OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Legislation signed Tuesday by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee adds $10 to the cost of a personalized Washington license plate with the money going to help compensate livestock owners for wolf kills.

The legislation was requested by the state Fish and Wildlife Department to reimburse farmers and ranchers who lose animals to the recovering wolf population.

State wildlife managers say the wolf population doubled in Washington last year and they now estimate there are 50 to 100 gray wolves in at least 10 packs. Most of the wolves are in the northeast corner of the state in Okanogan, Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties.

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By Roger S Lucas

Two meetings are planned on the Colville Indian Reservation to bring the public up to date on the wolf population in the area.

A meeting will be held at 6 p.m., Tuesday, May 28, at the Nespelem Community Center, and a second meeting will be held June 4, at 6 p.m., at the Inchelium Center.

The meetings will be hosted by the Colville Confederated Tribes Wildlife Department with Carter Niemeyer as the special guest speaker.

Currently, tribal officials say, there are two wolf packs on the reservation. Packs generally number from five to 10 animals, a spokesperson stated.

Currently, four wolves have been collared and wildlife biologists are able to track their movements.

Several sightings have been reported, both on and off the reservation. At the meeting those attending will get current wolf updates, have their questions answered, and there will be a book signing and sales.

A hunting season for wolves was established late last year for specific areas, but hunters didn’t have any success in finding and killing the elusive animals.

A spokesperson on the reservation said wolves get a mixed review on the reservation.

Winners of a kids’ coloring contest will be announced at the meetings.

The event is free and the public is invited.

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By STEVE BROWN
Capital Press

OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee has signed into law a measure that compensates livestock owners for wolf-related losses.

The signing came on May 21, the final day for the governor to act on measures adopted during the regular session of the Legislature.

Sen. John Smith, R-Colville, introduced Senate Bill 5193 to establish a wildlife account and a new wolf-livestock conflict account. As the state Department of Fish and Wildlife continues to support wolf recovery, he said, a funding source will now be in place to help offset damages from inevitable conflicts.

Specifically, the new law:

* Increases the state’s personalized license plate fee by $10, effective Oct. 1, with the proceeds to support WDFW’s efforts to monitor wolf recovery and prevent wolf-livestock conflict in collaboration with farmers, ranchers and local governments, and to compensate livestock owners. The Department of Licensing estimates the fee will raise more than $1.5 million during the upcoming two-year budget cycle.

* Allows WDFW to compensate livestock owners for their losses at the current market value of the animals.

* Permits compensation regardless of whether livestock owners were raising the animals for commercial purposes.

* Revises other elements of state law to make it more consistent with the state’s 2011 Wolf Conservation and Management Plan.

“As a whole, ranchers are committed to using non-lethal methods to deter wolves and other predators,” Smith said. “However, it has been proven time and time again that wolves are persistent, unpredictable and often unfazed by fladry or fencing when they set their sights on livestock. This gives ranchers protection when their livelihoods are at stake.”

Fladry consists of red flags or pennants attached to a piece of twine or thin rope at regular intervals, whose movement in the wind is intended to frighten the wolves away.

“The gray wolf population is recovering quickly in Washington,” Inslee said. “This bill received bipartisan support from legislators across the state because it represents a practical, realistic approach to minimizing wolf-livestock conflict while recognizing the need for fair compensation to ranchers and farmers.”

SB5193 was the only wolf-related legislation to clear the Legislature, passing in the House of Representatives by a vote of 96-2 and the Senate by a vote of 43-1.

However, on April 26, a few days before the Legislature adjourned, the state Fish and Wildlife Commission issued an emergency ruling that allows farmers and ranchers to kill wolves attacking their livestock.

SB5187, which had proposed that permission, received public hearings but died in the House, prompting a bipartisan group of legislators to request action from the commission. The emergency rule is in effect for 120 days and can be reinstated once. The department plans to use the time it is in effect to develop a permanent rule identical or similar to the rule.

Also on May 21, Inslee signed House Bill 1552, sponsored by Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland, which aims to reduce metal theft by expanding criminal penalties, creating a database to determine if a potential sell has a criminal conviction and prohibiting cash transactions without specific documentation.

Farmers and ranchers supported the bill because they have had to deal with the added expense and work of replacing stolen irrigation pipe.

On May 20, Inslee signed into law SB5767, which requires the state Department of Agriculture, upon request by a licensed milk producer, to issue an official individual identification tag (green tag) for bull calves and free-martins under 30 days of age. That bill, sponsored by Sen. Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond, passed the House 96-0 and the Senate 46-2.

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BY RICH LANDERS THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW

“Wolves are the most challenging wildlife issue on the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department’s plate this year, bar none,” says Nate Pamplin, assistant director. “And we don’t want to be alone in it.”

Wolves also pose the most divisive wildlife issues, he said in a presentation to sportsmen in Spokane recently.

Moose also are a species of concern this year, as states to the east through Minnesota are devoting millions of dollars to study declines in the largest member of the deer family, said Rich Harris, the agency’s special species specialist.

“We haven’t documented a decline in Washington moose,” he said. “But we we’re working to get a better picture.”

Understaffed and underfunded Washington Fish and Wildlife Department biologists are asking the public to help monitor both of these marquee species.

People who definitely see a wolf or a moose are requested to devote a few minutes online at the agency website’s observation reporting pages, where visitors can see other reports compiled on a state map.

The plea comes as the agency ramps up to manage a booming apex predator as well as a prized big-game species that’s still spreading across the state but could be reaching its peak in numbers.

Top-tier wildlife officials offered insight on their challenging obligation to manage these critters during a program for the Inland Northwest Wildlife Council.

“Of all topics we deal with in the Wildlife Program… wolves are the one topic that does not bring us together as wildlife managers and sportsmen,” said Pamplin.

The state is obliged to deal with wildlife according to law. Sportsmen have a special interest in the appetite wolves have for big game. That puts wildlife managers and sportsmen on the same side of the fence, but with their britches hung up on different points of barbed wire.

“Wolves are naturally moving into Washington and we need help from people knowledgeable about wildlife to dispel the myth that we’re trapping and introducing them,” he said.

Since the first wolf pack was confirmed in 2008, at least 10 packs have formed with territories of up to 300 square miles. Wolves are close to saturating their habitat in northeastern Washington, he said. That means some wolves will continue seeking to create new packs in other areas.

“They’re booming,” he said, noting a 30-40 percent annual wolf population growth rate. “We don’t see that with other wildlife species.”

The agency must take measured steps in dealing with wolves and their impacts on big game as well as livestock according to the state’s Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, adopted by the state Fish and Wildlife Commission in December 2011.

The state held 23 public meetings and received 65,000 comments as that plan was developed by a 17-member citizen panel and peer reviewed by scientists, he said.

“For comparison, there were 3,000 comments on the $40 billion state budget proposed by Gov. Gregoire,” he said.

The plan directs the agency to allow for sustaining a population of wolves while maintaining a healthy prey base and managing conflicts with livestock and impacts on big game.

More staff will be hired and devoted to wolves this year, he said. Public wolf observation reports will help the agency direct their attention to new pack territories where wolves can be trapped and radio collared to collect data and improve management.

“We won’t know the actual impact of wolves on anything until we get out on the ground and do the research,” he said.

“Washington has sufficient ungulates (primarily deer, elk, moose) to support wolves through recovery and beyond,” he said. “But at times wolves will impact populations and keep them down in some areas.”

He promised more research and monitoring on the region’s big game and said sportsmen will continue to be key in providing some of that information through observations reporting and volunteering for surveys.

“It’s been pretty lonely out there (for wildlife managers) in the wolf debate,” he said.

Last year, when the agency made the controversial $76,500 decision to use helicopter gunners to eliminate the cattle-killing Wedge Pack in northern Stevens County, the public perception in Olympia appeared lopsided, he said.

The Washington governor’s office received 12,000 emails in 24 hours from organized pro-wolf groups opposed to killing wolves, he said, noting that only one sportsmen’s group sent a letter to the governor’s office supporting the management action.

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BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The state of Wyoming is asking a federal judge not to allow a coalition of environmental groups to pull the plug on a lawsuit they filed challenging last year’s decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to turn over management of wolves to the state.

Environmental groups last week filed papers to dismiss their lawsuit pending in federal court in Cheyenne. The groups originally filed the lawsuit in Colorado and had opposed a request from Fish and Wildlife Service and the state to transfer the case to Cheyenne.

Dismissing the Cheyenne lawsuit would leave a similar challenge filed by a different coalition of groups pending in federal court in Washington, D.C. The federal judge handling that case recently rejected a request from Fish and Wildlife and the state to transfer it to federal court in Cheyenne.

The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office on Monday asked U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson of Cheyenne not to allow the environmental groups to drop their lawsuit in his court. The state accuses the groups of forum shopping, saying they don’t want to go to trial in Wyoming.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead put out a statement on Monday opposing the prospect of allowing the groups to dismiss their case.

“This is a matter of considerable local interest and I believe that the suit should be heard here, closest to the Wyoming citizens,” Mead said. “Sometimes the party that files a lawsuit must finish what they started. This is one of those times.”

Colorado lawyer Jay Tutchton represents WildEarth Guardians and other environmental groups that filed the lawsuit pending in Johnson’s court. He said Friday the groups decided it wasn’t an efficient use of anyone’s resources to have two lawsuits over the same thing going on in two different places.

Both lawsuits generally claim that the state’s wolf management plan doesn’t provide adequate protection for the animals.

Tutchton said his clients still believed in the merits of their case, and their action stood as a vote of confidence in the lawyers pressing the parallel case in Washington, D.C.

Lawyer Jay Jerde of the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office wrote the state’s response, filed Monday. He said that WildEarth Guardians and the other groups knew that the similar lawsuit was pending in Washington when they first filed their lawsuit in Denver. He wrote that the group apparently wasn’t worried about efficiency when it filed the case, but is moving now to dismiss the lawsuit because the group doesn’t want the case heard in Wyoming.

Wyoming took over wolf management from the federal government last October. The management plan classifies wolves as unprotected predators that can be shot on sight in most of Wyoming while regulated hunts are held elsewhere.

State officials say there were about 300 wolves in Wyoming outside of Yellowstone National Park when the state took over. The Wyoming game department has reported that hunters killed 68 wolves in the state from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31 last year. Of those, 42 were killed in the trophy hunting zone bordering Yellowstone, while 26 were killed as unprotected predators elsewhere.

State officials say they intend to reduce trophy hunting of wolves this year to keep the population from dropping so low that federal protections could be reinstated.

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By Angus M. Thuermer Jr., Jackson Hole, Wyoming

One week before a scheduled public meeting about wolf hunting in Jackson, a Montana group says the Wyoming Game and Fish Department needs to better justify its hunting goals.

The National Wolfwatchers Coalition wrote a nine-page letter to the state wildlife agency saying the Wyoming hunt does not measure up to principles of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.

The model, constructed by hunters and adopted by various sportsmen’s groups, contains seven points that seek to govern wildlife democratically and sustainably.

The Game and Fish plan for 2013 calls for a quota of 26 wolves to be hunted and killed this fall in the trophy game zone in the northwestern part of the state, including areas around Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. It also allows for wolves in the remaining 85 percent of the state to be killed by any means at any time and without a license.

“The current wolf hunting proposals work against four of the seven principles of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation,” wrote Dave Hornoff, director of the group, which says it has members who live in Wyoming. “We ask that facts and not fear dictate wolf management in Wyoming so that our state can be proud leaders of solution-driven objectives.”

A Game and Fish spokesman in Jackson referred questions to an agency representative in Cheyenne, who did not return phone calls Monday afternoon. The department has, however, justified its wolf hunting seasons in the past and forged an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which approved its hunting plan. It has also been supported in its latest proposal by some elk hunting outfitters.

Hornoff and others who signed the letter said Wyoming’s hunting proposal does not use the best available, unbiased science, one of the seven principles. Wolfwatchers criticized the agency for justifying hunting in part because wolves eat elk. Yet the statewide elk count is “at an all-time high,” the group contends.

Wolf-hunt supporters however, including Game and Fish, point to a lower ratio of calves to mothers among elk herds in places where wolves are present.

Wolfwatchers also protests that Game and Fish runs afoul of the model’s principle that wildlife be held in the public trust.

“We assert that the plan is too aggressive and its provisions can potentially threaten wolf pack structure,” the letter reads. “As a result, this can have adverse effects on population sustainability and genetic diversity.”

Wyoming’s agreement with the federal government calls for regular reporting on genetic diversity and a minimum population of 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs outside Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Wolfwatchers contends the state also violates the democratic principle of the hunting model.

“Many Wyoming residents who make their living via ecotourism and those who prefer to spend their time as wildlife watchers are denied the opportunity to participate in the democratic process when it comes to decision-making about wolves,” the group said. Fewer than 5 percent of 305 million American citizens buy hunting licenses, Wolfwatchers said.

Finally, the group attacks the predator zone as a “frivolous use” of wildlife, violating another tenet of the North American Wildlife Model. By allowing unbridled killing across 85 percent of the state, “Wyoming Fish and Game and Wyoming hunters give themselves a black eye with those 292 million Americans who no longer hunt — the same Americans who control the public lands on which Wyoming residents hunt and fish,” the group said.

Game and Fish has scheduled a meeting on wolf seasons for 6:30 p.m. on May 28 at the Virginian Lodge. Wolfwatchers’ letter was sent in hopes of influencing the 2013 season, which is scheduled to be finalized by the appointed Wyoming Game and Fish Commission this summer.

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Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. — Federal wildlife officials are postponing a much-anticipated decision on whether to lift protections for gray wolves across the Lower 48 states.

In a court filing Monday, government attorneys say “a recent unexpected delay” is indefinitely holding up action on the predators. No further explanation was offered.

Gray wolves are under protection as an endangered species and have recovered dramatically from widespread extermination in recent decades.

More than 6,000 of the animals now roam the continental U.S. Most live in the Northern Rockies and western Great Lakes, where protections already have been lifted.

A draft proposal to lift protections elsewhere drew strong objections when it was revealed last month.

Wildlife advocates and some members of Congress argue that the wolf’s recovery is incomplete because the animal occupies just a fraction of its historical range.

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by Winston Greeley, Montana FWP

MISSOULA – Wolves garner a lot of attention these days in Montana, and as Winston Greely with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks found out, biologists face many challenges monitoring these high-profile animals.

Montana’s wolf biologists face many challenges in managing the state’s wolves.

“Wolves is pretty challenging because the wolf population has grown really quickly too. So we as an agency are learning too because we are new to management we are only in our third harvest season we just finished our first trapping season,” FWP’s Liz Bradley explained.

Monitoring wolves is a crucial component in wolf management, but the primary method of trapping and radio collaring a wolf can be a challenge, according to Bradley.

“If we can get one collar out, one or two a month we are doing pretty good, but those collars are really valuable getting a collar in a pack now gives us the ability to monitor the movements of the entire pack.”

Biologists also use other monitoring methods, one of which involves remote cameras in well-known wolf locations. This allows biologists to learn more in their year-long process.

“The advantage is at the end of the year we are going to have more population data and for wolves it’s really a year-long survey effort, so we are collecting data the entire year,” FWP’s Kent Laudon explained.

But even with these management challenges, wolf biologists say they strive to find a balance for wolves on the landscape.

“I think one of the most important things Fish, Wildlife and Parks does for all wildlife is try and make a place for wildlife on the landscape. And we are trying to fit wolves into the model just like we do mountain lions and black bears and have a season on them and that allows people to be a part of the management as well,” Bradley concluded.

State numbers show that at the end of 2012, the minimum wolf count was 625, a 4%decrease from 2011.

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