Idaho analyzing how wolves affect big game herds
By The Associated Press Monday, February 21, 2005
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — State Fish and Game biologists are using helicopters to drive elk and deer into nets and attaching radio collars to 600 animals in the largest game monitoring project the department has attempted.
The monitoring targets 16 hunting units across the state to see how predators, including wolves, affect the animals’ survival rate. If evidence shows wolves are impacting numbers or herd survival rates, the state could get federal approval to kill wolves and manage their pack numbers.
“We constantly get the question of what effect predators are having on ungulates, and wolves are certainly part of that,” F&G director Steve Huffaker said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gave Idaho and Montana more authority to manage gray wolves, which includes relaxed rules on killing the animals under a provision of the Endangered Species Act.
“The new rules are very flexible, and I think you haven’t seen this flexibility anywhere else under the Endangered Species Act,” said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The agency reintroduced the gray wolf into central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park under the federal act in 1995. The wolves are now exceeding recovery goals in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. But before the animals can be removed from protections under the Endangered Species Act, each of the three states must have management plans approved by the federal government. Though Idaho’s and Montana’s plans have been approved, Wyoming’s was rejected and that state is suing. The wolves will not be delisted until that dispute is resolved.
Hunters attest wolves have reduced big game herds, particularly elk, despite about seven consecutive years of stable harvest numbers. Idaho wildlife officials say about 12 percent of the hunting units are below goals for the number of cows.
“(Monitoring) is a public priority and also a professional priority,” said Brad Compton, F&G big game manager. “It’s one of those rare occasions where scientists agree with sportsmen on what the priority should be.”
He said fish and game biologists use old data of survival and reproduction rates to manage elk herds now, and those numbers may not be valid since wolf reintroduction.
Bangs said the state must perform a scientific study before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service looks at it, and any proposal to kill wolf herds would have to undergo a public comment period and scientific peer review.
“We’re real comfortable the results will be statistically valid,” Compton said.
Since 1995, wolf numbers have jumped from 14 to an estimated 422 wolves in 44 packs with 27 breeding pairs.