COULD RECLAIM MUCH OF ITS NATIVE RANGE

Wolf Moving Out of Recovery Zone

By Bill Schneider, 3-17-07

As public hearings on the delisting of the northern Rocky Mountain wolf from the protection of the Endangered Species Act conclude, the controversy is only beginning. Disagreement dominates almost any discussion on wolves, but alas, there are two points of universal agreement.

First, everybody agrees the 1995 reintroduction has been successful in the targeted recovery zone, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. And second, the expansion of the wolf won’t stop at the boundary of the recovery zone.

The expansion of the wolf’s range is, in fact, already underway. If allowed, and it appears as if it will be, the reintroduction might turn out to be more successful than the wildest expectations of wolf advocates. Wildlife managers have already documented the presence of the ultra-controversial species in Colorado, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Washington. At this rate, the wolf could reclaim much of its native range.

Environmental groups and wildlife agencies now consider it a foregone conclusion that the wolf will pioneer new habitat in these states and established packs just like the master predator did in the three states in the recovery zone. Most neighboring states have already--and proactively--formed wolf working groups and are well into the task of writing management plans to be ready for the wolf in an attempt to avoid some of the pitfalls experienced in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Lone dispersers, usually young males, do not count as a population. To be considered “established,” a state must have a “breeding pair,” which is defined by wildlife agencies as an alpha male and female traveling together in December with at least two pups. This means the wolf has bred and started a pack. When (not if) this happens, the state activates its wolf management plan, but regulation may be much different than it has been in the recovery zone.

In Oregon and Washington, for example, the wolf will not be an official endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. Instead, it will fall under some special state protective designation. In Colorado, however, the wolf will remain under the protection of the ESA unless the delisting process has been completed and approved by the courts after the inevitable lawsuits.

And yes, there will be lawsuits, and no real hope of delisting being approved in the near future. Instead, it might be dragged out for years.

“Absolutely, (delisting) will end up in the courts,” Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), told me in a phone interview. “All wolf stuff ends up in the courts. We expect to be sued by both sides for the opposite reason.”

And as litigation delays delisting, the wolf will be reclaiming more and more of its native range. We already have plenty of evidence of this.

On February 16, 2006, Colorado Division of Wildlife district wildlife managers observed and briefly captured on video a large canid they strongly suspect was a wolf. The sighting occurred ten miles south of the Wyoming border near Walden, Colorado. Seeing a wolf in Colorado is a really big deal politically, ecologically and every other way, so the state agency tiptoed around the announcement. The DOW press release put it like this: ‘Biologists and wolf specialists who have examined the video say the animal seen on the tape looks and behaves like a wolf.’

“There’s really no way to be absolutely sure just by looking at an animal, and even genetic testing isn’t 100% reliable” said Gary Skiba, Senior Wildlife Conservation Biologist and DOW coordinator for the state’s Wolf Management Working Group. “It’s important that everyone understand that, for now, wolves remain under the protection of the Endangered Species Act,” Skiba noted. “Federal protections of all wolves continue to be in effect.”

In addition to forming a wolf working group, the Colorado Wildlife Commission has approved a management plan. Under the plan, wolves will be allowed to live in suitable habitat, and the state plans to use “voluntary non-lethal methods” to prevent them from causing damage.

One reason the sighting was so significant is because Colorado has another Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain National Park, with its huge elk overpopulation than needs trimming. Some NPS biologists and green groups want to reintroduce the wolf to Rocky to balance the elk herd, but the ag industry has prevented serious consideration of this plan. Instead, current plans call for hunters or government shooters to trim the herd. If the wolf naturally finds its way to the waiting elk smorgasbord, however, and establishes itself, it can stay.

Bangs also told me about one wolf caught by a coyote trapper near Ogden, Utah in 2004. That wolf was relocated back to Yellowstone. Two years later, another wolf was caught in a coyote trap, this time near, also near Ogden, and died.

“We’ve also had one dead wolf from Ninemile (west of Missoula, Montana) show up in Washington,” Bangs noted. “We don’t know how it died. We also had one go through Washington into Canada.”

Bangs knows of three documented sightings so far in Oregon--one captured and relocated back to Idaho, one run over by a car, and one illegally shot.

On April 10, 2006, a 115-pound wolf was found dead on a road near Sturgis, South Dakota. It looked healthy and had deer hair in its stomach, Bangs said. Subsequent DNA testing confirmed it was from Yellowstone, which means it traveled about 320 miles to where it died. “These long-distance movements aren’t that unusual,” Bangs said. “Wolves do it all the time.”

Even though the Black Hills has a huge deer population, Bangs thinks the area might be too small for the wolf to establish a population there. “Wolves need big country,” he notes.

So, maybe not in South Dakota, but definitely in Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington. The expansion is underway, and it’s only a matter of time before breeding pairs are documented in those states. Then, it will be interesting to see what happens.

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