Hunting dogs, wolves clash in backcountry
BOISE – Wolves have killed three bear hounds near Dworshak Reservoir in the latest clash between hunters and four-legged predators reintroduced into Idaho in the mid-1990s.
Travis Reggear, a hunting guide in Orofino, Idaho, said he and clients were hunting Tuesday with Walker hounds worth thousands of dollars apiece. It was the third day of the black bear season, and they were north of the reservoir.
All nine dogs set off after a bear but only six re-emerged from a steep, heavily wooded slope on land managed by the Idaho Department of Lands, Reggear said Wednesday.
“The signal on the three dogs’ tracking collars hadn’t changed in 15 minutes, so I knew they were dead,” he said. “They were bit all over, from head to toe. Their ribs were broken, and one dog’s neck was busted.”
Once exterminated from Idaho and the West, wolves were reintroduced into the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in 1995 and 1996. From the original 35, the number of wolves in the state is expected to grow to more than 450 with this year’s litter of new pups.
In 2004, federal Wildlife Service agents killed 17 Idaho wolves, the most in any year since they were reintroduced to the region.
The area where Reggear’s dogs were killed is home to the so-called “Chesimia” pack of six wolves, including two breeding adults and four offspring born last year, federal wolf officials said.
They speculated the dogs encountered the wolves, some of which wear radio tracking collars, near what was probably a den full of this season’s pups.
“They made short work of three of the dogs,” said Carter Niemeyer, the Idaho wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “If you run a pack of dogs on top of a pack of wolves with pups, they’re going to be deadly.”
Reggear, who said he never saw the wolves, wants federal and state officials to either relocate the wolves or kill them.
He believes members of the Chesimia pack killed three of his dogs earlier this year as they were used by another Reggear Outfitters employee to pursue cougars in the same area.
The Idaho Legislature passed a resolution in March to ask Congress to change wolf protection laws to allow hunters to shoot wolves to protect their sporting dogs.
But it was only a recommendation. Federal rules governing the predators, listed under the Endangered Species Act, don’t allow agents or Reggear to retaliate by shooting the animals – even after the rules were broadened this February to give more control to states.
“There’s really no way to kill a wolf in the act of killing a dog if you’re hunting on public land, unless it’s for self-defense,” Niemeyer said.
Calls to Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials on Wednesday, seeking comment on how they’ll respond to the attack, weren’t immediately returned.
Wolf advocates say hunters and other recreationists should use caution when venturing with dogs into Idaho’s remote areas that are known to be home to wolf packs.
“Anyone taking hunting dogs out on public lands should be aware that wolves are very territorial and will protect their young this time of year,” said Suzanne Stone, the Northern Rockies Field Representative for Defenders of Wildlife in Boise. “They are especially aggressive toward strange dogs because they view them a threat to their pups.”