Wolves in Idaho saved by biologists

JEROME, Idaho – The Idaho Department of Fish and Game won’t be able to kill wolves in northern Idaho’s Clearwater region anytime soon because state biologists haven’t met criteria set out by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Fish and Game had hoped to kill wolves this year to boost Clearwater region elk herds, after a new rule adopted last January by Fish and Wildlife loosened restrictions on killing wolves. But under the rule, Fish and Game has to show that elk numbers are below state objectives and prove wolves are preventing them from recovering.

“It’s a tough standard,” Commissioner Cameron Wheeler of Ririe said Thursday at the commission’s regular meeting. “They’ve made the standard so tough we might not be able to whack wolves.”

Hunters are concerned about the wolves and their effects on elk.

“It’s huge for us,” said Nate Helm, executive director of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife. “It’s probably the top topic today for sportsmen.”

There are currently about 525 wolves in Idaho, according to estimates from the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nez Perce Tribe, said Steve Nadeau, large carnivore program manager with Fish and Game. He said that estimate may be low because the count is based on known packs and doesn’t include undocumented packs or lone wolves.

But so far, studies haven’t conclusively shown wolves are the primary cause of declining elk herds in some parts of the state.

The Clearwater region is made up of 16 big game management units. Of those units, elk are doing well in 13 and declining in three, Nadeau said. Of those three, Unit 10 has seen the elk population plummet from 11,000 in the early 1990s to about 2,600 in 2004.

“Wolves, we believe, are additive but not the primary cause for the decline,” Nadeau said.

Last winter, Fish and Game started a statewide study in which biologists attached radio collars to nearly 1,000 adult elk and deer. Of 337 adult cow elk with radio collars, 310 or 92 percent have survived so far. Fish and Game figures that 85 percent survival each year is considered normal and sustainable.

In the three hunting units in the Clearwater region where elk herds have struggled, 16 of the 81 radio-collared cow elk have died since last winter. Wolves killed five, mountain lions killed four, another four died of unknown causes, two died in accidents, and one was killed by a hunter.

Fish and Game big game manager Brad Compton said eight years of monitoring elk calves in one of those units showed mountain lions and bears killed more young elk than wolves.

“I am hearing from the professionals we’re going to have dueling data no matter what we do,” Commissioner John Watts of Boise said.