Wyoming will continue to pay for wolf damage
LANDER, Wyo. (AP)–The state of Wyoming will 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, July 11, 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.
Eric Keszler, spokesman for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said state law calls for spending $540,000 over the next two years to compensate ranchers in the northwestern area of the state for livestock lost to wolves. He says the state will continue with the compensation program unless the law is changed.
“By state law, we will still be providing compensation to ranchers within the trophy game area,” Keszler said. “Unless there’s a change in state law, that program will continue as planned.”
The state legislature appropriated $2.4 million to manage wolves during the 2009-2010 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 be 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.
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, July 23, 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.”