by Greg Martin
Dealing With Wolves. I’m Greg Martin with Washington Ag Today.
The conflict between wolves and humans continues to gain headlines. Francine Madden is the co-Founder and Executive Director of Human-Wildlife Conflict Collaboration has been contracted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to help resolve this conflict.
MADDEN: My engagement on this issue is as a third-party neutral. It’s for all the stake-holders in Washington and one component of that is the Wolf Advisory Group so co-designing with the participants and their stakeholders what that process should look like.
She says that the Washington issues are a very complex.
MADDEN: What I want to do is support those processes moving forward in a positive way that benefits livestock producers, hunters, environmentalists, everybody. The wolf issue is talked about as a singular focal point but really this impacts a whole lot of other different issues whether these are environmental or natural resource issues, social issues, economic, political issues and there’s a whole history of how engagement around these broad issues has impacted what’s happening today.
Maddens says the with all the issues like drought and wildfires that are beyond our control we feel that we should be able to control the wolf issue.
MADDEN: My hat is off to the producers, the hunters, the environmentalists, the department for coming out of a difficult season and really difficult conditions and they all come together at this wolf advisory group meeting and made this commitment to work together.