More Wolf-Human Conflicts Expected Lawmakers Told That Packs Expected To Increase And Expand Into New Territories

The government’s wolf recovery coordinator has told Idaho lawmakers he expects more conflict between wolves and central Idaho residents as wolf packs increase and move into their own territories.

That is why it would be better if wolf populations increased to the point that they are removed from Endangered Species Act protection, said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Bangs spoke Wednesday to a joint meeting of the Senate Resources and Environment Committee and the House Resources and Conservation Committee.

Legislators called the meeting to determine how best to respond to a December order by U.S. District Court Judge William Downes that the gray wolves be removed because the federal government’s reintroduction program illegally reduced the protection of wolves that wander out of experimental areas.

The Casper, Wyo., judge stayed his order, knowing it would be appealed.

To environmental groups who want the “experimental” status removed, thus giving wolves full protection under the Endangered Species Act, the decision was a victory.

It also was considered a victory by the Farm Bureau Federation and others who opposed the reintroduction from the start.

Ordinarily, most would be celebrating Downes’ ruling. But removal of the wolves could result in an endangered status declaration for the slowly growing natural population of wolves left behind. That would remove the freedom landowners and others now have to kill or have removed those wolves that attack livestock.

“It certainly is unusual,” Sen. Laird Noh, R-Kimberly, said at an environmental forum later Wednesday. “We have both sides claiming they won on the same points and both breaking out the champagne bottles, celebrating victory.”

Committee members also heard from Rick Krause, the Chicago attorney representing the Farm Bureau federations in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, which filed the lawsuit against the federal government’s reintroduction program three years ago.

To Krause, the remedy is simple.

“Despite the fact it is a biological success, the program itself is illegal,” he said. “The fact that the program is wrong means they have to start over.”

It is not quite that simple for eastern Idaho lawmakers who oppose wolf reintroduction but fear what may even be a worse scenario: an endangered status for remaining wolves. As it is now, the wolf population is growing fast enough that it is projected to be delisted by 2002.

Sen. Don Burtenshaw, R-Monteview, knowing how volatile the issue is with his constituents, was reluctant to talk about what he would like to see done.

“The people in my district do not favor this wolf program at all,” he said. “So I just don’t know what should happen now.”

Rep. Golden Linford, the Rexburg Republican who chairs the House Resources and Conservation Committee, is in the same quagmire.

“I wouldn’t try to outguess what the court is going to do and what scenario will be best for us,” Linford said.

But he said he knows the problems with wolves are just beginning.

As the elk herds come out of Harriman State Park and Yellowstone National Park, the Yellowstone pack will disseminate, he predicted. “We’ll have them on our back doors in the upper valley,” he said.