, Montgomery said Fish and Game should first institute a limited experimental hunt "to ensure wolves are sustained."

Jon Marvel, the outspoken executive director of the Hailey-based Western Watersheds Project, thanked the local elected officials who recently convinced Fish and Game to hold an additional wolf meeting locally. The agency had intended to hold just nine meetings statewide, including two in the nearby communities of Challis and Jerome, but after hearing concerns in early December from the Blaine County Commission and Idaho House Minority Leader Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, Fish and Game officials scheduled Monday's meeting.

But unlike the other wolf meetings held throughout the state, the county commissioners and Jaquet decided to host a public comment period after the Fish and Game meeting, Marvel noted.

"Other people in the state have not had this opportunity," he said. "It's troubling."

He said having wolves back in the state is one of the best things that has ever happened in Idaho.

"I think a lot of people feel that way," he said.

At its core, the intent of the state's wolf management plan is to kill wolves, Marvel said.

"That's what they want to do. That's what they're going to do," he said.

Also weighing in on the plan was noted wolf expert and Ketchum resident Jim Dutcher, whose popular documentary "Living With Wolves" followed the lives of the captive Sawtooth Wolf Pack.

Dutcher said many commonly held ideas about wolf behavior are simply untrue. He said one of these is the belief that wolves will decimate the Idaho livestock industry.

"Livestock losses have been less than one percent," he said

Another of these is the belief that wolves are killing off Idaho's elk population, which is not supported by Fish and Game population figures, Dutcher said. He said the fewer numbers of elk that hunters say they are seeing can be attributed to the increasingly wary ways of the large ungulates, which have taken to more rugged areas in the face of pressure from wolves.

"The wolves are redistributing the elk," he said.

Dutcher said wolves are contributing to a whole range of ecological improvements seen in the Northern Rockies. He said these benefits extend to riparian areas and other predator species like grizzly bears and wolverines.

"Wildlife biologists are amazed by the rapid changes they're seeing," he said.

In general, the overriding attitude that came out of Monday's meeting was one advising the Fish and Game to slow down and take a more cautious approach to Idaho's first-ever managed wolf hunt. If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service successfully delists wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountain states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming from the federal Endangered Species List by late March, as it has already announced it intends to do, those states would take over management of the controversial species.

However, a number of conservation groups have announced that they intend to sue the federal government to stop or delay the expected delisting of Northern Rockies wolves. That could delay the transfer of wolf management to Idaho and its neighboring states.

In recent years, Idaho's wolf population has been growing at an annual rate of 20 percent, according to Fish and Game figures. In 2006, biologists estimated the state's wolf population at 673, with 41 breeding pairs and 72 packs.

The state's draft wolf plan specifies 15 breeding pairs as the lowest level Idaho wolves will be allowed to fall to, and further states that "optimal hunting opportunity and flexibility in conflict resolution can be achieved by maintaining more than 20 breeding pairs."

Some of the most heated exchanges that took place during the Hailey meeting had to do with the methodology that Fish and Game used to survey the public's opinions on wolf management. Speaking to the crowd, Magic Valley Region wildlife biologist Regan Berkley said the department sent out a total of 3,000 questionnaires—with 1,000 of those going to those involved in Idaho's livestock industry, 1,000 to those involved in the state's hunting industry and the final 1,000 questionnaires sent to the general public.

Berkley said an outside professional consultant hired by the Fish and Game compiled and summarized the comments generated by the survey.

Nevertheless, the survey isn't an accurate representation of all Idahoans, many said.

Among these was Lynne Stone, executive director of the Boulder-White Clouds Council and an outspoken advocate for protection of Idaho's wolves. As a volunteer with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Stone spends much of the year in the Sawtooth Valley trying to minimize the interaction of wolves and livestock that occupy the area.

She said the Fish and Game survey was only sent to a limited cross-section of Idahoans who list land-based telephones as their primary telephone number. She said the survey wasn't sent to Idaho residents who don't have land-based telephones, but instead only use cell phones.

"It tended to go to a ... white male, head of household," she said.

Among her comments, Stone asked that Blaine County be declared a wolf-safe zone off-limits to wolf hunting. She said the draft plan could lead to the killing off of as many as three-quarters of the state's wolves.

"I'm very disappointed in this plan. It's extremely biased against wolves," she said.

Other speakers voiced concerns about how actively Fish and Game will investigate and prosecute poaching of wolves once they lose their protected federal status. They said people who dislike wolves will continue to shoot them once the state takes over their management.

"The key there is it's illegal," Berkley countered. "We're very serious about prosecuting people who break wildlife laws."

Still another concern voiced by several speakers had to do with what will happen when a member or members of a wolf pack are killed. When members of the pack are killed by hunters, the remaining wolves will likely disperse into other areas, which would likely put them into trouble with ranchers, the speakers said.

The long line of pro-wolf comments did seem to strike a nerve with several people who attended the meeting.

"I don't get where you're coming from," Hailey resident Gary Busch said pointedly to the crowd.

An Idaho big game hunter for 38 years, Busch wondered aloud about the concern locals have for wolves, which he said overrides their regard for deer and elk. He said an unregulated wolf population will lead to reduced big game populations.

"Are you talking about unrestricted wolves?" he asked.

Public comment sought on wolf plan

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is accepting public comment on its draft wolf population management plan until Monday, Dec. 31. Written comments on the plan can be submitted online at the Fish and Game's Web site, or by mailing them to Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Box 25, Boise, ID 83707.