Bid for wolf management plan advances
By Jerry Spangler – Deseret News
2/4/03
Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?
Aye, voted the House Natural
Resources Committee, expressing grave reservations over the return of the
wolf to Utah’s wild back country.
But the committee nonetheless passed
HJR12 Tuesday, directing the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to
develop a wolf management plan for Utah.
The plan would give the state
greater control over endangered wolves migrating into Utah from packs in
Yellowstone, including the authority to kill them if they become a
problem.
“My first reaction was we don’t want
wolves in Utah,” said Rep. Michael Styler, R-Delta. But after a trip to
Washington, D.C., to meet with the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, “I had a change of heart. Wolves are here and (Utah) needs the
authority to manage them.”
DWR biologists have been working on
a wolf management plan for the past year, and their efforts received
added priority when a gray wolf was captured last fall near Morgan, the
first official confirmation of a wolf in Utah in more than 50 years.
Because wolves are an endangered
species, there is nothing the state can do to control wolves or their
movement into the state. But federal authorities are poised to reduce wolf
protections in the wake of dramatic population increases in Wyoming, Idaho
and Montana.
A “delisting” from the Endangered
Species List is a prerequisite to the state being given authority to
manage its own wolves.
Styler’s bill signals to the feds
that the state wants that authority and will develop a plan that passes
federal muster. But it also sends the message that Utah does not want to
be part of any official wolf recovery project whereby wolves are
intentionally reintroduced to Utah’s backcountry.
Styler’s bill has the cautious
support of environmentalists, including the Audubon Council, Defenders of
Wildlife and the Utah Wolf Forum.
Allison Jones with the Utah Wolf
Forum likes the idea of local management of wolves, but she wants more
public input into the management plan, which must go through a rigorous
review by regional advisory councils composed mostly of livestock,
wildlife, local elected officials and private landowners.
“All Utahns should be given the
chance to give input into the plan,” she said, adding she would like to
see a task force of conservationists, scientists, land managers, ranchers
and hunters look into long-term management strategies.
Public opinion polls show
overwhelming public support for the return of wolves to Utah.
Styler’s resolution, which does not
carry the force of law, passed unanimously, but with plenty of
reservations from rural lawmakers who just don’t like the idea of wolves
coming back.
“My personal feeling is we should
not let wolves into Utah,” said Rep. Brad Johnson, R-Aurora, who
questioned what authority he would have to kill wolves that might be
feasting on his cattle. That would not be a good idea, said Kevin
Conway, DWR director.
So what if a wolf ate one his
children?
“That’s something we ought to think
about,” Johnson said. “I’ve read some stories and books, and they kill
people.”
Mostly, ranching interests were
worried about financial losses caused by wolves and who would reimburse
them. And hunters are worried about the impacts on herds of bighorn sheep,
moose and elk populations where sportsmen have spent tens of millions of
dollars to recover.
“You hear that they eat only the
sick and the weak, but that is totally not true,” said Don Peay with
Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife. “That is something out of Disney.”
But all sides were in agreement the
state must accelerate its planning for the inevitable return of wolves,
and the competing interests are pledging to help the DWR anyway they can
so long as their various interests are represented.
That won’t be easy, given the public
passion for and against wolves.
“Wolves will always be a
controversial species,” Conway said.