Don Jenkins
Capital Press
Conservation groups said Thursday they were disappointed that Washington wildlife managers plan to kill wolves, but some environmentalists agreed that reaction was relatively muted compared to previous times the state has culled a pack to stop attacks on livestock.
“What I’m hearing so far is sadness, disappointment, but not the outrage that immediately surfaced two years ago with the Huckleberry pack,” said Shawn Cantrell, director of Defenders of Wildlife Northwest and a member of the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Wolf Advisory Group.
The 17-member group — which includes ranchers, hunters and environmentalists — agreed just before the grazing season on a lethal-removal protocol. Following that policy, Fish and Wildlife Director Jim Unsworth authorized lethal removal Wednesday after his department confirmed a fourth depredation by the Profanity Peak pack in Ferry County in the northeastern corner of the state.
Late Wednesday, the department confirmed that another calf had been killed by the pack, bringing the total to four calves and one cow. Three more calves were probably killed by the pack, according to WDFW.
Stevens County rancher Scott Nielsen, vice president of the Cattle Producers of Washington, said Thursday the confirmed depredations probably are only a portion of the number of cattle killed by the pack.
He said that if WDFW had initiated lethal removal sooner, fewer wolves would have to be shot to break the cycle of depredations.
“They’ve let it go on way too long. If they mess around with one or two wolves, the pack will continue killing cows,” Nielsen said. “If they had acted sooner, it would take less to stop that feeding habit.”
WDFW last used lethal removal in 2014, when one wolf from the Huckleberry pack was shot. In the only other time WDFW has resorted to lethal removal, seven wolves from the Wedge pack were killed in 2012.
Both times the department came under heavy criticism from environmental groups.
Since then, WDFW has tried with the help of the Wolf Advisory Group to clarify what ranchers must do to prevent depredations and what the department will do if those measures failed.
“I think the department followed the protocol and the producers there upheld their end of the bargain, and it’s where we are,” said Paula Swedeen, who represents Conservation Northwest on the advisory group.
The Center for Biological Diversity, Cascadia Wildlands and the Western Environmental Law Center issued a joint statement Wednesday objecting to WDFW’s plans to shoot wolves on remote public lands, but was otherwise uncritical of the decision.
None of the organizations are in the advisory group, but the center’s West Coast wolf organizer, Amaroq Weiss, credited WDFW with engaging with ranchers, hunters and environmentalists over the past year.
She said the state’s lethal-removal policy should be more grounded in science, but that WDFW has been open about its plans.
“I would say that has helped bring down the temperature a bit,” she said. “We justifiably heard anger during the Wedge pack incident and Huckleberry pack incident because those were not handled in a way that was transparent or accountable.”