Washington’s state wolf plan gets official approval

Olympia, WA. The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission has finally given official approval to a state wolf plan. Before state (this is not at federal) delisting is met there are supposed to be 15 breeding pairs of wolves, not packs of wolves, in the state. The wolves must also meet a minimum state regional distribution — at least 4 breeding pairs in Eastern Washington, 4 in the northern Cascade Mountains, four in the southern Cascades/Northwest coastal area and three others anywhere in the state.

The new state law takes effect immediately to protect wolves in Eastern Washington where the federal wolf delisting left the new, first forming wolf packs without protection. The rest of the state is still protected by federal law.  That is the western 2/3.  Right now there are already 5 wolf packs in Washington, although there is probably only one that counts as a breeding pair. The wolves have migrated into Washington from Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia on their own. There was no state or federal reintroduction. Two or 3 of the packs are near state or the international boundaries, however, and so their permanent presence is Washington is far from assured.

Earlier this year 65,000 public comments were received on the proposed plan. Opponents used the typical arguments against wolves, although I noticed less emphasis on the alleged “unnatural” origin of the wolves, which have been characterized in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming as giant Canadian “killing machines” never native to the area. The low poentancy of this argument is perhaps because the wolves came into the state by themselves. Some critics, however, were taking a new tack calling them Yukon or Arctic wolves. Possibly this was because of the proximity of Canada just a few miles away makes it hard to characterize that country as some remote foreign land.

The plan meet approval after a few changes were made to satisfy some traditionally anti-wolf groups like the Farm Bureau.

Political scientists believe that wolf recovery in Washington state might be less controversial because it is a competitive two party state with a more diverse economy than the 3 Rocky Mountain states of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. In the historical sweep of American politics traditional economy, one-party states (whether Republican or Democrat) have been slow to innovate on economic or environmental policies.

Here is the Associated Press story from the Seattle PI. WA commission approves wolf management plan, and here a conservation group story: Wildlife Commission Adopts Wolf Recovery Plan. Conservation Northwest applauds collaborative approach to wolf conservation by Conservation Northwest.