Idaho wolves face delisting, hunting season (Idaho Mountain Express)

Here is another newspaper article on delisting. “Idaho wolves face delisting.” It is the Idaho Mountain Express, written by Steve Benson.

I’m posting it because it has different quotes and new figures not given in earlier articles. For example, Steve Nadeau, the state’s large carnivore manager, said wolves had not hurt elk numbers. He also said the state would not knock wolf numbers down to 15 packs.

28 thoughts on “Idaho wolves face delisting, hunting season (Idaho Mountain Express)

  1. I believe there is an error in Steve’s story about the number of wolves that were killed in 2006 by agencies. Of the 61 documented wolf fatalities in Idaho this past year, 19 were from other causes.

    This could mean death from injuries in pursuit of prey, being hit by a vehicle, being shot by a hunter, etc. That leaves 42 wolves killed because of cattle or sheep.

    It’s likely more wolves were shot by the anti-wulfers and hunters and never found. The shoot, shovel and shut-up scenario.

    We know where the on-going problem areas are of wolf-livestock conflicts in Idaho. If each wolf pack had a human alpha who would look after them and try to reason with agencies and ranchers to avoid putting livestock onto den and rendezvous sites, we might be able to reduce the wolves killed.

  2. There was a decent editorial in today’s Mt Express (Ketchum, Idaho) about being sensible with wolf management. Ralph said he’s going on holiday so I’m posting it here. The writer, Pat Murphy is not someone I thought would write a piece like this. But, good for Pat!

    Idaho Mt Express – Dec. 22, 2006

    By PAT MURPHY

    In 2008, if no legal obstacles stand in the way, Idaho will officially have control of the state’s growing wolf population, now estimated to be 650.

    Thereafter, Idaho’s Fish and Game Commission presumably will issue hunting permits to begin reducing that number, by perhaps as much as half, which is what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates is all that’s needed to keep wolves from going extinct.

    State management of wolves will be proposed by the federal wildlife agency late next month. Then the public will have 60 days to comment, followed by federal deliberations before a decision, considered inevitable, is made.

    Idaho wildlife officials will have a tricky responsibility on their hands.

    Ranchers have been itching to shoot wolves on sight to prevent cattle and sheep herds from being attacked and killed by roaming wolf packs. Some hunters believe wolves are destroying big game herds.

    Environmentalists and biologists are justifiably worried that state management and the politics that come with it could lead to loose enforcement and a bloodbath of wolves that were reintroduced to the state in the late 1990s.

    Wildlife in all species is vital to keeping nature in balance. The loss of one species in time affects all others.

    As the delisting of wolves from the endangered species roster commences, Idaho’s best minds in wildlife management need to develop a sensible method to prevent extermination of wolves simply because they are feared and despised by some who don’t understand the wolf’s importance in nature.

  3. So what happens now? Hundreds of wolves goet shot and killed, then a year later…put back on the list? Seems kind of irrational to me. Since when was “650” the number to be taken off the endangered species list?

    I am no specialist, but I do know that animals such as Lions, and Tigers, and Elephants…number way more than 650 and look at the MILLIONS that are given to them in protection each and every year. They are still on the list.

    I just don’t see anything that is right with this decision at all.

  4. Ron, your post is a good illustration of one filled with common misperceptions, making almost everything you say wrong (in my opinion). I think it is important, from time to time, to comment in detail on a post. I selected yours because I was in the mood to do so.

    Wildlife does not self manage as it did before all the heavy populous pushed animals into smaller and smaller areas of habitat. Wildlife has to be managed to remain healthy which includes wolves.

    Most of Idaho’s wolves in are the vast backcountry of the state. There the habitat is excellent. In Idaho wolf country, animals have not been pushed into smaller and smaller areas of habitat. The 20th century in Idaho began with very few elk. This is not common knowledge, but elk, and even deer, had been killed off by the uncontrolled hunting and livestock grazing the came with Euro-American settlement. The regrowth of the elk populations was a great 20th century success story.

    Unfortunately, after many generations without wolves, elk were having unnatural impacts and were becoming unwary. This large unwary elk population had secondary effects on vegetation and other animals. This is called a “tropic cascade.”

    The cost of reintroduction of wolves into the Idaho wilderness has resulted in the deaths of thousands of deer and elk.

    Of course it they have killed thousands. Wolves are pure carnivores. They were selected from places in Canada where they already preyed on elk, deer, and moose. It is intended that they would eat elk and deer in Idaho. No one supposed they would switch to mice or become non-carnivorous, and it was assumed they would kill only a small number of livestock.

    If left to populate without control they would eventually descimate the heards.

    Now this is where you go wrong. Because wolves eat deer and elk does not mean they will decimate the herds. In fact, if the wolves go mostly after the young, sick, weak, and old, they might not decrease the population at all because these animals would otherwise mostly die soon or be killed by other predators (bears and cougar). Whether wolves decrease the populations they prey on is an empirical question to be ascertained, not an assumption you begin with. I would hypothesize that the effect of wolves would vary from elk herd to elk herd, and that’s what we might be seeing in Idaho. Many elk herds in places with wolves ARE GROWING; others stable, some declining. The same thing is true with the Idaho elk in places with no wolves.

    Once their food source began to deplete they would turn to other sources which would cause more conflict.

    This is something to be determined too, rather than assumed. In places where vulnerable prey is not enough to support the wolves, wolves begin to invade each other’s pack territory and kill each other. I have written scores of stories now about wolf pack conflict. Now below you do pick up on this and write “Without adequate food source the packs would begin turning on each other and self controling.” So if they are self-controlling, end of the problem with ungulate prey, right?

    Without adequate food source the packs would begin turning on each other and self controling.

    It only makes sense if we have to have the wolf shoved into our backyard by the federal goverment that we manage them like any other predator.

    And how are other predator’s managed? It seems to vary from state to state.

    All of the propaganda attempting to humanize the wolf does nothing but antaganize those that witness firsthand the destruction the wolf has caused to our deer and elk heards.

    Wolves are no special bad or good animal. Ed Bangs keeps saying that, and he is right. Anyone who tries to humanize them doesn’t know much about biology. While the great apes have similarities to humans, wolves are too far removed.

    The legal loopholes the ranchers have to jump through to get compensated for all of the sheep and cattle that have been slaughtered is a joke.

    You say “legal loopholes.” That implies you must think the government compensates ranchers for their losses. No. The private organization Defenders of Wildlife compensates ranchers. Because this organization possesses no powers of the state, there can be no legal loopholes or legalities of any kind involved.

    Just talk to them and find out whats really going on and stop believing everything the papers are reporting.

    It is true that some livestock operators complain they were not fully compensated, and that is true, but Defenders is generous in paying them fall prices even if it was a spring lamb or calf lost. Operators get no compensation at all for losses to bears, cougars, eagles, coyotes.

    Many people believe livestock on public lands deserve no compensation because public land grazing is already heavily subsidized by the very low grazing fees public land livestock permittees pay. In other words, the cost of predators, and other factors not present on private lands, is already figured into matter and accounted for by the low grazing fee. Defenders of Wildlife has come under fire by some conservationists for compensating those people to which many feel compensation is not deserved due to what I just mentioned.

    Deregulation is way past due but the libs will tie it up it the courts regardless of the consequences.

    The courts will NOT tie something up unless the “libs,” as you call them, or anyone else, has a lawsuit with good merit. People and groups lose lawsuits all the time, and that is the end of the matter.

    Please excuse the heavy markup of your post Ralph Maughan

  5. Ralph, You did a pretty good job of marking up my post but I expected as much when I made it. I appreciate your passion for wolves and taking the time to respond even though I do not agree with most of your comments and do not believe they are backed up by facts or good wildlife management. The bottom line is I could care less if wolves pooped gold, the manner in which Idaho was forced into wolf reintroduction at tax payers expense is just another example of the federal government stepping on state rights. The reintroduction was opposed by a majority of Idaho voters but the wolves came in anyway. I do not want to digress and I realize I am not going to change anyones mind with this post. What I would like to know and what I do not understand is why are you so passionate about the wolves being reintroduced. Is it the opportunity to view them in nature? Is it because you believe it helps to balance out the ecosystem? Help me out here because it is hard to read through all the half truths that are expended from both sides of the debate. I will never be an advocate or impartial about the wolves from a strictly personal and probably selfish perspective but at least I’m honest about it. I have pesonally had the areas I hunt turned into ghost towns and yes I have seen wolves in several of the areas so there was no mistaking why the elk were missing. I have talked to ranchers, fish and game and forest service personnel that have confirmed the ravages the wolf packs have reeked on wildlife, cattle and sheep. There was and still is a huge cost associated with the reintroduction so my question is where does all the passion for the wolves really come from and how do you justify the cost associated with it? Thanks for your time!

  6. Ron,
    I believe you are somewhat confused in some of your assertions in your last two posts. It seems that that all the people that come out vehemently against wolves some how try to blame liberals, what ever that is, when with just a modicum of research one would find that the whole reintroduction issue was put in motion by President Reagan. I would be interested on how you come to terms with that fact. Next up is the assertion that wolves were pushed on Idaho voters. I don’t believe there was ever a vote, I wish there would be, because every survey that has been done both in Idaho and nationally, shows that the majority of citizens favor wolves in the wild.(Don’t forget that public lands belong to everyone in the United States.)If all the people against wolves are so sure of their public majority, then lets put the issue on a state wide ballot and vote. And last, for now, is that if you have been in an area hunting and have seen wolves then there ARE elk and other prey species around. Think it through. Become a better hunter. I have.

  7. Jeff, I think you know what I mean when I refer to liberals vs. conservatives but I don’t want to go there because that will start a different debate. I did attempt to research Ronald Reagans involvement with wolf reintroduction but I could not find anything? Maybe I am being to specific on my search but I would appreciate some help to point me in the right direction. Who’s to say which way the vote would go? In my circle of friends and contacts I have only met one person who verbally supports wolf reintroduction and another that was indifferent to it. Everyone else spoke openly against it but I assume if I were to hang with a different crowd the responses could be on the opposite side of the spectrum. Again I am looking to educate myself on this issue not just stir up the wrath of wolf supporters but I have to ask this question. Do you live Idaho? What and how ofter do you hunt? I am curious because almost everyone on this and related sites says they hunt but generally make derogatory comments about other hunters. Also I have found that the overwhelming majority of hunters I speak with adhere to the SSS philosophy? Last but not least most hunters do not want to see another predator introduced into the wild whether it be a wolf or a bengal tiger. I could share my personal perspective on why I hunt but it would make a small book. I can emphatically state that it is not for the purpose of just killing an animal. If that were the only reason I would have quit hunting when I was about 13.

  8. Ron Smith,
    The ESA was signed into law in 1973 by President Nixon. On Oct.7 1988 President Reagan signed an amendment to the ESA into law requiring specific plans be drawn up by the Secretaries of Interior and
    Commerce to initiate and implement the recovery of all species listed. As we all know, that includes the grey wolf. So there you have it. Two of the conservative icons of the 20th century are in a large part responsible for the opportunity to once again have wolves in the wild. Yes I live in Idaho. I hunt every year. I hunt elk, deer, bear, cougar, turkey, and occasionally put in for Moose. I eat what I hunt. Also fish. I have not decided yet if I will hunt for wolves, but will not under the present plan put forth by Idaho fish and game. If and when it becomes LEGAL to hunt wolves I believe it should be way more regulated that the present plan allows. Also do not believe there are really enough around yet to justify hunting.

  9. Ron,

    Do you live in wolf country, or are you another one of those good old macho boys that lives down there in the snake river plain?

    I am out in the mountains a few days every week, and every weekend, and guess what, Ron? Elk are abundant. They are wintering all throughout this place, and the evidence of them is everywhere. I really find most of you blowhard anti-wolf “lets go SSS, cause i’m some big macho-uber predator” types to be nothing more than stupid biggots and total cowards.

    Right now, I realize you can’t hunt an elk, so I doubt you are donning skis or snowshoes and heading into the backcountry, so you probably are just taking everything by hearsay from your good old boy repuklican MORmON boys that fear everything from god, dark skinned people, to wolves and the fear-mongering and hysteria that permeates from you fellows is nothing more than unfactual hearsay.

    I can’t wait until the Grizzly is roaming these parts.

  10. Hey Elk Poacher, Take a deep breath and count to 3…….Now doesn’t that feel better? Just trying to have some healthy debate and get a better understanding of both sides of the issue. If we can’t be honest without resorting to mud slinging then everyone loses. As a matter of fact I do live in the Snake River Plain, I am not a Mormon but I know many that are great people and yes I do snow shoe (I have 4 pair) I downhill and cross country ski and spend as much time in the hills as my schedule allows. I hike into the Sawtooths and White Clouds fishing for Cutthroats, I have taken many pack trips into the Frank Church and Selway, I white water raft, kayak, fish for steelhead and pan for gold on occasion none of which either qualifies or disqualifies me from having an opinion or researching others opinions on wolf reintroduction or delisting. Most of the posts responding to my comments have been intelligent and informative. I have been reading through all of the postings along with Ralph’s research on the subject along with Jeff E’s commentaries which are very good. The comment I made in reference to the SSS was that it was a common response when discussion about wolves came up in a group of hunters. I was not advocating it.

  11. You are the one that started this mudslinging. Now, if you want to play that game, I can play it quite well.

    First off, i’m tired of these tough guy repuklican snake river plainers acting like you know a lot about how to manage wilderness. You people from that region are not exactly in the wilderness in most parts of the snake river plain. You don’t have wolves roaming around you, and you don’t have large populations of elk around you either. You do have lots of malls, pollution, and other garbage, and you guy’s don’t seem to care much about protecting your landscape. In fact cows pretty much rule the land down in that region, and because you people don’t know how to manage anything, you have alllowed countless generations (mostly MORmON’s) to trash the land, wipe out most of the big game, and pave it all into subdivisions, and wal-marts.

    Basically it comes down to most of you bubba’s having to do all your wilderness extracting in Central Idaho, since you have basically none.

    With that said, I personally don’t want to see central Idaho become like most places in the Snake River plain. We have something special here, something that most of this country does not. With that said, I think wolves are a major benefit to this region.

    What angers me about you snake river PLAINERS is that you folks want to come into this region just to kill big bull elks, and trash our lands in the process. Basically, you treat this area as your little redneck paradise to kill elk, and all else should be sacrificed so that a bunch of dumb bubba’s in the southern PLAIN can get their trophy elk, and act like the manliest of manly men to their fellow big bad tough guys. Most of you are nothing more than extractors, and you don’t appreciate what is around here, nor the people that are trying to keep this area from becoming a borg like the Snake River plain.

    If you want to SSS, go ahead. But, let me tell you something. Some of us mountain men are pretty crafty in these parts, and we will eventually document you idiots doing it. And after that, we’ll have every New Yorker, and Californian “Wolf hugger” wanting to eat redneck Snake River Plainers for dinner. You won’t be able to stop the tide at that point.

  12. Slow Elk Poacher – you probably don’t care, but I’m going to say it anyway. Your hate-filled tirade does nothing to further the discussion. Furthermore, I believe that you just encourage those who enjoy denigrating the pro wolf crowd as intolerant, prejudiced, out of touch, and uncaring. The one thing I am intoerant of is intolerance when it comes from any side. The assumptions you make about people, whether they are Mormons, residents of the Snake River Plane, or whomever, just sicken me. Its too bad that this delisting process has brought out so much negativity. I guess it is not hard to understand why, but I am surprised that so much of it comes from people who I agree with, generally speaking, on the wolf issue…

  13. I live next to national forest land. Every summer, once the melt-off happens and the roads open, I see hundreds of ATV’s come in being carried from licenses plates mostly from certain populated areas in the snake river plain. Now, I’m not going to pigeon hole everyone in that area as anti-wilderness/anti-wolf types. HOwever, I see with my own damn eyes what happens. They run through the land, create new paths with their atv’s and throw trash along the roads. Now, you tell me, that this mindset is a good thing? I’ve lost tolerance. Sorry, but over time, after witnessing this, i’ve grown to see this.

    I travel down to the City or Rocks every spring. The amount of trash (beer cans, etc) on the NF roads in that area is rather sickening, and alarming. People just don’t care about public lands from those parts. They use it as a playground, and don’t act like stewards. Sorry, if i’m generalizing, but I see enough of it every year. We have about 3 more months until the cycle happens all over again.

  14. Slow Elk Poacher….I am not an advocate of ATV use nor do I own one. I too see the destruction these things cause when they go off road or try to make their own trails. That is just one of the reasons I get as far off the roads as I can possibly get when I hunt. I do not want to see them or hear them when I am in the mountains. It also sickens me to see trash anywhere let alone along rivers or in the hills. I will generally pick up any trash I see and lug it around until I can dispose of it properly. So there you go….maybe we do have some things in common?

  15. Sorry man, if you are one of those hunters that scout far back into the backcountry, then I personally don’t have a problem with you. You’re the type that I actually have a respect for. I mostly have a problem with those that just want simple canned hunts from out of a truck, and basically want to just go down a road, spot an elk out of their truck, shoot it, and go back home. We have more than enough of those people around here, and I find those types rather annoying. These are the ones that are complaining they can’t see any elk. But, then again, no wonder, when there are hundreds of hunters riding around in ATV’s looking for elk. Obviously, the elk are a little bit smarter than these hunters. You’d think an elk would hear the atv’s and get out of there, right?

    Right now, there are a lot of elk around. I’m just getting fed up with everyone that doesn’t live around the wilderness making baseless assumptions. I live next to the base of a fairly large open canyon, and elk roam throughout the area. It’s great wintering grounds for them. Granted, this years winter snowpack is a little bit weak, so they are further back into the more remote roadless areas then they normally would be during a harsher winter. There are lots of them too, and I trek into these mountains every weekend, and I see very little evidence of ravenous wolves, although I have seen them, and do hear them on occcasion.

    I do see elk, and their tracks every day though. So, I think a lot of the people down in the plain are just caught up in the wolf-mongering hysteria, and it’s getting a little old.

    Regardless, every summer I do find myself hauling out trash from the forest road area. The amount of disrespect that people from outside of the region supply to these areas is astonishing. I’m tired of seeing new trails being broken by ATV’s, and tired of all the trash being littered in OUR forests. People should be a little more respectful.

  16. Slow Elk Poacher – so how many of those slow elk have you poached? I think they have rewards for those types of poachers also?

  17. I’m an advocate of having a hunting season for slow elk and especially sheep. The sooner the IDF&G get it going, the better. Their numbers are way too high on OUR public lands.

    Hey, you might be able to get one from just driving down a road, and shooting one from out of a truck. Probably have a better success rate, than hunting an elk, eh?

  18. You know Slow Elk Poacher. You may complain about those who do not hunt the way you do but by thread name and advocating illegal killing of domestic livestock makes you no more ethical than those who hunt ethically in the wilderness. In fact, those of us who are hunters find it a disgrace to have someone promotes killing of domestic livestock yet who advocates hunting far back in the wilderness, without ATVs, and who packs out the trash left by others is no better a person than those who illegally shoot and kill wolves. Are you practicing the SSS method of killing domestic animals? As a fellow hunter, I do not desire to hunt with another fellow hunter who has no respect for people’s personal property, meaning their domestic animals. So you may complain about others way of trash hunting but I guess that your way of killing domesticated animals is also trash hunting.

  19. Get a grip. I realize being from the snake river plain usually means a lack of a good formal education, so satire should fly over the head, which is to be expected, obviously.

    Something tells me youre one of those big back hunt-from-a-truck types. I am so humbled.

    Regardless, I don’t like the destructive nature of slow elk, and especially sheep. The destructive paths that these animals do to prime elk habitat is well documented. All one has to do is go to the snake river plain in an area where thousands of them roam and just breathe in the air.

    you have obviously breathed in too much methane gas in your time, and drank the water too, I take it.

    Regardless, there are 2.4 million head of cattle in this state. They outnumber elk 15 to 1. They outnumber wolves about 3700 to 1.

    And the ones causing the most hysteria about big bad wolves are these ranchers. So, why not cause some hysteria back.

  20. I can tell your kind. The stink of sewage and feed off of the bacteria from the sewage they eat and dring to stir their emotions which are far from the truth. Too bad Ralph does not monitor these threads for the type of stink you throw out on these posts. They need to be monitored more diligently and people like you need to be given a warning that posts like yours will not be tolerated. You can post on these threads without slandering and attacking others and not make a personal issue out of it. For the sake of all on this site, I hope Ralph issues you a warning or else remove you!

  21. You’re an idiot, Rob. You’re just a shill for the cattle ranching industry, and another snake river plainer that doesn’t live around wolves spouting mindless propaganda.

    It’s your type that has created the hysteria… mostly because it’s the goal of the industry to have 4 million cattle in this state, but little wilderness…and basically what wilderness is out there should be catered to the cattle and sheep industry. I know your type well.

    You can call a spade a spade, but so can I.

  22. You’re just a shill for the cattle industry rob. You don’t even live around wolves, obviously. You’re goal is to promote useless propaganda. Obviously the ranching industries main objective is to make sure the wilderness caters to teh cattle industry, and the cattle industry only.

    I can call a spade a spade, as well.

  23. Like I said, you don’t know me. The better part is that I do not know you, nor do I care to. I may have made comments on the livestock industry, and I do recognize that they do cause damage but I also realize that the ranchers make a living to. You cannot have it all one way – wolves and wildlife only. Both sides of the party have to recognize that and have to be willing to work together to work out these issues. You cannot bulldoze your ideas and expect to get results. No wonder why livestock industry has reservations by people like you. You want to change things immediately to public lands but there is a reasonable way to do it and it is not by walking all over everyone. If anything, that just makes the parties more divided than ever. I do not have all this ‘hatred’ that you do just because there is something I dislike. Enough said, I do not wish to comment to anymore of your threads!

  24. Fine, but, the reality is the livestock industry is the one behind the wolf hysteria. Obviously 2.4 million cattle in a state of 1.3 million people isn’t enough to them. They are only in it to line their pockets.

    I have no problems with ranchers that ranch on their own private lands. I think those that do take care of their land much better. Those that do it on public land, have no respect for the water resources, or the land, mostly because they are only there for a period of time, and they don’t care if they destroy the land. A lot of the BLM land in this state is ravaged quite badly.

    So, thats reality. You might not like what I say, but tough.

  25. I am not commenting on the livestock industry practices. I recognize that they can be improved. What bothers me is that someone who claims to be very ethical in his hunting methods really is not and is doing a disservice for us hunters who do hunt ethically and respect private property. The ones who would shoot a sheep or cow are also the ones who will also shoot a wolf and hide. I will not shoot a wolf and I will not shoot cattle or sheep.

  26. I don’t consider cows or sheep on public lands exactly private property. If anything they should be considered “Public” property, and a hunting service should be provided by the IF&G to keep their numbers from getting further out of control.

    I think a $12.50 Cow & Bull tag with a bag limit of 2 per week is quite adequate.

    I also think a general sheep tag at $12.50 is also adequate. In this case, there would be a 10 per day bag limit, with a maximum take of 3,200 sheep per hunter per year.

    I think that is quite reasonable.

  27. People like you make hunting miserable for all. I would not be afraid to turn you in for poaching wolves, elk, deer, or domestic animals. Of course, I’m sure you have killed many of these illegaly right Mr. Ethical Hunter?

  28. You is a slow dim bulb.

    Actually, nope i’ve never poached. I don’t even hunt anymore. The extraction mentallity of most hunters has turned me off to the sport.

    Now, if the IF&G allow cattle hunting on public lands. You better believe, i’ll purchase a tag.

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