FWS issues 2001 wolf recovery report
By RICHARD HANNERS
Hungry Horse News
Removing wolves from Endangered Species Act protection could possibly take
place as soon as next year.
For the second year in a row, criteria were met last year in the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service’s Rocky Mountain wolf recovery program.
FWS estimated 563 wolves lived in the three recovery areas in Montana,
Idaho and Wyoming, including 84 in the Northwest Montana Recovery Area.
“Wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains continue to increase in
distribution and numbers,” FWS said in its 2001 report. “As new packs are
formed between the original recovery/release areas, the three populations
increasingly resemble and function as a single, large population.”
FWS reported that at least 34 packs out of the 63 groups of two or more
wolves in the Rocky Mountain region were considered a ‘breeding pair’ – an
adult male and female that raised two or more pups until Dec. 31.
In order to drop wolves from endangered status to threatened under the
Endangered Species Act, FWS wants to see at least 30 breeding pairs with
an equitable and uniform distribution throughout the Rocky Mountain
region’s three states for three successive years.
FWS will propose de-listing wolves next year if populations remain strong
and the three states institute wolf management plans that will “reasonably
assure that the gray wolf would not become threatened or endangered
again.”
The public scoping process comment period for Montana’s proposed wolf
management plan ended April 30.
Wolves were mostly killed off in Montana by the 1930s. As public attitudes
changed wolves gained legal protection, and by 1995 six packs were
established by natural means in Northwest Montana.
Wolf monitoring is handled by FWS biologists. Wilderness trapping in the
Sun River and Danaher River areas in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in 2001
was unsuccessful, but eight collared wolves from the Gravely Pack were
transported to and released in the Yaak River area last December.
By the end of 2001, nearly one-third of the Northwestern Montana wolf
population, distributed in 13 packs, were carrying radio collars. Collared
wolves were located by airplane twice a month, except around Glacier
National Park where they were located more frequently on the ground.
In addition to the eight relocated wolves, five newly established wolf
pairs were established in the Northwestern Montana recovery area.
Reproduction was confirmed in the Apgar, Kintla, Ninemile, Whitefish,
Grave Creek, Spotted Bear, Fishtrap, Gates Park, Fish Creek and Lupine
packs.
The Apgar pack was reduced to one adult after the death of the breeding
female. At least eight wolves died in the Northwestern Montana recovery
area. Four of those deaths are still being investigated, “but it is likely
that the most common cause of death continues to be illegal killing,” the
report stated.
Wolf control activities are carried out by USDA Wildlife Services. Three
wolves in the Northwestern Montana recovery area were killed and five were
relocated after livestock depredations in 2001 cost ranchers eight cattle,
five sheep and four llamas.
“Most packs in the Northwestern Montana recovery area, as in the Greater
Yellowstone and Central Idaho recovery areas, were not involved in any
confirmed livestock depredations in 2001,” FWS reported.
The Fishtrap pack, located about 20 miles south of Happy’s Inn, was blamed
for killing two llamas and possibly attacking a cow last year. The Grave
Creek pack killed a pregnant cow southeast of Eureka last June.
The worst offender was the Ninemile pack, which was blamed for killing two
llamas and at least four sheep last year, the report stated.
This year the rampage continued, with the Ninemile wolves blamed for
killing at least nine sheep and four llamas. WS agents had reduced the
pack from 11 wolves to five by the end of April, and FWS wolf recovery
coordinator Ed Bangs said the remaining Ninemile wolves may have to be
killed to prevent further livestock depredations.
Wolf recovery efforts in the Rocky Mountains region have cost more than
$14 million from 1973 through 2001. FWS estimated another $1.4 million a
year will be spent before wolves can be de-listed in 2003.
More than $1.1 million per year will go to FWS for overall coordination,
monitoring, research, control, public information, litigation and
biologists.
Another $89,000 per year will go to WS, for investigating wolf damage
reports and increased costs of coyote control in areas occupied by wolves,
and $220,000 will go to the National Park Service for monitoring,
research, coordination and public information.
The Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofit organization, has provided more
than $200,000 to date to compensate ranchers for livestock lost to wolves.