Bristling kept under control at wolf talks

Security was on hand but wasn’t needed Thursday at a public hearing to gather opinions about changing the protection status of Rocky Mountain wolves.

Organizers with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had taken precautions in case the meeting became unruly. As it turned out, dozens of speakers calmly approached the microphone and gave comments, with only minimal guffawing from audience members.

Fish and Wildlife officials are considering removing the wolves’ endangered status and allowing states to manage them.

About 200 people attended the meeting, including portions of the afternoon question-and-answer session with Ed Bangs, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf recovery coordinator for the Northern Rockies.

Bangs assured the crowd that wolves are back in the West for good. “We believe the wolf population is fully recovered,” he said.

Should wolves be delisted, the animals would be managed by state fish and game agencies, just as these departments manage deer, elk, cougar and bear. About 650 wolves now live in Idaho.

“The best thing that could ever happen to wolves, in my opinion, is to get them out of the federal hands and make them a state game animal,” Bangs said. “The only thing that would threaten wolves in the future is people killing too many of them.”

That’s exactly what worried many in the crowd, including Deer Park resident Ramona Locke, who wore a vest with an image of a wolf. In her purse she carried photographs of her wolf-dog hybrid pet. “This is just going to open it up for people to slaughter them,” Locke said.

States have signed promises to maintain minimum populations of wolves, Bangs replied. But some speakers, including Sandpoint resident Ken Fischman, wondered how the federal government came up with its minimum recovery goal of at least 300 wolves throughout Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Fischman, who has a doctoral degree in genetics and worked at Columbia University, said 300 animals would be considered “on the verge of extinction” for any other species. “It’s a tiny number.”

Bangs said the number has been vetted by about 80 experts from around the world. Wolves are prolific breeders, he added, with an average pack producing four surviving pups each year. Bangs also said the federal government will be keeping a close watch to make sure too many wolves aren’t being killed. If that happens, the Fish and Wildlife Service will resume control.

States are eager to manage wolves inside their own borders, but they’re worried over how to fund the work. Currently, the federal government spends about $2.2 million annually to manage wolves, with Idaho receiving just over half. This money will vanish the moment wolves are delisted, causing states to worry how they will continue to maintain and monitor wolves, Bangs said.

The eastern third of Washington would also be affected by delisting. Any wolves found in the western two-thirds of the state would remain federally protected.

John Walters, a resident of Calder, Idaho, believes the wolves will also cost the state in terms of eating big game animals, which are managed and owned by state citizens, he said. “They’re feeding federal wolves Idaho property,” Walters said, showing a photograph of a bull elk that had been torn apart by wolves near his home.

Walters asked Bangs if the federal government would be providing feed for the wolves. “I guess that would be elk fed on public grass on public land,” Bangs replied.

One man was angry that there is a nationwide comment period allowing all citizens to have input on the fate of wolves in the northern Rockies.

“Why is it the rest of the world can mandate?” he asked, before going on to answer his own question. “That’s how the wolves got here in the first place.”

By gathering as many comments as possible, the federal government is hoping to come up with the best long-term plan, Bangs replied. If the plan is shoddy and not based on science and logic, the agency will lose in court and have to “go through all this pain and agony again.”

The public comment period, Bangs insisted, “is not a vote. This is the way our republic works.”

No matter what the agency decides, Bangs said, “I absolutely guarantee you there’s going to be litigation.”