The great wolf debate comes to Yakima

YAKIMA, Wash. -- With two wolf packs totaling about a dozen animals and more expected in the coming years, Washington state is grappling with a proposed wolf management plan.

Authors of the plan called the process that produced it wrenching and polarizing. In short: a flashpoint issue.

When it comes to attitudes about wolves, there seems to be no middle ground.

Hunters are afraid wolves will decimate elk and deer populations. Ranchers fear the state’s newest alpha predator will wreak havoc on their livestock. Conservationists worry that hunters and ranchers will shoot the wolves despite state or federal protections.

A recently released draft management plan by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife sets minimum standards for downlisting and delisting wolves in Washington, where they are federally protected in the western two-thirds of the state and state-protected across all of Washington.

It provides guidelines for moving wolves to keep their populations at sustainable and manageable limits, dictates how and when wolves may be scared off or killed, and outlines how the state will balance the wolves’ needs with the desires of sportsmen who pay hefty fees to hunt the very deer and elk the wolves do.

It also calls for a generous compensation package for owners whose livestock has been killed by wolves. But even members of the citizens’ working group that devised the plan question where that money will come from.

Several working-group members described the plan as a compromise.

It was “a way to find some common ground,” but doesn’t qualify as a perfect plan for any of them, said Derrick Knowles of Conservation Northwest, which works to preserve wildlife habitat.

Former state wildlife commissioner Bob Tuck of Selah doubts any single group member agreed with all facets of the plan. But he calls it “a good plan ... in a complex wildlife issue, in which society has multiple responsibilities.”

Wolves’ ebb and flow

The state’s two existing wolf packs, the Lookout Pack near Twisp and the Diamond Pack in the state’s northeast corner, are a far cry from the thousands that once lived here.

By the 1930s, aggressive hunting — often with bounties being paid — essentially eliminated gray wolves in Washington. In 1973, they were federally listed as endangered.

After federal reintroduction efforts, the wolf population grew to more than 1,500 in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming over the past 15 years. With thousands more in British Columbia, it was only a matter of time before packs expanded into Washington. There is no clear estimate when wolves might reach the Yakima area.

Not everyone wants a repeat of what has happened in Idaho.

Eric Johnson, a self-described “hard-core hunter” from Pend Oreille County, is adamant that wolves have taken a heavy hit on elk and deer in Idaho and will do the same in Washington. When that happens, he said, the hunters — not the wolves — would pay the price.

“It sounds like (state officials are) going to manage to recover these wolves, and if deer and elk populations get hurt, the first thing they’re going to do is cut the hunting seasons,” Johnson said.

“Wait until (wolves) start showing up in Yakima. Those wolves will be cutting into the biggest herd in the state — that’s when it’ll get people’s attention. It’s out of sight, out of mind, until they show up in your neighborhood. When you’re out hunting and they’re howling in the woods and you haven’t seen an elk in five days, it’ll hit home.”

Effect on deer and elk

But working group member Tommy Petrie, president of the Pend Oreille Sportsmen’s Club, has heard that argument a lot and isn’t convinced.

“I hate to say (wolves) are going to devastate the elk population, but on the other hand I don’t know,” Petrie said, adding that in general, hunter harvest “is still pretty good” in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming — three states in the Northern Rocky Mountains’ regional wolf recovery program.

The wolves have “definitely changed the dynamics of how you go about hunting the elk” in Idaho, he noted. “By (the year) 2000, when we really started seeing wolf activity, you could go to any one of the six or seven different drainages we hunt pretty heavily and you could run into elk sign. Now the tactics change a little bit — you might go through a few different drainages and not find any elk, but when you do find them, it’s the mother lode.”

Working group member Duane Cocking of Newman Lake, near Spokane, said it felt like he, as a hunting advocate, was “fighting city hall the whole time” during the draft-plan process. “The (state wildlife) department definitely wants wolves,” he said. “There’s that worry on my part and on most hunters’ part, that the emphasis would be on recovery of the wolves rather than protection of the deer and elk.

“I’d much prefer to see a hunter harvest an animal than a predator (kill the same animal).”

About the numbers

But when Cocking declared in a working-group meeting that the state wildlife department should be more focused on providing hunting opportunities than on limiting them with an increased predator presence, Tuck disagreed.

“(The wildlife department’s) job by statute is to manage the fish and wildlife and their habitat. That’s their first responsibility. Providing recreational opportunities is secondary,” said Tuck, the former state wildlife commissioner. “And it makes no difference if the department wants wolves or not, because the wolves are here and now we have to manage them.”

But how many should the state manage? The proposed plan calls for a graduated lowering of state-protected status based wolf population expansion, with delisting to take place once the state can document 15 successful breeding pairs for three consecutive years, spread throughout the state.

The 15-pair minimum number is “way too high,” said working-group member Jack Field of the Washington Cattlemen’s Association. “In my opinion, that’s completely out of whack.”

Field also took umbrage with the plan’s allowing livestock owners to kill a wolf only if it’s “in the act” of attacking livestock — biting, wounding or killing — not just chasing or pursuing. “The concern I have is that a livestock producer is going to be prosecuted for illegally killing a wolf,” Field said. “I think that’s one of the key issues that will draw a lot of attention and discussion during the comment period (which lasts until Jan. 8), and perhaps the department will reconsider that.”

Where to from here?

Working-group member Greta M. Wiegand of Seattle said the plan wasn’t “something we can lay down on the table now and walk away from. ... We do not want to end up with a wolf population that is not genetically sound, not enough different wolf families in there. We all hope that will be watched very carefully — nobody wants genetically unsound wolves running around out there. That wouldn’t be good for anybody.”

Whether the state will be able to follow up its ambitious plan with active management, though, is a legitimate question at a time when the wildlife department has had to cut its budget by large chunks. Working-group member John Blankenship, once a regional deputy director with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, has his doubts.

“It’s all going to fall on its face, because there’s no money to pay for depredation (repaying ranchers for livestock killed by wolves), and the legislature and the commission haven’t demonstrated they’re going to come up with any,” Blankenship said. “In fact, they kind of laugh when you ask them.”

Whether anybody will be laughing Thursday night, when the state holds its Yakima forum on the plan, is another question entirely.