Feds start review of Northwest gray wolves

The status of endangered gray wolves in the Pacific Northwest, which includes the Lookout Mountain wolf pack in the Methow Valley, is being reviewed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Lookout Pack is the only confirmed breeding pack identified under the federal agency’s definition of Pacific Northwest gray wolves. The status review, announced last week, is required every five years for species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Washington state wildlife officials believe the Lookout Pack has been decimated by poaching. Since the wolves were discovered in 2008, the pack has gone from as many as 10 animals to only a couple of wolves.

“I’m guessing two… based on some of the photos we’ve gotten” from motion-sensor cameras, John Rohrer, a biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, said this week. One of the animals is the pack’s alpha male, Rohrer said, but biologists don’t know whether the other wolf is a female who might be able to breed and keep the pack alive.

The status review of the Pacific Northwest wolves does not include wolves in the eastern third of Washington – basically east of the Okanogan River – that were removed by Congress from the endangered species list last month. Wolves in eastern Washington are identified as part of the Northern Rocky Mountain population, which has now lost federal protection, though are still protected by the state.

“We welcome a robust scientific review of wolves in the Pacific Northwest as long as it’s done well with scientific integrity and not done with D.C. politics,” said Jasmine Minbashian of Conservation Northwest, a Bellingham-based wildlife conservation organization that has been involved in documenting the return of wolves to the Cascade Mountains. “We hope that the review will bring attention to rampant poaching – one of the biggest obstacles to recovery of our wolves.”

Conservation Northwest is offering a $7,500 reward for information that leads to a conviction of wolf poaching in Washington.

The status review of Pacific Northwest wolves focuses on a “distinct population segment” identified by the Endangered Species Act that includes wolves in the western part of Washington and Oregon, as well as northern California, western Nevada and the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Though only one pack – the Methow Valley’s Lookout Mountain pack – has been confirmed in the Pacific Northwest area, there have been several credible reports of wolves in the central Cascades of Washington and Oregon, and in the Klamath Basin in Oregon, including a wolf that was photographed along U.S. Highway 20 near the Three Sisters Wilderness in 2009, according to USFWS.

The status review of Pacific Northwest wolves will “determine whether wolves in the Pacific Northwest… continue to warrant threatened or endangered status under the ESA,” explained a USFWS fact sheet that is available on the agency website. Status reviews of wolves in other areas of the country will also be conducted.

USFWS is accepting public comments through July 5 on the status of wolves in the region. Information on submitting comments is available online at the USFWS website, www.fws.gov.

Conducting reviews for individual gray wolf populations will allow USFWS to “refine our gray wolf listing and delist gray wolves in large portions of the country that are either outside of the historical range or no longer contain suitable habitat. These reviews will also allow the service to retain ESA protections for those wolves that represent discrete and significant populations in areas of suitable habitat,” the agency said.

Scott Fitkin, a wildlife biologist for Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, is part of an interagency team that has been monitoring the Lookout Pack during the past three years.

“Whatever data we have on status of the Lookout Pack will weigh in on the decision about how wolves are doing in Washington,” Fitkin said.

“One possible outcome from the status review is they could determine that the Cascades wolf is a separate and distinct population warranting its own recovery plan and listing,” said Minbashian of Conservation Northwest. The survey may determine whether “there is a scientifically defensible boundary for a distinct wolf population” in the Cascades, she said.

Washington state has been working on developing a wolf management plan since 2006. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is currently reviewing public and peer review comments to the draft management plan obtained over the past two years, and has scheduled meetings on June 8 and 9 with the 17-member Wolf Working Group in Ellensburg to review that information. According to a department timeline, a final management plan is expected to be developed by August for submission to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, with a decision scheduled by the end of the year.

The Endangered Species Act has required states to have a management plan in place before a species is removed from the federal endangered species list. However, the legislation attached to the budget bill that delisted Northern Rocky Mountain wolves last month sidestepped that requirement.