Habitat slowing spread of wolves
Associated Press
LEWISTON — The growth and spread of Idaho’s wolf packs are beginning to
slow down because the transplanted animals are running out of prime
territory, experts say.
Curt Mack, director of wolf recovery in Idaho for the Nez Perce Tribe,
said growth will likely continue to slow or stabilize as the expanding
population attempts to gain footholds in less desirable habitat closer to
human populations.
In Idaho, wolf packs have an average range of 350 to 400 square miles;
about one wolf for every 63 square miles. As packs produce more pups, the
younger adults are forced to seek new territory with a sufficient prey
base and few humans.
“The density of wolves in a given area is pretty much fixed,” Mack said.
“That is all the wolves you are going to have in an area.”
Because the density of wolves in particular areas is not growing,
predation of elk by wolves will likely increase across the state but won’t
increase in localized areas.
Research indicates that elk account for about 80 percent of the diet of
wolves, while deer make up the rest. An average wolf pack probably eats 80
to 100 elk per year, Mack said. He guessed wolves kill 2,500 to 5,000 elk
per year.
“The pressure on elk is distributed over a larger geographic area, but the
pressure and wolf predation on elk within an occupied territory remains
the same,” he said.
An estimated 52 pups were produced in Idaho in 2002, and the average
number of pups per pack was 4.3. Both those numbers are down from the year
before. But the total number of documented packs has risen by two to 19,
and the population estimate has been boosted from 261 in 2001 to 284 in
2002. The numbers come from the 2002 gray wolf status report produced by
the tribe.
Since their reintroduction eight years ago, the wolf population in the
Northern Rockies area of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana has grown dramatically
and federal officials are considering removing the wolves from protection.
But the three states must adopt acceptable state wolf management plans
before that can happen.
Idaho’s plan is ready, and state officials have started the process to
secure federal permission to begin managing Idaho’s wolf population even
though the other two states are not ready to do so.