Fish and Game talks include wolf management, hunting

Idaho’s Fish and Game Commission will tackle the politically charged issue of wolves this week, as it works on a plan for managing the state’s burgeoning wolf population.

Trapped, hunted and poisoned out of the West by the 1930s, wolves have made an amazing comeback. From 35 animals introduced to central Idaho in the mid-1990s, the state’s wolf population has increased to more than 700. Despite high rates of adult mortality, biologists say the number of wolves in Idaho is growing by about 20 percent per year.

The federal government plans to remove gray wolves in the Northern Rockies from the Endangered Species list by the end of March, an action that could open the door to wolf hunting this fall.

Steve Nadeau, large carnivore manager for the state Department of Fish and Game, said the hunts would go a long way toward winning public acceptance of wolves.

“It’s time to get wolves off this pedestal,” Nadeau said. “It’s time to deflate the animosity and the angst and reduce the polarization.”

Idaho’s draft management plan calls for self-sustaining, well-distributed populations of wolves, which “fulfill their ecological role” without affecting sustainable harvests of other game, including elk.

Idaho residents generally support the idea of a well-regulated wolf harvest, according to the 80-page draft management plan. Providing opportunities for annual wolf hunts is among the plan’s objectives. Other objectives include using hunts to reduce wolf predation on livestock, and creating viewing opportunities for people who want to see wolves.

The plan isn’t specific enough for Jon Marvel, executive director for the Western Watersheds Project in Hailey, who wants precise numbers on how many wolves would be killed each year, both through sport hunting and by wildlife managers removing wolves that kill cattle and sheep. Marvel’s organization is among 11 environmental groups that plan to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to keep wolves on the Endangered Species List.

Fish and Wildlife managers said last month that they will recommend keeping Idaho’s wolf population at between 518 and 732 animals. But the plan actually allows the number of breeding pairs to drop to between 15 to 20 before state officials would consider reducing or halting wolf hunting, Marvel noted.

“That would require killing 500 to 600 wolves, even though department managers have made oral representations that they don’t intend to do that,” Marvel said. “I think it’s purposefully vague in order to leave discretion in the hands of the department.”

He’d also like to see the state focus more attention on wolf viewing, which Marvel said has become a thriving cottage industry in northern Minnesota. About 3,000 wolves live in Minnesota.

“They’ve become part of the landscape, and people’s attitudes are not so raw,” he said.

The opportunity to view wolves has boosted visitor spending in Yellowstone National Park by about $36 million annually.

In a recent survey of Idaho residents by the state’s Department of Fish and Game, 42 percent of non-hunters and 20 percent of hunters said they would be willing to travel to see wolves in the wild. Both groups were willing to pay about $100 for the experience.

But very little reliable wolf viewing exists in Idaho for the time being, so it isn’t a significant economic benefit yet, the draft management plan indicated.

The Idaho Conservation League would also like to see more focus on wolf viewing in the management plan, said Program Manager Justin Hayes. However, the 9,000-member organization also supports the concept of wolf hunting, particularly in areas where wolves are attacking livestock.

“About 50 percent of our membership hunts and fishes,” Hayes said. Having wolves classified as a species that can be hunted probably ensures greater oversight and more population monitoring, he added.

“There’s a delicate balance, though, between supporting the notion and being enthusiastic about it,” Hayes said. “I’m not going to be in competition with (Gov.) Butch Otter for the first tag in Idaho to shoot wolves.”