Idaho Fish & Game issued the following press release Wednesday morning:
During the recent elk capture operation in the Frank Church/River of No Return Wilderness, an Idaho Fish and Game crew captured and placed tracking collars on four wolves. Fish and Game had told the Forest Service it would not collar wolves during the project. The wolves were released unharmed.
Fish and Game officials realize this mistake affects the agency’s credibility and takes the matter seriously. The error was due to a breakdown in internal communications.
“As the deputy in charge of Fish and Game field operations, I accept full responsibility for this,” Deputy Director Ed Schriever said. “We made a mistake in not clearly communicating mission limitations to one of our helicopter crews. We will refine our procedures to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Fish and Game crews were capturing and placing radio collars on elk in the wilderness after coordinating with the Forest Service. The operation occurred between Jan 7-9. The operational agreement with the Forest Service did not include collaring of wolves.
All elk collaring activities were completed safely and in accordance with procedures for proper handling of animals and other terms of the operational agreement. Fish and Game achieved the objective of collaring 60 elk and the number of helicopter landings in the wilderness outside of designated airstrips remained within the terms of the operational agreement.
Fish and Game is collaring elk in different habitats across the state to collect needed monitoring data on elk movement and survival.
Earthjustice group issues response to IDFG statement about mistake with wolves
Pocatello, ID—Today the Idaho Fish & Game Department “admitted that it broke an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service” and used helicopter landings to collar wolves in the Frank Church River Of No Return Wilderness.
This follows less than a week after Earthjustice filed a legal challenge to the state’s plans to conduct over 120 helicopter landings as part of a program to manipulate wildlife populations in the wilderness.
The following is a statement from Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso on behalf ofWilderness Watch, Friends of the Clearwater, and Western Watersheds Project:
“The Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s admission today is egregious and adds insult to injury.
“Though Idaho claimed it needed authorization for 5-10 days of helicopter landings between January and the end of March for this helicopter elk-collaring project, it rushed to complete its operations in the first three days after the Forest Service issued a permit, before the court could even consider whether that action is legal.
“Now we learn that the state compounded its degradation of wilderness character by taking action that even the Forest Service did not authorize – collaring wild wolves in the wilderness in addition to 60 elk.
“Idaho has made its intentions with respect to the wilderness wolf population abundantly clear: Idaho has a plan in place that calls for killing 60 percent of the wolf population in the Middle Fork area of the wilderness to artificially inflate elk numbers to benefit a small number of commercial outfitters and recreational hunters. Idaho is not pursuing that program this winter only because we challenged this activity in court, but we have no guarantees as to subsequent winters. There is every reason to believe that these new wolf collars will be used by a state trapper to locate wolves for the purpose of killing them in pursuit of a program to manipulate wildlife populations that is fundamentally at odds with the concept of wilderness.
As the federal steward of the River of No Return, the Forest Service has a clear duty to protect the wilderness from degradation caused by unjustified helicopter intrusions and from IDFG’s illegal wolf collaring. The Forest Service must not sit idly by while IDFG flouts its authority and the mandates of the Wilderness Act.
We intend to bring the Forest Service and Idaho’s actions before the federal court to ensure there are no more unjustified helicopter intrusions in one of the premiere wilderness areas in the United States. Our view is simple: The River of No Return country is a wilderness, not an elk farm, and we intend to restore the rule of law to the management of this premiere wild landscape that belongs to all of the American people.”