Committee formed to deal with wolves
Whether or not there are gray wolves in Oregon, or even in Wallowa
County for that matter, is open to conjecture, but the Oregon Wolf
Advisory Committee, formed in August, has been given the task of
creating a state management plan to deal with the presence of wolves.
On that 14 member committee are Ben Boswell and Meg Mitchell of Wallowa
County.
Boswell represents county commissioners on the committee while Mitchell,
district ranger of the Forest Service’s Wallowa Valley unit, is a public
land manager.
Three states — Wyoming, Idaho and Montana — have met population
targets for the gray wolf, and the United States Fish and Wildlife
Service (USFWS) has downlisted the species from endangered to
threatened. That reclassification effort has been appealed by 17
environmental organizations and no one knows
how
long the downlisting will be held up in the courts.
The Wolf Advisory Committee has been created for one year to advise the
Oregon
Commission on Fish & Wildlife. How the state will deal with the presence
of wolves in the future, if indeed wolves migrate from Idaho, is their
charge.
Boswell says the environmental appeals make the committee’s job more
difficult.
“It makes a big difference whether we plan for a listed or an unlisted
species,” says Boswell. “If the lawsuits are successful they will have
moved
the goal line.”
Though not wanting to commit himself publicly on the matter, Boswell
said
that
the official answer to the question of whether or not there are wolves
in Oregon is ‘no.’ He follows that statement with the comment that the
verification process for a wolf sighting is very stringent.
The county commissioner says he cannot speak for the advisory committee
regarding wolves, but he can speak for the Oregon Association of
Counties to which he was recently elected second vice president. The
OAC, he said, agrees with the USFWS that the gray wolf should be
downlisted from endangered to threatened.
The primary difference between endangered and threatened is that for
threatened
species there are more options for management control.