Ranchers want wolves shot sooner, conservationists want ranchers to do more.
Don Jenkins
Capital Press
LACEY, Wash. — A northeast Washington county official suggested Wednesday that if wildlife managers intervened before packs developed a strong taste for livestock, fewer wolves would have to be shot to stop depredations.
Meanwhile, a conservation group said ranchers should employ more cowboys to protect herds.
Stevens County Commissioner Don Dashiell, a member of the state’s Wolf Advisory Group, said the current policy of waiting for four confirmed depredations before removing wolves has led to too many dead livestock and wolves.
The state shot seven wolves in 2012 and seven more last summer. In 2014, Dashiell’s brother, Dave, reported losing up to 300 sheep to the Huckleberry pack.
With earlier intervention, “these might have been three smaller incidents,” Don Dashiell said.
“One confirmed depredation, which is a mortality, is a good place to start,” he said. “We have to deal with the culprits.”
The advisory group, which includes environmentalists and ranchers, agreed last year to the current policy, which led the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to initially try to stop depredations in the Colville National Forest by removing part of the Profanity Peak pack.
When depredations continued, WDFW tried to kill the entire pack. Four wolves eluded a trapper and marksmen and survived.
The advisory group on Wednesday began reviewing the department’s policy for the 2017 grazing season. There was widespread agreement that too many wolves and too many cattle died last summer and that the policy needs revising.
WDFW reported 15 cattle grazing in the forest were either definitely or probably attacked by the Profanity Peak pack.
Ranchers say the official total represents only a fraction of their losses. The remains of many more cattle were never found, and surviving cows were skittish and underweight.
Environmentalists said convincing their groups to support earlier lethal intervention would be tough. They also noted that attacks by other packs last summer stopped after one or two depredations, without killing wolves.
Conservation Northwest said Wednesday in a statement that ranchers should be required to use “high-quality human presence” from the beginning of the grazing season to guard herds. The government and private donors should help ranchers pay for range-riders, according to the organization.
Northeast Washington rancher Arron Scotten told the advisory group that ranchers already protect their animals.
“Right now my children are sitting on two herds of cattle to protect calves from wolves,” Scotten said.
“As far as I’m concerned, we’re doing everything we can,” he said after the meeting. “We’re doing it because that’s how you stay viable.”
Environmentalists said they will need evidence that earlier lethal intervention works.
A 2014 study led by Washington State University biologist Rob Wielgus concluded that shooting wolves breaks up packs, increases breeding by younger wolves and actually leads to more attacks on livestock.
University of Washington researchers replicated the WSU study and came to a different conclusion — shooting wolves reduces attacks on livestock.
WDFW wolf scientist Scott Becker said wolves have been extensively studied, but remain a mystery. “You can find science to support any viewpoint in this room,” he said.
A study funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and published in 2015 concluded that partial pack removal was effective in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming if done soon after a depredation.
Partial pack removal worked best if conducted within seven days of a depredation. If wildlife managers waited 14 days, there was no difference between partial pack removal and doing nothing, according to the study.
Last summer, the time between the first confirmed depredation by the Profanity Peak pack and the first wolf shot was 28 days.