July 2007
Twelve years after reintroducing
gray wolves to the Northern Rockies, the federal government has announced
a plan that allows many of these same wolves and their offspring to be
killed.
Farther south, New Mexico Governor and presidential candidate Bill
Richardson Friday called for revision of state and federal wolf operating
procedures after an endangered Mexican gray wolf was killed last week by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The government wants to remove the wolves from the endangered species list
in late 2007 or early 2008, a move that conservation groups oppose. The
new proposal allows wolves in the Northern Rockies to be killed before
they are formally delisted.
"The government wants to treat wolves like vermin instead of an endangered
species," said Louisa Willcox of the Natural Resources Defense Council,
NRDC. "It's trying to reverse one of the most successful wildlife recovery
programs in U.S. history."
Under the proposed rule issued Friday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, wolves outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and
wolves that live in Central Idaho's wild country could be killed.
The Service says it needs to make killing wolves easier to protect big game
from wolf predation. Current rules allow wolves to be killed if the states
can show that they are the "primary" cause of depletion of ungulates such
as elk and deer.
This proposal would modify the definition of "unacceptable impacts" of
wolves on wild ungulate populations to mean wolves are "one of the major
causes of the population or herd not meeting established state or tribal
management goals."
This definition expands the potential impacts for which wolf removal might
be warranted beyond direct predation or those causing immediate population
declines.
The meaning of "impact" would be defined by states or tribes with wolf
management plans approved by the federal government.
Idaho and Wyoming state officials have said they intend to immediately
kill over 50 percent, or up to 700 animals, reversing gains that Willcox
says "have taken years and millions of dollars to achieve."
Wyoming's plan classifies wolves as "predatory animals" in three-fourths
of the state, allowing them to be killed by anyone, anytime in that area.
Aerial gunning will be used in Wyoming and Idaho. All three states will
allow public hunting and trapping of wolves.
"Wolves are one of the main attractions for visitors at Yellowstone
National Park. People are amazed and awed when they see them," said
Willcox. "Their recovery after more than a century of extermination is
nothing short of miraculous. Turning back the clock would be a huge
mistake."
Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife says, "We must
sound the alarm bells because, with one stroke of a pen, the Bush
administration has announced they plan to hand over management of gray
wolves to states whose main goal is to exterminate wolves."
Defenders supports the use of non-lethal measures to reduce livestock-wolf
conflicts such as multiple guard dogs, electric night pens, fladry
fencing, and task-specific range riders.
Defenders compensates ranchers 100 percent of the market value for
confirmed livestock losses caused by wolves.
The Service says that as in the previous special rule on wolf killing, the
state or tribal determination of unacceptable impacts and measures to be
taken must be peer-reviewed and provided to the public for comment prior
to a final decision by the Service.
The proposed rule also allows private citizens in states or on tribal
lands with approved wolf management plans to take wolves that are in the
act of attacking their stock animals or dogs. Stock animals are defined as
a horse, mule, donkey or llama used to transport people or their
possessions.
Evidence must be provided of stock animals or dogs recently wounded,
harassed or killed by wolves and those injuries confirmed by agents
designated by the Service.
These modifications would not apply to States or tribes without approved
wolf management plans and would not impact wolves outside the Yellowstone
or central Idaho nonessential experimental population areas. A draft
environmental assessment is being prepared on this proposed action.
Since 1995, only 43 wolves have been legally killed by private citizens in
defense of their private property or by shoot-on-sight permits as
authorized by either the 1994 or 2005 experimental population special
rules, according to the Fish and Wildlife
Service.
"There has been no documentation of wolf depredations on stock animals
that were accompanied by their owners in the past 12 years, but a few
instances of stock animals being spooked by wolves have been reported,"
the Service said.
Thousands of gray wolves inhabited the
Rocky Mountains before being eliminated across most of the West by the 1930s.
The gray wolf was listed
as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1973.
Reintroduction efforts placed 66 wolves in Yellowstone National Park and
part of Idaho in 1995 and 1996. About 1,300 wolves now live in Idaho,
Montana and Wyoming.
Wyoming has not had an approved wolf management plan and is negotiating
with the federal government for approval of a law passed in May to
constitute that plan.
Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal says the new law meets the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, FWS, requirements for an approved wolf management plan,
but to date the federal agency has rejected it.
Despite the federal-state jurisdiction struggle, both the state and
federal plans allow for only eight breeding pairs of wolves in Yellowstone
National Park, Grand Teton National Park and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
Memorial Parkway and an additional seven breeding pairs of wolves outside
those protected areas.
"The State of Wyoming would designate wolves as a 'Trophy Game Species'
within the area defined in the proposal, an area of suitable wolf habitat
that is demonstrated to be capable of supporting at least 15 breeding
pairs," writes Governor Freudenthal in a May 18 letter of Regional FWS
Director Mitch King.
"I am very interested in seeing the delisting process move forward," the
governor wrote.
A copy of FWS Northern Rockies proposal is online at:
http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mamals/wolf/
All public comments on the proposal must be received by August 6, 2007.
Three open houses in combination with public hearings will take place
before the 30-day comment period for this proposed revision closes.
July 17, 2007, Cody Auditorium, Cody, Wyoming
(12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m. - open house; 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. - public
hearing)
July 18, 2007, Jorgenson's Inn & Suites, Helena, Montana
(6 p.m. - 7p.m. - open house; 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. - public hearing)
July 19, 2007, Boise Convention Center on the Grove, Boise, Idaho
(6 p.m. - 7 p.m. - open house; 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. - public hearing)
Comments from the public on this proposed rule can be emailed to
WolfRuleChange@fws.gov. Please include RIN number 1018-Av39 in the subject
line of the message.
Comments can be submitted through the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal:
http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions at this website for
submitting comments.
Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program in Danger
In Santa Fe on Friday, Governor Richardson said he is seeking to change
key protocols for the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program following a wolf
kill incident in southwestern New Mexico.
"I am deeply concerned about the recent escalation in wolf removals and
incidents surrounding yesterday's lethal removal of a female wolf," said
Richardson. "State Police are investigating the incident and are
collecting the facts as this investigation takes its course."
On July 5, attempts to kill wolf AF924 were initiated before adequate
notification was provided to the state of New Mexico, the governor said.
The wolf was killed by federal wildlife personnel before adequate
communication was established, which resulted in conflicts between federal
and state staff involved with the wolf program.
"This type of confusion is not an adequate basis for accomplishing
important wolf restoration," said Richardson.
The lethal removal of a female wolf, that leaves pups with a single
parent, is a setback to the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program, and
signals that it is time to reexamine the protocols under which wolves are
removed from the wild, the governor said.
Governor Richardson has instructed the director of the New Mexico
Department of Game & Fish, NMDGF, and members of the State Game Commission
to work with the state's partners in the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery
Program to review and revise standard operating procedures related to the
control of nuisance (non-depredating) and problem (depredating) Mexican
wolves.
The governor called for the immediate suspension of the use of Standard
Operating Procedure 13 (SOP 13) procedures in New Mexico pending these
revisions.
"I strongly support the effective recovery of endangered Mexican wolves in
the Southwest, done in a responsible and sensitive way," said Richardson.
"Changes must be made to the protocol for the wolf re-introduction
program."
The Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit group based in Tucson,
Arizona, echoes the governor's outrage and supports his call for
suspending and reforming the federal rule requiring the killing of wolves.
"This wolf killing is a blatant abuse of federal power. It is undermining
the recovery of the Mexican gray wolf, and is just the latest in a string
of attacks on endangered species by the Bush administration," said Michael
Robinson, conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity.
The Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program is led by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and supported by a set of partners in the recovery area.
The NMDGF is an active participant, along with the Arizona Department of
Game and Fish, the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Wildlife Services, and the White Mountain Apache Tribe.
The standard operating procedures were established by the partners to
enhance the coordination and effective management of wolves.
In March, Governor Richardson directed the State Game Commission and the
Department of Game and Fish to redouble their efforts to work with all
interests to promote healthy wolf populations living in reasonable
compatibility with communities and land stewards in New Mexico.
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