Rely on State plans, not federal protection
A New Path for Wolf Management
In the wake of a federal court's reinstatement of protection for grey wolves, it's clear that a new path is need on this ever-contentious issue. Where should the region go from here?
By Guest Writer, 8-05-08
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| Caption: Courtesy of Yellowstone National Park. | |
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As the dust settles on a federal court’s reinstatement of Endangered Species protections for gray wolves, one thing is clear: we need to find a new path to achieve balanced, science-based wolf management by the states. At the moment we seem mired in endless conflict that is serving no one’s interests particularly well — not wolves, conservationists, state wildlife managers, landowners or anyone else with a concern for wolves.
So, where do we, as a region, go from here?
Though the Greater Yellowstone Coalition was not a party to this litigation, the federal court’s ruling points out some significant problems in the delisting decision. In a clearly worded opinion, the court expressed its concern that Greater Yellowstone’s wolves are genetically isolated from wolf populations in central Idaho and around Glacier National Park, which could result in a long-term decline in the health of wolves. The decision also identified Wyoming’s laws and plans directing wolf management — especially the Predator Zone, where roaming wolves can be killed at any time for any reason — as an impediment to delisting.
The three states and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service face an important choice: fight this injunction decision and prolong the court battle or begin fixing the flaws in the state-management plans. Fixing the plans now won’t change the outcome of the litigation, but it will give the states a head start at getting it right, hastening the day when delisting can finally occur. Now is the time for leadership, not a return to the anti-wolf and anti-federal rhetoric that seems to dominate this issue.
Montana and Idaho have a critical role to play in addressing the lack of genetic exchange among Northern Rockies wolf populations. Wolves need to be able to move between Yellowstone and central Idaho without being killed. This landscape, which includes Montana’s Madison, Centennial and Big Hole river valleys as well as the Centennial Mountains, Italian Peaks and Beaverhead Range in Idaho, is a working landscape where wolves travel across both public and private land on their daily travels. Connecting the Northern Rockies wolf populations across this region presents a complex management puzzle requiring agencies, landowners and conservationists to work together to tackle the challenge.
Most of the wolves in this important connectivity region die because of conflicts with livestock. Collectively, we need to redouble our efforts at using non-lethal tools to reduce these conflicts. We also need to get creative and develop new ways to mitigate livestock-wolf conflicts while fairly compensating producers who suffer losses.
Idaho and Montana should also reconsider their proposed hunting seasons in this critical area. While hunting will be a part of wolf management once delisting occurs, ensuring connectivity means we can’t add to the mortality of wolves trying to move between Greater Yellowstone and central Idaho. Idaho in particular planned an aggressive hunting harvest in this crucial corridor along the state line. The two states need to coordinate their management to establish and maintain connectivity between these wolf populations.
The best long-term solution for wolves is to have good state plans that manage wolves as an integral part of our wildlife heritage, so they don’t need to be kept under federal protection. Fair, balanced state management plans that are based on science and take into account the interests of all those with a stake in wolf management — from wildlife enthusiasts to ranchers, hunters and conservationists — will best serve both wolves and the public.
Instead of continuing to fight this decision, the states should get to work, involving all the stakeholders, to fix the problems identified in the court’s decision. The alternative is that wolves remain on the Endangered Species list far into the future. If that’s the answer, there’s no question that we’ll all be losers.
It’s time to take a step onto a path less traveled. It will likely make all the difference – especially for the wolf.
Michael Scott is the Executive Director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition
[End of article]
How many wolves are needed to provide for genetic diversity? Oregon now officially has one breeding pair. Are we going to have to import wolves to meet the genetic exchange burden, or can the wolves themselves "git 'er done?"
Oregon also has a first time breeding population of moose, which have never been present as a sedentary breeding population. Both wolves and moose have pioneered into Oregon, which begs the question as to really how crappy has the environment become, and, in light of global warming, why are these cold climate species establishing more southern territories? My guess is the moose swam the Snake River just to get away from Idaho wolves. And, damn, the wolves swam the river, too.
If the wolves begin to target the moose, which species will prevail in the regulatory market? Which is the more charismatic and deserving of human intervention? Is Shiras moose an endangered species in Oregon, as the wolf is now classified? Less than a hundred individuals would seemingly make that case.
If Idaho wolves have now encamped on Oregon, and Nevada is sure to see them soon, is the genetic exchange with Yellowstone wolves going to drive the process in those states? Or, as can sometimes the case, the environmental zeal more important than biological reality? It appears the wolves are outrunning the ability of Yellowstone to be of importance in the genetics of wolves, and we must remember those genetics are imported from the MacKenzie River basin of the far north. Add those genes to the out migration of Minnesota wolves, Canadian wolves coming south, and perhaps Mexican wolves moving north, and maybe the issue is moot, or contrived.
Hunting of charismatic animals like wolves generates public distain in many areas, and reasons not to are many. But are those reasons important biological reasons, or just matters of controlling human actions not liked by some? Biology vs Emotion. That is what ruined the public land timber industry, and is the reason we have larger and more intense fires destroying the trees and the soils that were preserved from logging. Emotions prevailed and the biological loss is more than huge.
I would agree with bear bait that we really need a mixing of these wolves with the Minnesota and mexican ones to really develep a healthy population. Wolves are the best things to happen to these mountains in all my years. And he is right about the moose too - when I was a kid there were no moose in these central idaho mountains - now they are fairly noticaable. if wolves were the devestation people figured then they would never have increased the way they have. Don't know about the the global warming thing and why they would be down here in these fairly warm dry areas. Also don't know what Mr Scott is doing writing about wolves. His organization never did anything for them, and isn't even part of these legal battles.
Comment By Derek, 8-05-08Well said, Michael. Thanks.
Comment By Janet, 8-05-08Interesting position Michael! Should I read this to mean that your position (and the position of your organization, GYC) has now flip-flopped on the issue of wolf delisting? Are you now opposing delisting, when (for the last several months) you and your organization has been supporting not only delisting, but state management plans including fall hunting seasons?
If that is the case, I say welcome to the party...however late you may be!
I would appreciate your response regarding GYC's "current" position on the issue of wolves.
This is a crock. VonHoldt concludes, supposedly, that the YNP population will inbreed upon itself in 60 years. But Dave Mech, who also read the VonHoldt paper, declared:
"No genetically effective immigration has been found in the closed Isle Royale (IR) wolf population for 50 years, yet the population
persists at the same range of levels (12-50, average about 25/per year) as it has for 50 years. In fact the Isle Royale wolf population is informative for several reasons.
Contrary to the 3 NRM wolf populations it was founded by only 1 female and 1 or 2 males (Wayne et al. 1991) and has inbred for 50 years. The IR wolves look and act like any other wolves, prey successfully on one of the species’ largest prey animals, the
moose (Alces alces), and survive at as high a level as any other wolf population."
Give me a break. Dave Mech is telling the truth.
This is just another cheap stunt by Judge Molloy to legitimize some of the more bizarre social-engineering tenets of the "conservation biology" ideology. Sorry, but a wolf that eats cattle shouldn't be left alive to put its behavior patterns in the gene pool.
I think more outdoorsmen and recreationalists need to just kill more wolves every time they see some.That way we can have our way without the politics and drama involved with the bastards.Wolves have never worked before and they never will.I hope I can have the opportunity to engage a few some day.Ill make sure I take head shots only.That way I can use fewer bullets.with copper prices being so high and all, ammo doesnt come easy.
Comment By Horst Wagner, 8-05-08Why can't we do with these wolf laws the way we do with most federal laws? Most of us respect them; and most of us disrespect those who do not respect them...
Comment By mike, 8-05-08I still want to know how CUT cheated us so badly and what the GYC is changing internally to improve its ability to deal with grifters, both the financial kind and the philosophical kind, in the future. No, this is not just another pointless jab. Both the GYC's difficulty in finding a clear, stable, and lasting position on the wolf issue and the GYC's inability to defend itself against the well-known and long-established grift of the CUT schemers are both reflections of the same internal root management and leadership weaknesses. Unless those weaknesses can be clearly identified and either corrected or patched, there will remain a risk that a group that holds and controls a critical leadership slot in GYE conservation will 1) continue to have trouble developing and sticking to a clear, stable, and lasting position on critical issues (ability to resist philosophical grift) and 2) continue to have trouble resisting getting politically and/or financially rolled again or, worse, leading large segments of an otherwise trusting conservation community to follow them into a situation in which they get rolled along with GYC. When you, as an individual or an organization, establish yourself in a key leadership position, you implicitly occupy a space and a role that others cannot occupy at that same time. If you then play that role in a weak or unclear manner, then you effectively lead/condemn the whole movement under you to weakness and uncertainty. Things will soon be changing. Within the next six months, many will be reawakening from an eight year slumber during which energy was being saved for better times and better opportunities. There will soon be a time for making hay while the sun shines. The organizational infrastructure must be ready. To put it into the popular vernacular, the conservation movement within the GYE needs a wartime consigliere and the GYC is not, at this time, functioning very well in that capacity.
Comment By Marion, 8-05-08People are beginning to take a good hard look at the "improvements" resulting from enviros energy restrictions, so maybe they will finally take a good look at what all of the environmental BS is costing the country overall. I'd like to know just how much the good judge awarded each of those groups for "reimbursement of expenses".
Comment By Daniel, 8-07-08Rather than hunting wolves, we need to transplant more of them. They aren't dispersing fast enough without our help. Yes, they're working their way into Oregon and towards Washington. Fine, lets immediately trap a couple dozen and put them in northern California, then the populations can expand and meet in the middle. Next year we should do the same in Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. The following year put some in Nebraska and Georgia. We shouldn't have to kill any wolves until every state has 100 breeding pairs.
Comment By bear bait, 8-07-08Daniel: You are absolutely correct. If collective insanity is driven by a snowball effect, the best way to have a sure and quick end to the mindless march is to get behind those struggling to make a bigger snowball, and help them roll it larger and larger until it collapses of its own weight, to melt into the firmament with help from the sun.
If it is just ducky to import Canadian wolves to "augment" an extirpated population, then we ought to import them across the whole of the landscape if only to ensure genetic diversity is addressed by anthropogenic means. Maybe there ought to be a wolf artificial insemination group from USFWS to make sure that diversity is always addressed. And for grizzly bears and polar bears, also. That would be a macho man sport, no? Showing my age, I can just see Kitty Carlisle guessing "What's my Line?" for some handsome buffed out guy. "Oooh! You are a grizzly bear artificial insemination group leader. I read about you in the New York Times."