Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf controversy?

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

By Jake Nichols

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-“I thought this delisting would be quiet, and boy was I wrong,” said Cat Urbigkit, a Big Piney resident and something of a wolf expert. Urbigkit, a sheep rancher, writes a tally sheet update for the Pinedale Online called “Wolf Watch,” sits on the Sublette County Predator Board and has been active in wolf issues for almost 20 years. Urbigkit was surprised by the initial reaction to the removal of the northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf from endangered species act protection by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“Some people are saying they will start shooting cattle when they see them on public land. ‘It’s the ranchers that should be shot,’ others are saying, advocating violence,” she said.

Management of the wolf is now in the hands of the individual states – Wyoming, Idaho and Montana – that harbor the estimated 1,500-strong population. That transition began March 28 with a bang. Four wolves were reported killed on the first weekend of “open season,” six in all as of press time, all in Sublette County.

Some point to the pace of the killings in the predator management zones as a self-fulfilling prophecy pitched by the environmental groups seeking an injunction against the wolf delisting. The perception of many outside the controversy was that once the animal was delisted, Wyomingites would begin the slaughter. Dubois, Wyoming, outfitter Budd Betts told the Casper Star-Tribune, “There’s a concern that we are completely playing into the hands of the environmentalists. … Obviously we want to go after problem wolves, but to actually hunt them – it’s just going to be self-defeating and it may get the wolf relisted.”

Indeed, news has already made the rounds in Utah that one of the wolves killed in Sublette County was Wolf 253M. The Druid Pack wolf had achieved folk hero status in the state after it was caught in a coyote trap just east of Ogden in 2002. The wolf survived with only three functioning legs and eventually made its way back to Daniel, Wyoming, where it was confirmed killed. “Wolf 253M gunned down for fun …” read the headline in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Under the state’s new wolf management guidelines, two zones of classification are called for. In the northwest portion of Wyoming, wolves will be considered trophy game and can be harvested only during an as-yet-undetermined official hunt to be opened in the fall of 2008. Outside the trophy game boundary, wolves will be given predator status which allows for their removal by any means deemed legal in accordance with state statutes. This includes a limited trapping season, which will be proposed in the future.

Even poisoning, when done in compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency and governing land management agency, or aerial gunning, when issued a permit by the Wyoming Department of Agriculture, will be legal means of taking wolves in the predator management zones.

“As it is now, you could throw a stick of dynamite in a den to blow up a pack of wolves [in the predator management area],” said Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance Executive Director, Franz Camenzind. The Alliance is one of a dozen or so environmental and wildlife protection agencies that have formed a coalition with Earthjustice, and together with Defenders of Wildlife, have fought the wolf delisting and recently sent a 60-day notice of intent to sue the Bush administration over the animal’s removal from the endangered species list.

Camenzind agreed that the predator management zones – set up in traditional ranch country – are areas that wolves should steer clear of, but laments the early loss of six wolves in Sublette County.

“We lost the Daniel Pack in one weekend,” Camenzind said. “One of those wolves would have turned eight years old soon, and to the best of my knowledge he was never in trouble.”

‘In trouble’ is what ranchers and agency men call wolves that abandon wildlife hunting for easier prey like cattle and sheep. Many ‘nuisance’ wolves also kill stock dogs and family pets. Urbigkit herself has lost at least six sheep dogs to wolves over the past eight years. She believes now that stockmen can take matters into their own hands, wolves will learn the hard way to stay out of ranch lands.

Ed Bangs isn’t so sure wolves will get the message. Bangs is the Wolf Recovery Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Nobody knows if wolves will get smarter. That’s one of the big things we will probably have to find out as we go,” he said. “We’ve been pounding them for years and they haven’t learned. We’ll see what happens when people who aren’t as good a shot as Game and Fish start shooting at them. At any rate, it’s better than paying me to jump into a helicopter and use taxpayer money to blast ’em.”

Bangs said agency kills of ‘trouble wolves’ amounted to 10 percent of the population last year. Bangs said they shoot 40 percent In Montana and the state still has problems with stock depredation. Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter told the Idaho Mountain Express that he’s “eager to land a wolf hunting tag,” and that he’d “like to see about 550 of the state’s 650 wolves killed.”

Advocates of the management plan in place in Wyoming say it leaves prime habitat for the wolf – the northwest corner of the state including Yellowstone – and any migration too far south and east of this zone puts the canine in conflict with livestock producers. Wildlife groups that oppose the delisting say the area where the wolf can be killed on sight makes up 90 percent of the state.  Such aggressive extermination measures will result in the massacre of animals at the hands of avid hunters and Wyoming ranchers who have a longstanding hatred of the wolf.

The chance that wolves will remain in northwest Wyoming seems slim. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services admitted that Yellowstone was “saturated” with wolves. In Wyoming, when the packs leave designated trophy game areas, Bangs said they are in trouble almost immediately. Game and Fish spokesman Eric Keszler confirmed that predator management areas are certainly developing hotspots.

Bangs sees a long road ahead for the wolf if it is slow to adjust to the areas of Wyoming where eager rifles wait. “The kind of wolf that is most likely to be harvested will be the boldest ones and the ones in the most trouble with livestock,” he said. “And that’s good from the agency’s standpoint. But wolves are dumber than a box of rocks. A wolf learns by watching. That observational behavior sucks when the guy they’re studying has an ought-six.”

Courtesy photo
Old time wolf management in Wyoming.

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Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf controversy? | Planet JH News Article: General Environment

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