Utah activates wolf-management plan
By Patty Henetz
The Salt Lake Tribune
Utah wildlife managers have decided after all to activate the state’s wolf management plan now that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has taken gray wolves off the endangered species list in certain Western regions.
Kevin Bunnell, mammals program coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife, today told the state Wildlife Board that the state plan would cover a small area east of Interstates 84 and 15 and north of Interstate 80 that was included in the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf recovery area.
Two weeks ago, Bunnell said the Utah plan adopted in 2005 might not be consistent with the federal action. Officials re-evaluated the Utah rules and decided they would work.
But there’s a catch: Wolves are unlikely to inhabit the Utah recovery area because Wyoming allows anyone to kill a wolf for any reason outside a small area near Yellowstone National Park that remains protected.
Utah’s wolf management plan, adopted in 2005, allows for two breeding packs with two offspring each in the recovery area. Should the packs remain for two years in the Utah portion of the recovery area, the state plan likely would be revised, officials said.
Bunnell emphasized that having two breeding packs wasn’t a goal, just part of the plan. Other parts include allowances for killing wolves that are harassing or killing livestock and restitution to ranchers.
The only two wild wolves confirmed in Utah during the past 75 years were found in the recovery area. The most recent was a gray wolf found dead in a coyote leg trap north of Tremonton in 2006. The other, a collared wolf known as 253M, was captured alive in a trap near Morgan in 2002 and taken back to Wyoming, where it rejoined the Yellowstone Druid Peak pack.
Wolf 253M, a favorite among wolf watchers around the world, was one of three legally killed near the Jewett elk feedground in Sublette County, Wyo., on March 28, the day the federal delisting decision went into effect. At least 10 wolf kills have been reported to Wyoming Game & Fish since that opening day.
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming plan to issue permits for wolf trophy hunts this fall. Utah is not going to permit a wolf hunt, said Division of Natural Resources spokesman Mark Hadley.
While the Utah management plan is in effect in the recovery area, the rest of the state remains under full Endangered Species Act protection.
The dual status is confusing to the public, said Salt Lake City resident Erica Wangsgard, who attended the Wildlife Board meeting. “If there are no wolves in Utah, how can they be delisted?” she said.
The Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf recovery plan, supposedly a 20-year effort, started 13 years ago. The program has cost taxpayers $27 million; approximately 1,500 wolves were living in the area at the end of 2007.