■ Plan for now is to leave post open, Fish and Wildlife says, since state may take responsibility.
By Mike Koshmrl
A federal wolf expert who’s been deeply involved with management since the reintroduction of the species to the Northern Rockies two decades ago has called it a career.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Coordinator Mike Jimenez officially ended his tenure as a federal government employee on Monday, although for weeks prior he had been de facto retired while burning up banked vacation time. The former Jackson Hole resident will be missed, said Mike Thabault, Fish and Wildlife’s assistant regional director for ecological services.
“Mike, he was a unique guy,” Thabault said. “He really kept a lid on wolf stuff in Wyoming, for sure. He was a great asset, and he’s going to be a tough guy to replace, definitely.”
Fish and Wildlife, at least for now, is not filling the position.
“We’re not quite sure U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is going to be in the wolf business long term,” Thabault said.
He was alluding to legislation that would take wolves out of federal managers’ hands and lawsuits that could do the same.
“We haven’t really made any long-term plans,” he said. “We’re going to manage wolves in a way that’s workable for the locals through the summer.”
Tyler Abbott, Fish and Wildlife’s deputy Wyoming field supervisor based in Cheyenne, will take the lead on wolf issues for the time being.
Routine aspects of wolf management, such as working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services on livestock depredation conflict mitigation, will go on unchanged, Thabault said.
“We’re going to be doing the work that we’d do with a federally managed species in the state of Wyoming,” Thabault said. “We’re tracking, to the extent that we can track wolves, on the landscape.”
“The only thing that probably we don’t have a good handle on is the aerial counts,” he said. “Those don’t start until the fall.”
Wolves in Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon are managed by those states. But Canis lupus here is managed by the federal government because of a 2014 federal judge’s ruling that found fault with Wyoming’s lack of legally enforceable language in its plan about minimum wolf numbers.
Following the court order the Wyoming Game and Fish Department mostly pulled out of wolf management. The extent of the state’s involvement is basically investigating livestock depredations — which, if attributed to wolves, are turned over to the feds — and reimbursing ranchers for their losses.
“Mike’s departure didn’t change our role,” Game and Fish large carnivore supervisor Dan Thompson said.
But Thompson and his staff are trying to help Thabault, Abbott and other Fish and Wildlife personnel with the transition.
“We’re trying to help guide those people,” Thompson said, “and trying to explain the processes that Mike has dealt with.”
Jimenez, an almost 21-year Fish and Wildlife wolf program veteran, held an array of positions with the federal agency. He worked assignments as the Northern Rockies wolf management and science coordinator, Wyoming recovery program manager and also held other jobs.
While Jimenez sometimes took unavoidable heat for being the face of federal wolf management, he was an advocate for the large carnivore who, in recent years, often reiterated a view that the species was recovered. His passion for the job was on display in February 2013 on the National Elk Refuge, when four incapacitated members of the Pinnacle Peak Pack were being examined and collared.
“I usually talk to them and tell them to stay away from livestock — stick to elk and deer,” Jimenez said at the time. “We have a kind of man-to-man talk before we let them go.”