|
Dozens of Wolves Killed for Preying on Livestock
BOISE, Idaho, April 18, 2002 (ENS) – The federal government spent about
$15,000 to hunt down and kill five gray wolves after they were confirmed
to have killed a calf on private land. The wolves, the surviving members
of the Whitehawk Pack, killed the calf along the East Fork of the Salmon
River near Clayton, Idaho on April 5. It was the third livestock kill by
members of the pack within one week.
The gray wolves, three yearlings and the alpha pair, were killed after the
livestock death was confirmed as a wolf kill by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s Wildlife Services. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
(USFWS) said the Whitehawk Pack has been involved in chronic livestock
depredations in the East Fork.
Wildlife sharpshooters had already killed four members of the radio
collared pack in recent weeks. Gray wolf recovery managers from the USFWS
and the Nez Perce Tribe do not believe any members of the pack remain in
the East Fork.
“We attempted to use many preventive measures with the Whitehawk Pack,
including radio activated guard units, helicopter hazing, electric
fencing, ground pursuit and harassment,” said Carter Niemeyer, Idaho wolf
recovery coordinator for the USFWS. “These non-lethal means of control did
not deter the wolves’ persistent livestock depredation. We will continue
to use various non-lethal measures to control problem wolves, but the
reality is that chronic depredation incidents may result in the lethal
control of some gray wolves in Idaho.”
The destruction of the Whitehawk pack is the latest in a recent series of
lethal control measures taken against gray wolf packs. Last week, for
example, four members of the Sheep Mountain pack in Montana, near
Yellowstone National Park, were killed after they ran across a horse
pasture. The wolves were suspected of eating a cow, but biologists could
not confirm that the pack had killed the cow.
Also in Montana, several members of the Ninemile pack were killed after
biologists confirmed that they had been killing llamas.
Wildlife managers have spent thousands of dollars to track and kill the
wolves, despite the low monetary value of the wildlife they have killed.
All ranchers who have lost livestock have been reimbursed by a fund
managed by the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife
The Wolf Recovery Foundation, which has donated radio collars to aid
government biologists in tracking wolves, now says it will not donate
collars for wolf packs located outside of Yellowstone National Park,
because they are used so often to track down and kill the wolves.
The annual gray wolf count conducted in December of 2001 revealed 261
wolves in 17 known wolf packs in Idaho. Sixteen wolf packs produced pups
in 2001, and fourteen of those packs met the recovery requirement for a
breeding pair – an adult male and female wolf that have raised at least
two pups to survive until December 31 in the year of their birth.
The USFWS believes that 30 breeding pairs of wolves for three successive
years throughout the three state Northern Rocky Mountain area – Idaho,
Montana and Wyoming – will constitute a viable and recovered wolf
population. If current trends continue, those recovery goals will be met
by the end of 2002, the USFWS said.
Source
| 