Washington works on new wolf plan

Washington still plans to adopt a gray wolf management plan by the end of the year even though the federal government no longer lists the predator as an endangered species in the eastern third of the state.

In response to federal legislation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisted the gray wolf in Idaho, Montana, part of Utah and eastern portions of Washington and Oregon on May 5.

Idaho began issuing hunting licenses and Montana plans to.

But there are hundreds of wolves in Idaho and probably only a couple of dozen in Washington, said Madonna Luers, spokeswoman for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in Spokane.

The wolf remains federally endangered in the western two-thirds of Washington and is on the state's list as endangered throughout the state.

Washington Fish and Wildlife's 17-member Wolf Working Group meets June 8-9 in Ellensburg to finalize a wolf plan that will be submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Commission Aug. 5-6 in Olympia, Luers said.

Commissioners likely will set a round of public review and adopt a plan of some sort at a Dec. 2-3 meeting, she said.

Not even the state budget crisis is expected to interrupt the work.

"The wolves are coming (from Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia) and it's our responsibility as a state agency to manage them and ... deal with conflicts," Luers said.

The plan protects wolves until their population reaches 15 breeding pairs for three years. Then limited hunting may be considered.

A minority in the Wolf Working Group -- including the Washington Cattlemen's Association, other agricultural interests and hunters -- say 15 pairs translates into 28 to 35 because of the way they are counted. They fear the wolf population will be too large before hunting is allowed.

Others in the working group believe 15 pairs aren't enough, Luers said.

That is the main issue, along with a lack of funding to compensate ranchers for the loss of livestock to wolves, Luers said.

The cattlemen's association has called for a population viability analysis to prove whether the state has enough wildlife to support hunting and 15 breeding pairs of wolves.

Such an analysis likely would prove there's enough wildlife to support far more than 15 breeding pairs, Luers said.

A scientific peer review also recommended a population viability analysis from the perspective that 15 is low, she said.

But more wolves are needed for sufficient data to do such an analysis, Luers said.

"In time as we get more wolves a population viability analysis probably will be done," she said.

Washington State University researchers have prepared a model predicting population growth, based on other states, that will be released at the June 8-9 meeting, she said. But it is limited with a lot of caveats, she said.

The state has one known breeding pair or pack in the northeast corner and wolves suspected in Okanogan County, Hozomeen Lake in the North Cascades and the Blue Mountains in the southeast.

The line dividing the federal endangered listing to the west and delisting to the east is Highway 97 from the Canadian border to Bridgeport, then Highway 17 to Mesa and Highway 395 to the Oregon border.

The state, instead of federal government, has jurisdiction over wolf kills in the delisted area. Penalties are generally greater in the federally listed area to the west of the line, Luers said.