Wolf plan draws many questions and some howls
By MICHAEL BABCOCK
Tribune Outdoor Editor
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks asked Great Falls area residents Monday night what they wanted to see in a state plan to manage the gray wolf.
Perhaps 50 people showed up at MSU-Great Falls College of Technology; they mostly brought questions — a few brought attitudes — about what will be in the plan that Montana adopts to manage the big predator when it is removed from the Endangered Species List.
“The goal is to keep wolves off the list and to manage them at the state level,” said Carolyn Sime, a FWP wildlife biologist charged with writing the plan.
There are an estimated 660 wolves and more than 40 breeding pairs in the Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Area, which includes Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.
In Montana, there are an estimated 183 wolves in 35 packs and about 16 breeding pairs.
All three states have to have wolf management plans in place before the federal government — the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — will delist the wolf.
Sara Buley of Great Falls, said she attended Monday’s meeting to find out how other people feel about the issue. She believes that people need to quit encroaching on wildlife habit.
“The wolves were here first. I get fed up reading about how the deer and other wildlife become a nuisance,” Buley said. “We need to rein ourselves in a little.”
But another person at the meeting wanted to know who would be paying his son when wolves get into his sheep herd and kill lambs.
“You also have to look five or 10 years down the road and know that every church camp and every scout camp will have to have day and night guards (to protect the children from wolves),” he said.
The meeting, actually a work session in which participants were asked to break into small groups and offer their ideas about what should be in the plan, is one of a dozen scheduled around the state. Ultimately, FWP Director Jeff Hagener will decide which alternative will be adopted as Montana’s plan.
A year’s worth of discussions by a governor-appointed council on wolf management produced five alternatives. They range from not adopting a plan, in which the wolf would continue as an endangered species no matter how many there are, to the “minimum wolf plan,” in which there would only be 10 breeding pairs.
FWP favors the “additional wolf” alternative in which there would be 15 breeding pairs. FWP would manage wolves and there would be the possibility of hunting and trapping. Landowners would be free to harass wolves to protect their property and could receive a kill permit in certain cases.
Another question raised Monday was how would wolves migrating from one area of the state to another be managed.
Sime said the state probably would allow the wolves to “balance themselves” but acknowledged “societal tolerances” that differ from area to area in the state would affect management.
“Why is there a limit on breeding pairs and who set the limit,” asked a woman.
Sime said biologists and researchers on a state-federal interagency committee offered the 15-breeding-pairs number and that it is based on science and social tolerance.
She said that 15 breeding pairs is the lowest level that would still allow some management.
“With more pairs, we could manage more liberally… there would be more trapping, more hunting and more kill permits issued to landowners,” Sime said.
Wolves began naturally migrating into Montana from Canada about 20 years ago.
In the mid-1990s, the federal government reintroduced Canadian gray wolves into Yellowstone National Park and Idaho.
The federal government set 30 breeding pairs of wolves distributed throughout the three states as a trigger to begin discussions for delisting the wolf. That target was reached at the end of last year.
In March the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the first steps to ease federal protections for gray wolves, changing the status from “endangered” to “threatened.” A threatened species is still protected by the government, but the status change gives more flexibility in managing wolves.
For the last month, officials with Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks have held community work sessions across the state to gather comments on the department’s five alternatives to wolf management in Montana.
To comment
Fish, Wildlife & Parks wants comment on the state’s wolf management plan. To see details of all five alternatives go to fwp.state.mt.us and click on Montana Wolf Management under Hot Topics. Or, go to the FWP regional headquarters in Great Falls at 4600 Giant Springs Road.