OUTDOORS: Wolves now have a plan and future

The first-ever state wolf conservation and management plan, which doesn't include as one of its tacit but prime directives "shoot on sight," was adopted by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday, Dec. 3.

A prodigious four-year effort, which included 12 public meetings, seven formal scoping discussions, the workings of a 17-member citizen wolf advisory group, independent review by experts and close to 65,000 individual citizen comments, culminated in a 298-page document that, in part, contains certain numeric and distribution targets for the population and establishes guidelines for dealing with wolf impacts on domestic livestock as well as native big game populations.

The goal of the plan is to foster a self-sustaining population of the often vilified apex predator that will enable its management to transition from current partial federal protection to a fully state-based system as with any other abundant wildlife species, giving them a rightful place here.

WOLVES THEN AND NOW

Wolves were common throughout most of Washington prior to European settlement.

Their initial exploitation was through the fur trade as documented in the records of the Hudson's Bay Co. outposts in the unclaimed territories.

Historical records cited in the report indicate the native gray wolf population was substantially reduced by traps, poison and bullets in a five-decade period between 1850 and 1900.

Besides their elimination on private grazing properties, a concerted capture and kill effort, primarily by the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey, was undertaken on national forest lands open to grazing.

State government bounties also were paid upon presentation of pelts at county offices in the early 1900s and records show that even the National Park Service contributed to the pogrom on wolves between 1910 and 1930 through their "predator control" efforts at Mount Rainier National Park.

State researchers say that by the 1930s wolf numbers were so sparse in Washington the population was no longer considered viable.

Occasional sighting reports during the wolf-less interim (1930s-1980s) were thought to be animals coming in from Canada or the Rocky Mountains and not lucky indigenous survivors.

Their comeback now is a continuation of that immigration dynamic, the result of range extensions or expansion of gray wolf populations in neighboring British Columbia and other northwest states, not deliberate reintroduction.

In fact, under the new plan importation of wolves from outside Washington to facilitate repatriation to unoccupied locales is banned. To achieve recovery according to the standard set in the plan, wolves will have to continue to spread themselves around.

As of 2011, five established resident packs or breeding pairs (with pups) of gray wolves have been confirmed in Washington, two in the Central and North Cascades and three in northeast Washington.

They are the:

- Lookout Pack (Chelan/Okanogan counties), verified in 2008.
- Diamond Pack (Pend Oreille County), verified in 2009.
- Salmo Pack (Pend Oreille County), verified in 2010.
- Smackout Pack (Stevens County), verified in June 2011.
- Teanaway Pack (Kittitas County), verified in July 2011.

DNA tests have pinpointed the ancestral lineage of these packs as natural gray wolf and not wolf-dog hybrids or wolfish lookalike canines.

Not counting the members of the newly found Teanaway family, by this year free-roaming wolves were thought to number 25 in Washington.

LEGAL STATUS

Though still retaining their vilified status as far as some humans are concerned, Western U.S. gray wolves finally achieved federal protection in 1973 with passage of the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

In 1980 Washington State followed suit preferring protection of the species under its own threatened and endangered laws.

As of today, federal ESA protection has been relaxed on wolves living in the far eastern portion of Washington with their removal from the threatened and endangered ranks there. However, gray wolves found in Central and Western Washington still retain federal ESA protection.

The state's designation as endangered applies statewide even where they have been taken off the federal list.

This division of statutory authorities currently gives the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (state) management purview in the eastern third of the state, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (federal) remains for the time being the responsible or lead agency in the remaining two thirds (central and west) of the state.

With the advent of a unified state approach governing recovery of wolves, the federal agency could cede control to state wildlife managers.

WOLVES: THE FUTURE

The metric or milestone set out in the new state plan as an indicator of recovery is the occurrence of 15 pairs of breeding wolves perpetuating themselves for a minimum three-year period.

When that or any of several other standards are met by the population, gray wolves may be considered restored and eligible for removal from the state's "special protection" ledgers.

An auxiliary standard that would enable their removal the state's T/E listing is the establishment of four breeding pairs each in three delineated recovery sub-areas: Eastern, North Cascades and Southern Cascades/Northwest Coast.

The state also has the prerogative of moving them to the ranks of "sensitive" or "regulated" wildlife if 18 breeding pairs of wolves are found to occur in a single year.

In any event, the plan means wolves are here to stay permanently as part of the ecology and natural history of the state.

But creation of the plan does not mean that they will be able to run rampant.

The livestock sector of the agrarian economy in general and individual owners of cattle, sheep and other domesticated animals will be given a hand in the protection of their property under the new plan.

That assistance will include both monetary compensation for wolf kills in their herds and if necessary assistance, including lethal removal, in warding off the predators.

Wildlife managers also will have the latitude to deal with wolves as they renew their adversarial role with native game animals.

The first order of controls granted in the plan may be applied to wolves preying on at-risk caribou, deer and elk populations, most specifically the highly scarce woodland caribou of Northeast Washington and the Columbian white-tailed deer of Southwest Washington.

Biologists will have leeway to kill or capture and relocate wolves to give respite to these and other big game herds, though wolf recovery objectives must first have been achieved or met before actions with singular finality are used.

THE WOLF PLAN ONLINE

Washington's new wolf plan as ratified by the commission now applies to all of the eastern third of the state. The commission made several changes to the document, the full text of which will be posted for public availability in early January.

Up-to-date information on wolf management can be obtained via the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Web portal at wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/gray_wolf/.

NEW COMMISSIONERS

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission is again nine members strong with the recent appointment by Governor Christine Gregoire of Larry Carpenter, Mount Vernon and Jay Kehne, Omak, to the vacant Western Washington and Eastern Washington positions, respectively.

Commission members serve for six years and may be reappointed. They are selected in accordance with a formula in which three must reside east of the summit of the Cascade mountains, three west of the summit and three from anywhere around the state.

Carpenter owns Master Marine Services Inc., in Mount Vernon. He also sits on the Southern Panel of the Pacific Salmon Commission. He lives in Mount Vernon with wife, Eileen, and is on the Northwest Marine Trade Association's Fish Committee advocating for increased sport-fishing opportunities in Washington.

Kehne currently is a regional outreach associate for Conservation Northwest. For 31 years he worked at the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service as resource conservation and development coordinator for Chelan, Douglas and Okanogan counties. Kehne is a member of both the Rocky Mountain Elk and Mule Deer foundations and lives in Omak with his wife Rita and two children.

They will officially take their seats on the panel at its January 2012 session.