JODI HAUSEN, Chronicle Staff Writer
Dissatisfied with state and federal agencies’ wolf management policies, Montana politicians are taking steps to ensure they have a say in those practices.
Madison County commissioners recently passed a law placing a $100 bounty on any legally killed wolf.
Jefferson and Ravalli counties passed resolutions obliging wildlife agencies to notify commissioners when considering changes to predator management policies in or near their jurisdictions.
And now Gallatin County commissioners may follow suit.
Some county residents, particularly livestock producers and hunting-related business owners, say they are losing money because of increased wolf populations preying on stock and game animals.
Others argue that tourists come to Montana to see the wolves, benefiting the state economically, and that the predators control an elk population whose foraging has nearly depleted some riparian habitats.
Caught in the middle are managers with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, who have been criticized for not keeping wolves at bay.
Gallatin County Commissioner Joe Skinner decided to explore the issue after hearing years of complaints about livestock depredation and reduced elk, deer and moose numbers. He insists the public meetings he’s leading in Gallatin County are designed to inform commissioners and are not a “witch hunt” for wolves or an attack on the state wildlife agency.
“It’s not about challenging FWP,” Skinner said last week. “It’s about finding balance between predator and prey and predator and livestock producer. I think we can have both — some wolves on the landscape and hunting at the same time. But it doesn’t look like that’s happening the way it’s being managed right now.”
Local laws
The drive to pass local predator resolutions began after Montana legislators amended predator management laws in 2011.
Republican State Sen. Debby Barrett, a rancher from Dillon, introduced the amendment that ensures state and federal agencies consult local governments in areas with large predators before making policy decisions.
Though the National Environmental Policy Act and the Montana State Constitution already provide local governments with that opportunity, Barrett said her intent was to bring the issue to the forefront.
“I wanted no doubt that the federal agencies that manage wildlife need to consult with” local authorities, she said.
NEPA grants state and local governments “coordinating agency status” with federal agencies after local officials define their own management policies. Additionally, state agencies must take public comment when making policy decisions.
“This just gives county government more input than just public comment,” Barrett said last week of her amendment. “It puts counties in front of agencies to listen to them so they can make meaningful decisions. When they make a decision, they will know how it will impact the county’s citizens.”
Skinner admits the opportunity to coordinate with wildlife agencies has always existed and that the county has never done so.
“But they’ve never sat down with us and explained to us what they were doing,” he added.
Too many wolves
After gray wolves were delisted in 2008, FWP was tasked with managing an annual hunt.
“Montana agreed to 150 wolves or 15 breeding pairs, and we were supposed to write a wolf-management plan for when they were delisted,” Barrett said. “But before we could write it, the wolf population grew beyond the management amount.”
Montana lawmakers say the state agency’s nascent management program has not done enough to cull canine predator numbers.
“Granted FWP has only been at this a couple of years,” Skinner said. “But in a lot of people’s minds, they’re not being aggressive enough.”
To address those concerns, FWP on Thursday tentatively approved a no-quota wolf-hunting season that will also permit trapping. Public comment on the proposal is being accepted until June 25.
“It’s not an easy issue,” FWP wildlife manager Howard Burt said after the well-attended FWP commission hearing last Thursday.
“It’s a situation where it’s really hard for anybody to be patient to see how this is going to play out,” he said. “This is a fairly new creature in our generation on the landscape again. How that animal is going to impact elk, moose and deer and how we’re going to manage that, we don’t have all the answers yet.”
Newer thinking
Meanwhile, one Idaho county is attempting to reduce wolf-livestock interactions with non-lethal methods.
A full 82 percent of Blaine County falls under federal jurisdiction, and local County Commissioner Lawrence Schoen said his commission has been coordinating with federal wildlife agencies for years.
However, when federal wildlife managers reintroduced wolves in 1995, they did so without notifying local governments, he said, perhaps because they knew how fierce the opposition would be.
Schoen has been working with federal authorities and environmental groups to teach ranchers new ways to raise livestock while coexisting with wolves.
Guard and herding animals, radio collaring with alarms, electric fencing, lights and cracker shots are being employed in Blaine County with the help of grants from Defenders of Wildlife and federal coffers.
“When the tools are deployed properly, depredation is avoided,” Schoen said.
But stock producers don’t exactly embrace the new methods, which cost money.
Schoen counters that — like the adoption of GPS for farming — ranching practices change over time. And prevention is cheaper than losing cattle.
“Ranchers’ first reactions are if the wolves weren’t here, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he said. “It’s already a bad situation if you have a loss. Why wait until you have a loss” to use a lethal deterrent when other wolves will just take that wolf’s place?
Defenders of Wildlife Rocky Mountain regional director Mike Leahy said the feds should have a more significant role in helping ranchers, not county governments.
“I think the federal government has a greater responsibility to help livestock producers to learn to live with large predators,” he said. “Because they have many years without wolves and grizzly bears on the landscape, and this is a transition period.”
Strangling a golden goose
Leahy believes Montana’s county commissioners are off track.
“The commissioners are sending the wrong message to wildlife lovers,” he said. “Commissioners are threatening to strangle one of the golden gooses of this economy.
“I don’t think the county needs the (county) government to protect us from large predators,” Leahy continued. “If they want to get involved in wildlife management, they should do it in a constructive way and work with county residents to reduce conflicts with wildlife.”
But county commissioners, buoyed by Barrett’s legislative amendment, continue their efforts to have a say.
Madison County Commissioner Dan Happel said he’s been working with other county commissioners and the Montana Association of Counties to create a statewide wolf management policy.
“We’re doing it because we’re trying to show solidarity with Jefferson County and others that are trying to pass those sorts of policies,” he said.
Barrett, who spoke of her ranching grandfather shooting wolves that were killing his horses, said FWP isn’t “keeping up with their end of the bargain.”
“I believe our ancestors killed wolves for a reason,” she said.
But even Barrett believes there’s a place for wolves in the West.
“I don’t believe in a world without wolves,” she said. “You just need them in the right places at the right times. Montana is a huge state. There are places in Montana where we can have wolves and there won’t be conflicts. That’s what we agreed to.”
Skinner said he’s trying to achieve a level of equilibrium, though it’s complicated.
“I admit that isn’t just an environmental balance,” he said. “It’s also a political balance – what the people here are willing to put up with.”