Wyoming might continue wolf compensation payments
LANDER, Wyo. – Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Wednesday that the state attorney general’s office is reviewing whether it’s legal for the state to continue to compensate ranchers for livestock losses to wolves even though a federal judge has stripped the state of control over the predators.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula, Mont., last Friday entered an injunction blocking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from removing federal Endangered Species Act protections from wolves in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has said that it intends to continue with the compensation program for ranchers in the Yellowstone Park area, known as the trophy game area.
“By state law, we will still be providing compensation to ranchers within the trophy game area,” department spokesman Eric Keszler said Tuesday. “Unless there’s a change in state law, that program will continue as planned.”
Freudenthal said Wednesday that the Game and Fish Department may be correct to continue the payments, but said he wants to make sure.
“They have a policy reason why they think it makes sense,” Freudenthal said. “I’d kind of like to make sure that it’s consistent with what the law requires.”
The state Legislature appropriated $2.4 million to manage wolves during the 2009-10 budget period. While that figure includes $540,000 for the compensation program, Keszler said it’s unclear how much it will actually cost.
Under Molloy’s ruling, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will manage wolves as an endangered species in Wyoming until the lawsuit runs its course or until the injunction is overturned by appeal.
Wyoming’s wolf management plan created a zone where trophy hunting would be allowed, essentially on the outskirts of Yellowstone National Park. Elsewhere in the state, the state plan called for wolves to treated as predators that could be shot on sight.
Keszler said the state game department is working on a cooperative agreement with the federal government to become the agency that handles federal management of wolves inside the trophy game zone. More than 90 percent of the state’s estimated 360 wolves live in the area.
Freudenthal said Molloy’s ruling complicated any discussion of Wyoming managing wolves within the state.
“I’m not saying we don’t end up where Game and Fish has been articulating and I look forward to their position and don’t fault them, but I have a small detail with regard to making sure it’s legal and that it makes sense,” Freudenthal said.
The Washington, D.C.-based Defenders of Wildlife will continue to compensate ranchers for livestock lost to wolves outside the trophy zone. Suzanne Stone, regional representative for the group, said the payments are conditioned on ranchers making a reasonable effort to employ nonlethal means of protecting their animals.
Stone said that since wolves lost federal protection in March, the Defenders of Wildlife has received a few wolf-loss claims from ranchers in the predator zone and has reimbursed two or three of those claims.
Keszler said that the game department has yet to receive any claims in the trophy area since the federal protections ended in March.
The Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed the deaths of 71 cattle and 20 sheep in Wyoming to wolves last year. Ranchers and Game and Fish officials say many wolf kills of livestock go unconfirmed every year.
State Senate President John Schiffer, R-Kaycee, said Wednesday that he’s in favor of the state continuing payments to ranchers for livestock lost to wolves even if the state doesn’t have management of the animals.
“I do support it; we reimburse ranchers if a mountain lion kills something, or if a bear kills something,” Schiffer said. “It’s consistent with what we’re doing now.”