Draft wolf plan sets bar too low, say some

A revised draft wolf management plan sets a minimum of 15 breeding pairs of gray wolves as the goal for recovery of the species in Washington, and includes provisions that would permit wolves to be killed if they are caught in the act of attacking livestock or dogs.

Work on the state’s draft management plan began five years ago, and the version released by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife last week is the result of 19 public meetings, three surveys, and a comment period that drew nearly 65,000 responses.

The 294-page document is intended to guide how state wildlife officials manage wolves, listed as endangered by the state, to allow them to re-establish a sustainable breeding population in Washington, and eventually be removed from protection.

The Methow Valley’s Lookout Mountain gray wolf pack is one of only three confirmed wolf packs in the state. Wildlife officials believe illegal killing of Lookout pack wolves is largely responsible for reducing the pack from 10 wolves to only two animals.

A key element of the new version of the wolf management plan is establishing 15 successful breeding pairs of wolves, present for three years, as the minimum number required to remove gray wolves from the list of protected species in Washington. The plan divides the state into three regions – Eastern Washington, northern Cascades, and southern Cascades/Northwest Coast – with different goals for wolf populations in each region.

To change the status of wolves from endangered to threatened, the plan requires six successful breeding pairs – two pairs in each of the three regions. To be moved from the threatened to sensitive list, the plan requires 12 breeding pairs – five in Eastern Washington, three in the northern Cascades, and four in the southern Cascades/Northwest Coast region.

Removing the wolves from any protection would require a total of 15 breeding pairs – six breeding pairs in Eastern Washington, four in the North Cascades region and five in the southern Cascades/Northwest Coast region.

The plan estimates that 15 breeding pairs would correspond to a total of about 210 wolves, which includes pups and other adult animals.

A 17-member citizen Wolf Working Group has helped draft the plan. The group includes people with very different perspectives on wolf recovery, including cattlemen, conservationists and hunters.

Jasmine Minbashian of Conservation Northwest, an organization with a seat on the Wolf Working Group, said she is pleased that the plan states that 15 breeding packs is not a “cap” for wolf recovery. “That’s just the point at which wolves get off the state endangered species list.”

The plan states that the “delisting objective of 15 successful breeding pairs (with adequate geographic distribution for three consecutive years) is not a population ‘cap’ at which the population will be limited. The plan does not place a limit on the numbers of wolves that will be allowed to live in Washington.”

Minbashian said she believes 15 breeding pairs may be “setting the bar too low” to ensure that wolves can become re-established in Washington, and noted that some scientists who reviewed the plan made the same observation.

“In the blind peer review process, two of the three blind peer reviewers stated that the recovery objectives in WDFW’s draft wolf plan were inadequate with respect to wolf recovery objectives,” the document said. “Both believed that the number of successful breeding pairs needed to achieve delisting should be higher and that the plan fell below current scientific standards for sustainability and genetic viability. The third reviewer considered the plan’s recovery objectives reasonable.”

WDFW officials used population-modeling software developed at Washington State University to determine that 15 breeding pairs would be sufficient to allow wolves to become viable in the state. The plan said wildlife officials would monitor the population to determine if the population predictions were accurate and whether recovery objectives need to be revised.

Jack Field, executive vice president of the Washington Cattlemen’s Association, said the goal for the number of breeding pairs in the management plan should be reduced to “somewhere around four or six – I’m confident we’re already there.”

Field, who serves on the Wolf Working Group, said he was concerned that “we’ve got ourselves set up to have a huge population of wolves” without a “sustainable prey base.” Field predicted that a growing wolf population would compete with hunters for deer and elk. “We’re setting ourselves up for a catastrophic collision of wildlife management and an outraged public,” Field said.

The management plan dedicates many pages to the issue of wolf impacts on other wildlife, including deer and elk, their principal prey. The plan states that “information from other states with wolves suggests that wolves will have little or no effect on elk and deer abundance or hunter harvest across large areas of Washington. While wolves have been linked to declining elk herds in some areas, they are often one of several contributing factors.”

The plan predicts that “total populations of 50 and 100 wolves are expected to have minor overall impacts on Washington’s ungulate populations. Fifty wolves may kill about 425 to 630 elk and 700 to 1,050 deer per year, with annual take doubling for 100 wolves. These levels of predation could result in noticeable effects on elk and deer abundance in some localized areas occupied by wolf packs, but should not have broad-scale impacts. These levels of loss potentially represent 1 to 2 percent of the state’s elk population and less than 1 percent of the combined deer population.” By comparison, the plan says, Washington hunters kill about 7,900 elk and 38,600 deer annually.

The plan has been revised from earlier versions to provide WDFW management options if wolves threaten at-risk populations of elk, deer or other ungulates. The methods include moving wolves to other areas, or killing wolves, as long as the controls don’t push the wolf population below the delisting limits.

Managing wolf-livestock interactions will require a variety of approaches, including non-lethal methods, such as relocating wolves, and lethal methods, the plan states. The revised draft provides that lethal control – killing – of wolves is also permitted by citizens in specific instances where wolves are observed in the act of attacking livestock and dogs. “While wolves are listed as state endangered and threatened, this management tool will be reconsidered if used inappropriately or if more than two wolves are killed under this provision in a year,” the plan states. WDFW can also consider issuing permits to livestock owners or other citizens allowing them to kill wolves that are involved in repeated livestock depredations.

In areas of the state where wolves are still listed as endangered under federal law, however, killing a wolf is prohibited. Recent changes in federal law removed wolves in the eastern third of the state, east of Highway 97, from federal protection. The Methow Valley’s Lookout Pack remains listed as endangered and protected under federal law.

The plan also has provisions for compensating livestock owners for animals that can be proved to have been killed by wolves, but Field questioned whether the state would be able to come up with funding for compensation, or for the costs of implementing the management plan.

Wolf management costs are estimated to be $1.9 million for the second through sixth year of implementation, with $275,000 of that amount for management of wolf-livestock conflicts.

“My biggest question is how are you going to pay for this?” Field said. “The legislature is in the process of cutting state budgets. I don’t see any way in the world a wolf plan is going to be funded, let alone to the level to meet the interests and needs of the communities that are impacted.”

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission – the citizen panel that guides WDFW policy – will be briefed on the draft plan and review process during its June 4 meeting in Olympia. The Wolf Working Group will meet June 8-9 in Ellensburg to review the proposed revisions. The working group’s meeting is open to the public but is not a public comment opportunity.

WDFW may release further draft plan revisions, with an updated Environmental Impact Statement, before the Fish and Wildlife Commission takes public comments on the draft plan during an Aug. 4-6 meeting in Olympia.

Two commission workshops, open to the public, are scheduled on the draft wolf plan in eastern and western Washington in September and October. The commission is scheduled to consider adoption of the plan in December.

The full document is available on the WDFW website at wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/gray_wolf/.