Trophy wolves backed by panel
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The Senate Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee recommended a bill on Thursday that would classify wolves as a trophy animal that may be hunted.
Meanwhile, discussion in the Senate Agriculture Committee on a measure that would investigate a possible lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over wolf management was postponed until next week because of a long day spent amending the budget.
House Bill 229, recommended 4-0 by the Travel Committee, would establish a wolf hunting license to provide a check on wolf numbers in Wyoming.
“It gives me some consternation when people suggest that we can keep wolves in the northwest corner of Wyoming. This is a naturally dispersing species,” said Rep. Mike Baker, R-Thermopolis, one of several sponsors of the bill.
A member of the committee, Sen. Tex Boggs, D-Rock Springs, asked Baker if wolves could someday spread across Wyoming.
“That potential is always there,” he said.
Baker said he consulted with the Fish and Wildlife Service while working on the bill. He said he was told a decision on removing wolves from Endangered Species Act protection will be made on the regional level rather than national level.
“Everything they want I have been assured is workable on the management level. The question is whether it will work on a biological level,” he said, referring to the agency’s wolf experts.
It will ultimately be up to Fish and Wildlife Service biologists to determine whether the state wolf management plans of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho will be sufficient to sustain a wolf population.
HB229 calls for Wyoming to maintain 15 wolf packs: eight in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway, and seven elsewhere in the state.
The bill defines a pack as five or more wolves traveling together. In cases where more than 10 wolves are known to travel together, the number of packs in the group would equal the number of females with pups.
The bill classifies wolves outside the parks as predators. After delisting from endangered status, wolves would be classified as trophy animals in the parks and the parkway as well as in the wilderness areas contiguous to those areas.
Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, praised how the trophy status would extend outside the parks.
“We certainly weren’t going to get any support from the Fish and Wildlife Service if we said keep the wolves (only) in the parks,” he said.
| onthenet HB 229 SF 97 |
Acting Game and Fish Department Director Tom Thorne said his agency believes that it is crucial to get wolves delisted soon to control predation on livestock and big game.
“The only way we can mitigate those effects is for us to be in charge of management of wolves,” he said.
He estimated that the state’s wolf management program would cost $300,000 to $400,000 a year. “If that’s what it takes, I think it would be worth it because the alternative is huge impacts to livestock and big game,” Thorne said.
Under the bill, a resident wolf license would cost $15 and a nonresident license would cost $150. Patricia Dowd, a lobbyist for the Wyoming chapter of the Sierra Club, asked if that would be enough to cover the state’s wolf management costs.
“I’m concerned that the license fee of $15 is extremely low,” she said. Baker told her he thinks just about everyone who hunts big game in or near wolf country would want to by a wolf license.
HB229, which had earlier been passed by the House, was sent to the Senate for further discussion.
Another wolf bill, Senate File 97, will be debated at 7 a.m. today by the House Travel Committee. It asserts the state’s authority to manage all wildlife within its borders.