■Activists says state is too quick to kill wolves
Since 2008, the Wood River Wolf Project has used nonlethal predator deterrents to maintain a much lower rate of depredation on sheep in the Big Wood River drainage than occurs elsewhere, as well as to keep wolves alive.
The project had been led since its inception by the nonprofit group Defenders of Wildlife, and particularly by the group’s Northern Rockies representative, Suzanne Stone. But Shawn Cantrell, Northwest program director with the organization, said Defenders decided that after seven years of leadership, it was time to pass that role to a local entity.
“It allowed us to free up some more of Suzanne’s time and to pursue the wolf effort on other fronts,” Cantrell said. “As a national organization, we’re saying how can we take this and ramp it up to a larger scale.”
The leadership role has been taken over by the Lava Lake Institute for Science and Conservation, a nonprofit organization founded by Brian and Kathleen Bean, co-owners of the sheep-producing business Lava Lake Land & Livestock. The institute works to accomplish conservation and increase understanding of the wildlife and ecosystems of the Pioneer Mountain-Craters of the Moon region.
“This is a big transition for the project,” Brian Bean said.
Bean said the institute’s nonprofit status allows people to make tax-deductible contributions directly to the Wood River Wolf Project.
“We are seeking private donations, though fundraising hasn’t begun in earnest,” he said.
Bean said he plans to use crowdfunding and other social-media sources. He said he has also been talking with other conservation organizations to become partners in the project.
“There is a significant degree of interest,” he said, “which is a testament to the project’s success in the past.”
Blaine County has helped fund the project every year, and has included $3,300 for that purpose in the fiscal 2015 budget. However, Commissioner Larry Schoen, the county’s liaison on a multi-agency steering committee for the project, said the money won’t be released until the project has a structure ready to take it into the field.
Previous field manager Fernando Najera left last year, and Bean said he is interviewing candidates to replace him. Once that’s accomplished, Bean said, the project will be ready to go, with volunteers who are already lined up. He said that even though it will be a later start than in other years, he expects to have people in the field this season.
Bean said that over the past few years, the project has begun to rely more on technology and less on manpower to protect herds of sheep. He said 20 remote-sensing cameras set up in different parts of the Wood River Valley allow team members to deploy to areas where sheep are most likely to interact with wolves.
However, Bean said, there’s one important technological tool that the project doesn’t have—the telemetry frequencies of wolves collared by the Department of Fish and Game, which has refused to supply that information.
“It’s more difficult for the Wood River Wolf Project to operate as effectively as we know it could when collar frequencies are withheld from us,” he said.
Department spokesman Mike Keckler said the department considers the data exempt from disclosure under the Idaho Public Records Law, and cannot disseminate that information to some entities but not to others.
The Wood River Wolf Project works with four regional sheep producers, and trains their herders in deterrent techniques such as fladry (strips of cloth strung along the outside of sheep bands at night), noisemakers and lights.
As in many other parts of the West, most of the herders in the Wood River Valley are from Peru, and work here under H2A visas, which the U.S. Department of Labor issues for seasonal agricultural workers when no willing or able American workers can be found. Bean said his ability to retain herders with experience working in wolf country is compromised by their difficulty in obtaining permanent U.S. residency. He said the government won’t renew H2A visas if a foreign worker has applied for residency, and the application process takes longer than the time until the next herding season.
“What this green card monkey business means is that there’s more of an attraction to jumping ship,” Bean said. “If we lose these experienced guys, that’s not good for predators.”
Though Blaine County has been an enthusiastic partner in carrying out nonlethal deterrent activities, the state of Idaho has not. In 2014, the Legislature created a Wolf Depredation Control Board and allocated $400,000 exclusively for activities associated with lethal control. During this year’s session, it allocated another $400,000 for fiscal 2016. State Sen. Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, said she tried without success to have the bill worded to include expenditures for nonlethal deterrents.
Wolf conservation activists have complained that the Department of Fish and Game has acted too quickly to authorize lethal-control actions by Idaho Wildlife Services, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In late May and early June, Wildlife Services shot five wolves near upper Croy Canyon west of Hailey because the wolves had killed two ewes, a lamb, a cow and a calf on two occasions. After wolves killed a sheep guard dog at the base of the Boulder Mountains north of Ketchum on July 8, the department authorized a lethal-control action there as well, though Wildlife Services did not find any wolves in the area and no further incidents have occurred.
“We’re beginning to see lethal control, as provided by Wildlife Services, as disproportional to the depredation,” Bean said. “Having multiple wolves killed as the result of a depredation on two sheep, a lamb, a calf and a cow costs many times the value of the livestock.”
By contrast, the state of Washington emphasizes the use of nonlethal preventive measures as the first line of defense for minimizing conflict between livestock and the state’s 16 wolf packs. Since 2013, the department has offered cost-sharing arrangements to ranchers who invest in nonlethal deterrents. Those include range riders, guard dogs, fladry and carcass disposal. The department has 11 wildlife-conflict specialists working with 41 livestock producers.
Fourteen wolves have been captured and fitted with radio collars. The Washington department does share information about the location of collared wolves with qualified ranchers.
“Washington as a whole has taken a very different approach to wolf management than Idaho has,” Defenders of Wildlife employee Cantrell said. “They have put a huge amount of energy into creating a wolf-management plan that involved a wide range of stakeholders.”
In January, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission chose Jim Unsworth, then deputy director of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, to head the Washington department.
“He has not brought an Idaho philosophy, lock, stock and barrel, to Washington,” Cantrell said.
In recent weeks, Defenders of Wildlife has used knowledge learned through the Wood River Wolf Project in consultations with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, following four incidents of wolf depredation on cattle in northeastern Washington in June and early July.
“They could have moved to lethal control much more quickly, and they haven’t,” Cantrell said.
According to a timeline of events associated with the depredation incidents posted on the Washington department’s website, wolves have killed no more cattle in the area since the department began its deterrent activities on July 10.
Blaine County Commissioner Schoen sees the Washington approach as a model for Idaho, and advocates allowing the use of Wolf Depredation Control Board money for nonlethal deterrents.
“It would be more effective in keeping sheep and cattle alive and it would be more cost-effective as well,” he said.