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Impact of wolves on big game
by Todd Adams in the Challis Messenger
The Custer County Commissioners and outfitters Scott
and Shelda Farr discussed
the issue of declining deer and elk herds with wolf
managers April 8. Some
argue that circumstantial evidence suggests big game
declines have been caused
by wolf predation.
There was talk of the need for elk calf mortality
studies, but Scott Farr said
things can be “studied to death.” Farr said the state
should have had those
kind of studies in place before wolves were
reintroduced in 1995, so numbers
could be compared pre- and post-reintroduction, along
with plans to deal with
any big game declines.
Wolf reintroduction was”like bringing in the plague,”
then maybe doing a study
on how to control the disease afterward, he said.
Carter Niemeyer, wolf recovery coordinator for the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service
(USFWS), said a relatively long-term study with at
least two to three years of
data would be the minimum to document big game
population declines caused by
wolves.
Regulations allow relocation of wolves from areas with
depressed ungulate
populations, Niemeyer said, but managers are no longer
transplanting wolves.
Greg Schildwachter, policy advisor for the Governor’s
Office of Species
Conservation (OSC) said the Idaho Fish and Game
Commission objected when USFWS
transplanted problem wolves from the Big Hole area of
Montana to the
Clearwater
country of Idaho, “on top of a depressed elk herd.”
That’s one of the reasons
the feds removed transplantation as a wolf management
tool, Schildwachter
said.
With the big, rapid increase in wolf populations,
management rules need to be
rewritten, he said.
Dr. Doug Smith has studied the effects on deer, elk
and bison populations
since
wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park
in 1995, Niemeyer said.
It’s hard to say whether those results might apply to
central Idaho, the wolf
managers told the commissioners.
Farr predicted outfitters will have to deal with a 30
to 50 to 100 percent
decline in big game hunting opportunity over the next
few years. He said this
is due not only to a decrease in elk calf-to-cow
ratios (from 38 calves per
100
cows to 17 per 100), but due to the fact that wolves
are displacing elk and
other animals from traditional ranges.
Tom Keegan, the Idaho Fish and Game Department’s
(IDFG) Salmon Region wildlife
manager, confirmed to the Messenger that the current
calf/cow ratio is down to
17/100 in hunt Unit 27, in the wilderness. Those
figures come from flights in
January and February of 2002. IDFG uses a
“sightability” model where it takes
observed elk counts and plugs those numbers into a
computer model, which takes
group size, forested vs. unforested cover and other
variables into account to
estimate elk populations.
In 1989, the elk calf/cow ratio was 31/100; in 1995 it
peaked at 36/100; then
dropped to 18/100 in 1999 and 17 in 2002, Keegan said.
“I’m concerned,” said Keegan. “Those kind of calf
ratios are not indicative of
a healthy population.”
At the same time, the total elk population has grown
in Unit 27–from 3,014 in
1989 to a peak of 6,286 in 1995, and back down to
4,750 in 2002. But old cows
don’t produce as many calves, and Keegan said the
median age of cow elk in the
area is 12 to 12.5 years, with some as old as 17 or
18.
Keegan said limiting factors affecting elk populations
include habitat and
predation. Without a costly elk calf mortality study,
one can only speculate
on
how much of the blame is due to wolf or other
predation, said Keegan, and how
predators and habitat combine to decrease elk calf
production and survival.
Local biologists have written about overgrazed elk
habitat dating back to the
1950s and 1960s, he said.
At the meeting, Commissioner Ted Strickler said there
is some public
resistance
to the idea that wolf reintroduction has caused
declines in big game herds.
Some point to the fire season of 2000 as a cause, but
Strickler said the
long-term effect of the fires should be an increase in
pasture for elk.
“I think you’re absolutely right,” Curt Mack, wolf
recovery coordinator for
the
Nez Perce Tribe, agreed. In the short-term, big fires
like the 2000 Clear
Creek
Fire probably displaced elk and reduced winter range,
Mack said, but post-fire
conditions should improve for elk over the next few
years.
Strickler said he’s heard many hunters don’t want to
book hunts with
outfitters
whose hunt areas have wolf packs, for fear wolves have
killed too many elk and
decreased hunting opportunities.
Farr said he’s had to adjust where he takes clients on
deer and cougar hunts.
He said both animals have been displaced from the
larger river and creek
bottoms to headwaters and smaller tributary streams.
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