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May 4, 2011 in Idaho, Region
Gray wolves go back to state control
BILLINGS, Mont. — The Obama administration today announced it is lifting endangered species act protections for 5,500 gray wolves in eight states in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes.
The move essentially draws the line on the predators’ rapid expansion over the last two decades. Public hunts for hundreds of wolves already are planned this fall in Idaho and Montana, and Interior Department officials said Wednesday that the most suitable wolf habitat is already occupied.
Conservationists have hailed the animal’s recovery from near extinction last century as a landmark achievement that that should be extended to the Pacific Northwest and New England. But the federal wolf program has stirred a backlash from agriculture and sporting groups angry over wolf attacks on livestock on livestock and big game herds.
Western lawmakers attached a rider to the federal budget bill mandating the move for 1,300 wolves in the Northern Rockies. The rider blocked legal challenges and marked the first time Congress has stripped a species of protections.
“To be sure, not everyone will be satisfied with today’s announcement,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. “Wolves have long been a highly charged issue. These delistings are possible because the species is recovered in this region. That is a remarkable milestone for an iconic American species.”
About 4,200 wolves listed as threatened in the western Great Lakes also are slated to lose protections following a public comment period.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Tax-protesting Idaho state rep files for bankruptcy 
hamrsrscarry on May 04 at 12:34 p.m.
May 4, 2013
Gray Wolves Re-listed As Endangered Following Two Years of State Control
Itsgodswill on May 04 at 12:47 p.m.
^^^^ exactly.
ManleyPointer on May 04 at 1:54 p.m.
No matter what happens, hamrsrscarry, the noble wolf will live on, forever lifting its steaming muzzle in song to the moon, right there on the fleece throw on your living room wall.
maria on May 04 at 3:08 p.m.
I guess the threats to lawmakers from the extremists in north Idaho worked. They won’t shut up even after every last wolf is dead. They’ll re-direct their hatred toward eagles, bears, cougars, etc. It’s a philosophy of hatred toward predators combined with laziness.
Predators make it difficult to hunt from the comfort of their warm rigs. Lazy slobs. And they say they can’t afford to buy vegetables and fruit and that wild game is the only food they have and blah, blah, blah, blah….Yet they can afford internet service and gas to go to Rammell rallies to spread their vile and make threats to those opposed to the killing of wolves.
ManleyPointer on May 04 at 5:22 p.m.
Oh those hateful, hate-filled north Idaho extremists! They just HATE!!! And they’re lazy!! And their personal hygiene probably isn’t what it ought to be… I hate them. Haters! HATERS!!!
KopperBuck on May 04 at 5:26 p.m.
Yup - it’s just N. Idaho driving the legislation. Nothing to do with wildlife biologists, neighboring states, current wildlife populations and impacts, livestock, ecosystem balances… nope, just N. Idaho extremists… Give me a break.
RedCedar on May 04 at 5:28 p.m.
Oh, good grief, maria. I understand being passionate about a conservation issue, but this business of demonizing everyone who disagrees with you is what’s made politics so difficult these days. On the one hand we have extreme anti-wolf people claiming that the environmentalists want to exterminate human life or at least make us all live in caves, and on the other hand we have people like you saying that apparently anyone who doesn’t agree with you wants to exterminate wolves and all predators. This is the environment that public land and wildlife managers have to work in, and it’s very difficult.
The fact is that wolves are no longer endangered. Any argument against hunting them is an argument against hunting all non-endangered animals. There’s a good argument that can be made along those lines, but the other fact is that there’s a large constituency for hunting, hunting brings significant out-of-state money into the economy, most conservation funding still comes from hunting licenses, and the IDFW has done a good job of improving habitat and maintaining populations of wildlife under its jurisdiction. None of this means much, of course, if you feel, as many do, that people should not kill animals. But in environmental terms as far as maintaining ecosystems with viable populations of most native wild animals, the IDFW is doing a good job.
You can no doubt find someone somewhere who fits your stereotype, but those people do not have the ear of public officials and it doesn’t do any good to fixate on them. If you do find one of your “extremists in north Idaho” who actually does believe as you claim, she’ll probably try to tell you that “extremists in Seattle” want everyone to live in caves and eat grass, or better yet, get eaten by a wolf. Politics is all about compromise, and it seems to me that after all these years of wrangling and millions of dollars in legal bills, they’ve finally beaten out something resembling a compromise on the wolf issue.
Another thing to keep in mind, that gets no mention in the press, is that prior to de-listing more than a few wolves were getting shot regardless of federal or state laws. Do you think anyone’s going to notice a gunshot way up Marble Creek or in the headwaters of the St Joe? Better to bring in a compromise that lets hunters buy a wolf tag and lets IDFW track the population and enforce the rules, than let this illegal shooting of wolves by frustrated hunters and locals become an accepted part of the culture. At least that’s how I see it.
KopperBuck on May 04 at 5:31 p.m.
Just as I know these people you claim to hate predators are a minority, I hope folks that share your viewpoint are in minority as well. There’s a large middle ground of folks that understand something about checks and balances. Management is the key here… and whether you want to hear it or not, you’ll find no better managers as a group than that of hunters. You’ll always have extremes, as you’ve done such a job of pointing out. But single handedly, there is no group that does more to contribute to and promote wildlife - and its existence, as a whole, than those who in fact enjoy our heritage of hunting.
KopperBuck on May 04 at 5:31 p.m.
Just as I know these people you claim to hate predators are a minority, I hope folks that share your viewpoint are in minority as well. There’s a large middle ground of folks that understand something about checks and balances. Management is the key here… and whether you want to hear it or not, you’ll find no better managers as a group than that of hunters. You’ll always have extremes, as you’ve done such a job of pointing out. But single handedly, there is no group that does more to contribute to and promote wildlife - and its existence, as a whole, than those who in fact enjoy our heritage of hunting.
maria on May 04 at 6:40 p.m.
They’ll still shoot the wolves illegally, tag or no tag. Look at the “Don’t Buy Idaho Hunting Tags” facebook page. Also look at the Shoot, Shovel and Shut Up” raffle in Grangeville. I’m not against keeping predators in check, but from what I’ve read most of these people want the wolves completely eliminated. The more wolves they kill the more coyote problems they’ll have.
maria on May 04 at 6:52 p.m.
KopperBuck: I never said it was only the extremists in north Idaho going after the wolves. Just last December I recall a researcher at U of Montana essentially being told to change his wolf findings or risk losing funding for the university.
Thayne on May 04 at 8:14 p.m.
oh yes kopperbuck hunters are great managers. Just ask the passenger pigeon. Why is it ok for hunters to kill the elk but not a natural predator - the wolf? Wolves kill only for food and make the elk heard stronger by culling out the old, sick and injured. Whereas man looks for the biggest and healthiest rack - taking out the best genes of the herd. Feral dogs kill many times more deer and livestock than wolves. Weather and hunting by man are what’s having the major affect on herds of elk, deer and other hunters trophies not wolves.
ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/03/wolf-wars/chadwick-text
RedCedar on May 04 at 10:07 p.m.
“Why is it ok for hunters to kill the elk but not a natural predator - the wolf?”
You’ve hit on both the basic truth about this conflict and have missed a key difference. The truth is that, ignoring for now the people who think no wild animals should be killed, there is a fundamental conflict between wolves and people — we both like to kill and eat the same prey. They “need” it and we “want” it, but the conflict remains.
What you missed is that the hunting behavior of wolves is regulated solely by their instinct, whereas that of humans is regulated by a bureaucracy that has a goal of maintaining healthy ecosystems and healthy populations of game animals. Read the game regulations and you’ll find that you are behind the times in assuming that “man looks only for the biggest … rack”. Game managers are wise to the fact that the traditional way of hunting only the the “trophy” bucks and bulls has had a deleterious effect on the genetics of the population. In different places there are “any sex” seasons, “spike only” seasons, “antlerless” seasons, and so on. I read of one area in the midwest that’s so overrun with whitetails that a hunter must kill 3 does before he or she is allowed to kill a buck. This is of course an area without wolves. Furthermore, most local (resident) hunters are meat hunters rather than trophy hunters. They will generally shoot the first legal animal they find, regardless of size. Many will try to find a two-year-old because the meat is better than that from an old bull.
As for what’s having a major effect on elk herds, it’s NOT “weather and hunting”. The main problems in North Idaho are wolves and the fact that the ecosystem has changed. Elk are not native to the Bitterroot mountains to any extent. 200 years ago, elk lived mostly on the Great Plains along with the buffalo. The Lewis and Clark party damn near starved hiking through these mountains in both directions. After the 1910 fire burned off all the timber, elk were introduced, first in a protected game reserve, which was eventually disbanded and the elk were allowed to spread throughout the area. They thrived on the combination of burned-off brush-covered hillsides and predator control (wolves and grizzly bears were exterminated, and cougars greatly reduced). This made it possible for game managers to build up large herds of elk and make North Idaho a world-famous hunting destination. The trouble is that it was all rather artificial. In the natural state of affairs, with dense timber covering all the mountains and a variety of large carnivores ready to kill elk and deer any time they could, we would have no more elk here than during Lewis and Clark’s time (i.e. basically none).
Even elk that could survive in these mountains during a tough winter without wolves will fall to the wolves when the snow is deep. Unlike moose, which can lift their legs nearly to their shoulders to plod through deep snow (and use those legs to kick wolves with deadly effect), elk have a shuffling gait like cattle and get bogged down in deep snow. They tend to get trapped in a small area, where they then eat all the twigs and bark off the trees in that area until they either starve to death or the snow melts. They’re easy prey for wolves in that condition.
As much as I’d like to see plenty of elk in our mountains, it’s not really natural to have them here and they cannot survive in anywhere near the numbers we’re used to now that the timber has grown back and wolves are endemic. It may be that we humans collectively decide we want “natural” numbers of wolves, but if so we need to accept that even if we completely banned elk hunting, we are not going to have any significant elk population.
hamrsrscarry on May 04 at 10:40 p.m.
Warier Elk due to Wolf predation = Get off the ATV and hike up that mountain, bubba!
Hard to road hunt like daddy used to in North Idaho.
Well, the Jethros won one. Won’t last, wolves scare them too much.