Lawmakers in quandary over how to label wolves

BOISE – Idaho will get more control to manage recovered wolf populations next month, and the chief of the federal government’s wolf recovery effort said lawmakers should concern themselves more with conserving the recovered populations than bickering over how to classify the animals.

Ed Bangs, Northern Rockies wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Helena, said how wolves are managed by the state is more important than how they are labeled.

“If it’s just a word, who gives a rip? If the Legislature wants to call them the spawns of Satan, but they manage them like trophy game animals, that doesn’t jeopardize Idaho’s plan,” said Bangs. “But if they manage them like predatory animals, that would jeopardize Idaho’s plan.”

A House resource subcommittee in the Idaho Legislature this week delayed labeling wolves last week and asked Jim Caswell, the director of the Idaho Office of Species Conservation, for help.

Caswell said there are many options, but the designation ultimately needs to control hunting in an effective way.

He said he favors classifying wolves as big game animals – a rule proposed by the Department of Fish and Game – that would let the state manage wolves in the way it does bears and mountain lions. If wolves are removed from the Endangered Species Act list, Fish and Game could allow them to be hunted or trapped. Livestock owners could kill wolves threatening their animals.

Caswell said the Legislature could write exceptions into the big-game classification that would allow wolves to be hunted or trapped in ways prohibited with other big game animals.

But lawmakers worry the big-game classification might limit the state’s ability to control wolves once they are removed from the Endangered Species Act list.

A fur-bearer classification would allow wolves to be trapped and would let outfitters sell wolf hunts and trap wolves to control the population.

Another option to label wolves as special predators does not exist in Idaho law, so legislators would have to create the classification.

Fish and Game Director Steve Huffaker told legislators the federal government, which has approved Idaho’s wolf management plan, could pull its approval if wolves are classified as any type of predator.

Idaho and Montana, with federally approved management plans, are scheduled to take over management of wolves Feb. 7 under special rules that allow the states more flexibility to kill problem animals. Wolves remain protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Wyoming, which does not have an approved wolf management plan, will not be given greater flexibility.

Wyoming’s plan classifies the wolves outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and wilderness areas next to the parks as predators that can be shot on sight.