The Wolf Preservation Blog

By  THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Published: July 17, 2013

“There is a unit within the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service called Wildlife Services. Its official mission, according to its Web site, is “to resolve wildlife conflicts to allow people and wildlife to coexist.” This has meant, since 2000, some two million dead animals. The list includes coyotes, beavers, mountain lions, black bears and innumerable birds. The agency’s real mission? To make life safer for livestock and game species.

There will obviously be times when livestock and predators come into conflict, when coyotes kill lambs and black bears become too accustomed to humans and cause genuine harm. But Wildlife Services’ lethal damage is broad and secretive, according to a series in The Sacramento Bee last year. The techniques are old-fashioned — steel traps and cyanide cartridges — and the result, according to a new study in the journal Conservation Letters, is a program that is wasteful, destructive to the balance of ecosystems and, ultimately, ineffective.

Under one name or another — for years it was part of the Interior Department — the agency has been doing its work as quietly as possible, though not without protest from Congress, scientists and members of the public who got wind of what was going on. Two House members — John Campbell, a California Republican; and Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat — have pressed for Congressional hearings and have asked the Agriculture Department’s inspector general to investigate Wildlife Services.

The agency, opponents say, has not scientifically evaluated the consequences of its actions and has consistently understated the damage it does to “nontarget” species, like songbirds. Its work also undercuts other programs intended to protect the balance of natural ecosystems.

It is time the public got a clear picture of what Wildlife Services is up to, and time for the Department of Agriculture to bring the agency’s work into accord with sound biological practices. Resolving wildlife conflicts need not involve indiscriminate killing.”

**Special thanks to “The Editorial Board” for providing this information (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/agricultures-misnamed-agency.html)

“McIrvin says killing the wolves is the only solution. He believes the calf carcass should have been laced with poison to get the “culprits.”

“Until somebody gets serious about opening season on these wolves, I don’t know that there is any answer,” he said.

Just as he did last year, McIrvin plans to continue to refuse compensation from the state.<

Excerpted from:

Another calf found dead as ranchers question state wolf investigations

By MATTHEW WEAVER

Capital Press

A northeast Washington cattle rancher says wolves killed a three-day-old calf from his operation last week.

Len McIrvin is owner of the Diamond M Ranch in Laurier, Wash. That’s the ranch where Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife officials in September 2012 killed six wolves from the Wedge Pack. The wolves had killed at least 17 cattle from the ranch.

The killed calf was dragged from a barbed wire calving enclosure 200 yards from human presence, McIrvin said. There were fresh wolf tracks nearby in the river, he said.

“We know it was a wolf, but they can’t confirm it because the calf was 95 percent eaten up,” he said, noting coyote tracks were also found in the area.

Stephanie Simek, WDFW wildlife conflict section manager, said the case was unconfirmed as a wolf kill because there were signs of coyotes in the area. The six-strand barbed wire fence did not show signs of a larger carnivore entering the area, she said.

“The issue was the carcass was so far gone, you really couldn’t get a lot of those measurements,” said Dave Ware, WDFW game program manager. “You just couldn’t tell for sure what killed it.”

The department has been monitoring wolf activity, but didn’t find anything that would merit setting a trap to try to collar wolves.

“We’re certain there are wolves in the Wedge area again,” Ware said. “We’re seeing plenty of activity.”

McIrvin said his cattle are on the range, so he hasn’t found other kills or injuries.

“We know the wolves have been harassing them,” he said. “We know they’re there, we hear them howling, they’ve got the cows all chased off the range again. We put them back weekly, but the wolves are running them daily.”

The Stevens County Cattlemen’s Association believes the department’s unconfirmed ruling on the calf shows a “troubling trend” in which the department does not confirm wolf kills, a determination that could lead to killing the predators.

Association spokesperson Jamie Henneman said WDFW needs to clearly outline how they will deal with wolves.

“Right now we are seeing the department buckle under pressure from environmental groups who have absolutely no skin in the game,” she said. “There is no impact to their finances or livelihood if wolf management is done in a poor, watery or slipshod fashion. Band-aid payments of compensation will not solve this problem.”

Ware believes the department’s history proves it is willing to kill wolves, but said it will not always completely be on the same page as ranchers.

“Second-guessing what our field staff does seems to be a popular sport for both sides,” he said. “In their hearts, most (ranchers) feel, ‘Wolves are the things different from the landscape — it must be wolves that caused this.’ In some cases, we can verify that, in some cases, we just can’t.”

McIrvin says killing the wolves is the only solution. He believes the calf carcass should have been laced with poison to get the “culprits.”

“Until somebody gets serious about opening season on these wolves, I don’t know that there is any answer,” he said.

Just as he did last year, McIrvin plans to continue to refuse compensation from the state.

“We are not in the business of raising cattle to feed wolves. We’re in the business of raising cattle to be a cow ranch,” he said.”

Information

Washington Department Fish and Wildlife:

http://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/gray_wolf/

Stevens County Cattlemen Association:

http://stevenscountycattlemen.wordpress.com

“ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The effort to return the endangered Mexican gray wolf to the American Southwest has hit another stumbling block.

Federal and state wildlife officials confirmed Friday that a female wolf that was released into the wild in early May was found dead just one month later in southwestern New Mexico.

The animal, dubbed F1108, had been shot. Authorities released no other details and said the investigation was ongoing.

Top officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have long pointed to illegal shootings as one of the challenges to reintroducing Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico and Arizona. Since reintroduction efforts began in 1998, there have been 50 illegal killings documented, with four occurring just last year.

Environmental groups called the latest wolf death a tragedy.

“The Mexican gray wolf population cannot afford the loss of another individual, let alone a breeding female with pups,” said Nancy Gloman, vice president of field conservation for Defenders of Wildlife. “This wolf and her pups were another critical step toward the promise of recovery.”

A survey at the beginning of the year indicated there were at least 75 wolves in the wild in the two states, marking the largest population since the reintroduction program began. Environmentalists have been pushing the federal government to release more captive animals to boost those numbers.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has cited genetic concerns for moving cautiously with any releases, while ranchers and some rural community leaders have voiced concerns about their safety and livelihoods being compromised by more wolves on the landscape.

Ranchers have blamed the predators for numerous cattle deaths over the years. In June, officials investigated the deaths of three calves in Arizona. Two of the deaths were found to have been caused by wolves.

The wolf found shot in late June was one of four captive animals that the Fish and Wildlife Service had hand-picked for release this spring with the hope of bolstering the wild population. The wolves were to be released in pairs — one in the Gila Wilderness and the other in southeastern Arizona.

After weeks of waiting, the agency pulled the plug on the Arizona release and returned that pair to captivity. The pair in New Mexico fared no better with the male being captured for roaming outside of the recovery area just days after his release.

Soon afterward the pair’s pups were presumed dead, and the female started roaming. She was last located in the northeastern corner of the Gila forest near Kline Mountain.”

**Special thanks to SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated Press, for providing this information! (http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Mexican-gray-wolf-shot-killed-in-NM-4663523.php)

“Yellowstone officials expressed displeasure at a Montana state plan to increase grey-wolf hunting that also rejects the idea of a no-hunting buffer near the Park.The new wolf-hunting rules, as they stand now, would allow a hunter to bag five wolves during a longer season and set quotas in areas outside Yellowstone. When setting the new Montana wolf hunt rules, the Montana Legislature specifically prohibited a no-hunting zone near the Park.

Still, there’s some wiggle room, and Montana wildlife commissioners are expected to use that wiggle room to lessen the impact on Yellowstone wolves. Hunters near the Park would be allowed only one wolf, and the areas where quotas would apply is expanded.

That may not be enough to placate Yellowstone officials, who say the new Montana wolf hunt law targets Yellowstone wolves. Wildlife doesn’t respect human boundaries like Park limits and state lines, and given the propensity of wolves to wander over a large range in the course of a year, it’s inevitable that many will go into Montana — where, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials say, the wolves become Montana’s problem. Last year 12 Yellowstone wolves were killed in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming after leaving Yellowstone.

From AP:

Yellowstone’s chief scientist Dave Hallac said he appreciated the changes but added that it was unclear whether the commissioners will accept the agency’s recommendations.

“The park is not anti-hunting,” Hallac said. “What we’re trying to do is balance the conservation of wolves in Yellowstone, which are not an exploited population right now, with some level of reasonable harvest.”

Wildlife commission chairman Dan Vermillion said the move to lower the bag limit to one wolf near Yellowstone – versus five animals elsewhere in the state – was about increasing hunter opportunity, so that one hunter couldn’t fill the entire quota.

The presence of wolves in Yellowstone is still a contentious issue for sportsmen, who argue wolves diminish the number of elk in the region, and area ranchers who say their livestock is threatened by wolves.”

**Special thanks to the “Yellowstone Insider” for providing this information (http://yellowstoneinsider.com/2013/07/09/officials-montana-wolf-hunt-sets-sights-on-yellowstone-wolves/)!