Controversy of the wild: The return of the wolf

A gray wolf howling to a full moon still symbolizes the wild West, even though such a sight was practically nonexistent for 70 years.

His call is said to send shivers down the spine, evoking fear in some, delight in others. His return stirs debate like few others.

Early 20th century author, hunter and wilderness proponent Aldo Leopold put it this way: “Only a mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf.”

Love him or hate him, the wolf is coming back to Washington state.
For the past few years, people in the Methow Valley and in other parts of Eastern Washington have reported seeing or hearing lone wolves. Last month, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed that a wolf pack has established itself near Twisp. It’s the first time a family of wolves has made Washington its home since the 1930s, officials say.

Since early 2006, Fish and Wildlife officials have been meeting with representatives of various groups, from hunters and sheepherders to environmentalists, to hash out a plan for the wolf’s recovery.

Although the plan isn’t finalized, “The timing is good,” said Rocky Beach, manager of wildlife diversity for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Later this year, the state will hold a series of public meetings on the plan and seek comments on it before asking the Washington Wildlife Commission to adopt it.

Those who’ve met on the Wolf Working Group for the last year and a half to hash out a recovery plan say people should know two basic things about the draft.

First, everyone in this diverse group agrees it’s to everyone’s benefit to recover the gray wolf as quickly as possible. More wolves sooner means a healthier population. And, the faster they’re taken off the Endangered Species List, the sooner people can kill problem wolves. All agree, there are sure to be some.

Secondly, members of the Wolf Working Group could not agree on the numbers: How many wolves should there be in Washington before they’re delisted? Wolves in other parts of the West have recovered quickly without human predators. The question remains, how long should it be a criminal offense to shoot one, and what needs to happen in terms of recovery before someone can buy a license to hunt them down?

The numbers game

The draft plan now says the state will consider limited hunting of gray wolves when at least 15 breeding pairs and 182 wolves have been present in the state for three years in a row.

Those wolves must be distributed throughout three regions — Eastern Washington, the North Cascades, and a combined region of the Southern Cascades and Northwest Coast.

The plan is an attempt to determine how many wolf packs will ensure a viable population throughout most of its historical range, but state officials say there’s no easy way to determine that. “One of the big challenges is, we don’t know exactly how they’ll react in the Washington environment,” Beach said.

It’s also the only part of the plan in which the Wolf Working Group didn’t reach consensus. Six of the 17 citizen members issued a minority opinion that basically cut the number in half, contending that eight breeding pairs and 80 individuals should suffice.

Jack Field, executive vice president of the Washington State Cattlemen’s Association and one of six members of the Wolf Working Group who wrote a minority opinion on numbers, said they worry the plan calls for far more breeding pairs than Washington’s habitat can support.

Field said once the state is ready to delist the gray wolf, they’re sure to face legal challenges, which will take more than a year to resolve, leaving an already high wolf population free to expand with little ability to control them. “I think once the public takes a look and realizes the magnitude of this plan, and how many wolves we’re talking about, they’re going to say, ‘This is a lot of wolves. Do I want this in my backyard?’... People need to be fully aware of this. It’s not like we’re trying to re-establish the pygmy rabbit,” he said.

Field said wolf populations in other states have suddenly spiked after reaching nine or 10 packs. “As long as they’re threatened or listed, as citizens and as livestock producers, our hands are tied behind our backs. Our ability to manage them is virtually nil,” he said.

Tommie Petrie Jr., also a dissenting member and president of the Pend Oreille County Sportsmen’s Club, said delisting the wolf sooner should be seen as a management tool. “If we can carry more without huge impact, then let’s carry more. I don’t think anyone wants to see them go extinct. But if we get to these numbers and they’re causing quite a bit of conflict, that’s not good for anyone,” he said.

Others on the Wolf Working Group contend the numbers in the draft plan may be too low.

“No one really knows what’s needed, and what’s going to be enough,” said Derrick Knowles, outreach coordinator of Conservation Northwest. “We think those numbers will be sufficient enough to have a population that’s not going to suffer from inbreeding. We’re waiting for the scientific peer review. That will give us a real good indicator of whether these numbers are too low, or biologically sound.”

Members of the Wolf Working Group did agree that once there are enough wolf packs in one area for a healthy population, the state should consider moving new packs from that area to places where there are no packs.

Translocation within the state will allow wolves to get past barriers — like cities and major highways — to repopulate the rest of the state. It will also help prevent wolves from becoming too numerous in one area of the state while there are still places without wolves, preventing delisting.

Public support necessary for recovery

Conservation groups recognize that people have to want wolves back for wolves to survive.

“The biggest threat to wolves once they’re on the ground is social acceptance,” Knowles said. If ranchers, farmers and rural residents aren’t included in making plans for recovery, “people are more likely to take matters into their own hands,” he said.

According to a survey done for the draft plan, 75 percent of Washington residents support recovering wolves, and 17 percent oppose. The rest have no opinion or don’t know.

Support for the wolf is higher in urban areas, where 80 percent of people support recovering the large carnivore, and even higher in suburban areas, with 84 percent favoring recovery.

Sentiment favoring the wolf drops to 71 percent in rural non-farm areas, 70 percent in small towns, and 64 percent among those living on a farm. The strongest opposition — 18 percent strongly opposed and 4 percent somewhat opposed — also comes from the farming community.

But state officials say it won’t just be ranchers and farmers who regularly see wolves, once they’re recovered.

The draft plan notes that as wolves recover, some are likely to take up residency in places where people live, and particularly where they recreate, like national forests. Other than livestock, the biggest risk for conflict will be to hunting or pet dogs, the plan states.

Scott Fitkin, wildlife biologist for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife who has been monitoring the wolf pack near Twisp, said people should know that wolves are not wilderness animals, though many people think of them as such.

When deer range in the backcountry, wolves will tend to stick to more remote areas, he said. But in the winter, they’ll go to some of the valley’s major deer winter ranges, which are closer to places where people live. “We’re going to have to learn to coexist with them,” he said.

Beach said from the state’s perspective, the wolf is a missing part of the ecosystem. “Having wolves back, I think, is a good thing. It provides a full suite of species in the ecological system. People in general are excited about that. I am too, but we have to manage the conflicts that surround that.”

What ranchers and hunters can expect

According to the draft plan, people should expect that wolves will kill large numbers of deer and elk, and will probably also make off with a fair number of cattle, sheep, poultry and pets, depending on where they’re living.

Last year in Idaho, where about 730 wolves roamed, packs killed a confirmed 53 cattle, 170 sheep and eight dogs, according to the draft recovery plan. Forty-three wolves were killed as a result. But sheep and cattle ranchers say many more are likely killed by wolves, but ranchers just can’t prove it.

Field noted that many cattlemen don’t see their stock every day. They range in areas that are remote, and difficult to reach. He thinks the plan offers one of the best compensation programs in the West, because it is the first to allow compensation for unaccounted animals, even if a rancher can’t prove it was killed by a wolf.

To be eligible for unconfirmed losses, there must be a confirmed pack in the area, and a rancher must establish an average mortality rate for his herd before wolves came on the scene.

“The big issue, the 10,000-pound gorilla in the room, is funding,” Field said. The state will have to provide an estimated $750,000 a year, and that could be a sticking point, he said.

“I think we came up with a pretty good compensation plan, as long as it stays intact. And, the Legislature has to fund it,” agreed Art Swannack, president of the Washington State Sheep Producers. He said unfortunately the group couldn’t come up with a method to compensate livestock owners whose animals were stressed, and lost weight, from wolves chasing them.

He said just as there’s an obligation by people in Washington to compensate ranchers who lose livestock, ranchers are also obligated to do what they can to prevent wolf attacks. Swannack said he’ll probably start by getting more guard dogs, and will look at using people to patrol sheep herds. “I want to discourage them from thinking sheep are a good meal,” he said.

Knowles said conservation groups agree that ranchers need to be compensated for their losses. If there’s no compensation program, livestock owners are more likely to take care of problem wolves themselves.

“I think the burden is still on the livestock producers to do everything they can to have a clean operation, that’s not attractive to wolves,” he added. “What we tried to do with this plan is be more creative. Some stock may be taken by wolves that they may never be able to tell. So we tried to create a provision that would request funding and potentially provide some sort of compensation for losses that wouldn’t be able to be verified.”

The wolves’ main diet, however, will be not be sheep and cattle, but deer and elk. Biologists believe that when 100 wolves are established in Washington, they’ll eat more than 2,800 deer and elk each year, but those numbers are hard to predict, the draft plan says.

Petrie, who represented hunters on the Wolf Working Group, said he’s not overly concerned about the impact on other wildlife.

“They’re not out there eating Alpo. They’re eating game. But if you look at all the statistics, it doesn’t look like they’re having a major impact” on hunting in Idaho, he said.

Petrie said he regularly hunts elk along the St. Joe River in Idaho, where wolves have been re-established since about 2000, with little impact on hunting, although he has noticed that elk have changed their habits.

“We used to go into any drainage and find elk. Now, you might go into several and not find any, but when you do run into elk signs, you run into quite a few more,” he said.
Elk herds appear to be congregating in larger numbers to protect themselves from wolves, he said.

Petrie said people moving into deer and elk territory, dividing land and building houses have a much bigger impact on wildlife than wolves.

Petrie said many hunters are in favor of all kinds of wildlife, not just the species they hunt. “I’m all for the wolves, just like I’m for the grizzly bears we have around here. It’s the outdoors, and everything’s not tame,” he said. “I’ve had encounters with them, and to hear them howl is really something special. But we can’t let them go unmanaged. We have to hold them to certain numbers,” he added.

On the Web:  wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/diversty/soc/gray_wolf/conservation_plan.htm

K.C. Mehaffey: 997-2512
mehaffey@wenworld.com