Why wildlife advocates doubt WA and Colville tribes’ wolf count

With a controversial vote planned July 19 on whether to loosen protections for wolves in Washington, wildlife advocates are raising alarm that officials could be relying on flawed wolf count figures from a tribe in the northeast corner of the state.

Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission members have been told by agency staff that wolves have made an impressive recovery — to the point that their “endangered” status is no longer required. The state’s latest population report recorded an increase of 44 wolves last year, the largest in state history.

But skeptics say the wolf count produced by the Department of Fish and Wildlife is implausibly high, and fear commissioners are being fed a rosy picture of the wolves’ status.

“The numbers just didn’t pass the smell test,” said David Linn, a longtime wolf advocate and treasurer of Washington Wildlife First.

At issue are numbers reported to the state by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. The tribes oversee wolf management on the reservation and adjacent “North Half” lands on which they retain hunting rights.

This year, the tribes reported a population explosion among the wolves in their territory, despite a significant number of wolves killed by tribal hunters over the same period. The big surge followed a 2022 report that showed only a 5% increase statewide — well below what some conservation groups say is expected for a recovering wolf population.

While Washington law prohibits hunting of wolves, the Colville and other tribes are sovereign nations with the authority to set their own regulations on tribal lands and other areas on which they retain hunting rights via treaty agreements.

The numbers provided by the Colville account for most of the increase in the state’s wolf population last year. Carter Niemeyer, a retired biologist who spent more than 20 years as a wolf specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies, said there’s little precedent for the kind of rapid growth the tribes have reported.

“I would be shocked at those kind of numbers,” said Niemeyer, who has worked with the Colville tribes in the past.

Wildlife advocates say the tribes have provided little information on how they gathered their data, and they’re suspicious of the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s willingness to take the numbers at face value.

But agency staffers say they have no reason to doubt the Colville numbers. And they say the downlisting vote is based on yearslong recovery trends, not a single population report.

The Colville tribes directed an inquiry to Chairman Jarred-Michael Erickson, who declined an interview request.

“It just doesn’t make sense”

At the end of 2022, the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s report of documented wolves counted 35 on Colville lands, with 157 elsewhere. A year later, the tribes reported an additional 23 wolves, while the rest of the state saw an increase of only 16. The final statewide totals are slightly higher, as the department increases its projections to account for lone wolves.

The Colville’s increase came despite the fact that tribal hunters killed 22 wolves last year, the largest source of wolf mortality in the state. Accounting for the harvested wolves, the tribe would have seen an increase of more than 100% in its wolf population.

“If you kill 22 wolves, you’ve got to replace those just to be even,” Linn said. “It just doesn’t make sense that they had that kind of increase with that kind of mortality.”

The tribes have also pledged to provide up to 15 wolves to Colorado to support reintroduction of the animals there.

Ben Maletzke, the state wolf specialist, acknowledged that the tribes have used varying levels of detail when reporting their wolf counts to the state. While this year’s numbers were shared over a conference call, he said the tribes have been a crucial partner in wolf recovery and he trusts their count.

“Yeah, we’ve had spreadsheets in the past,” he said. “It’s not the identical methodology we use, but it’s still a methodology.”

Wildlife advocates note that the wolf packs reported on tribal lands average more than seven wolves each, while the packs documented by state biologists average five.

Niemeyer, the former federal wolf specialist, said the Colville territory likely has room for five or six packs of wolves. In areas with extensive hunting, he said, pack sizes generally number about three or four wolves each.

But Maletzke said it’s not unheard of to see rapid growth within certain subpopulations of wolves, and they’ve proven resilient to hunting.

Tribal management

While no one disputes the Colvilles’ authority to hunt wolves, some have been surprised by a recent uptick in tribal hunting. In 2019, the tribes extended wolf hunting to a year-round season with no harvest limits. Forty-six wolves have been killed by Colville hunters over the past three years, with nine more harvested by Spokane Tribe members.

In a February hearing before state lawmakers, Erickson, the Colville chairman, said the tribes’ regulations do not allow for hunting when wolves are denning or with their pups.

That hearing covered a proposal, later signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee, requiring the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Colville tribes to work together on gray wolf management.

During the hearing, the department’s legislative affairs director, Tom McBride, conceded the agency needed to improve its data sharing with the tribes. It’s unclear if the legislation would affect how population counts are shared or hunting regulations are determined.

Approaching a vote

On July 19, members of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will cast their votes on downlisting wolves from “endangered” to “sensitive.” The move would lower penalties for the illegal poaching of wolves and make it easier for livestock owners to access permits to kill wolves that come into conflict with their herds.

The commission is made up of volunteers appointed by the governor, but the upcoming vote was prompted by the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s professional staff. Testifying before the commission, agency staff recommended the reclassification, pointing to projections that wolves will continue to recover in the state.

But commissioners also heard from wildlife advocates who raised doubts about the figures being provided by the agency and who opposed the proposed downlisting.

Barbara Baker, who chairs the commission, acknowledged “questions about whether the state and tribal biologists are comparing apples to apples and using the same foundations of data.”

“That’s especially true in northeast Washington, where there’s questions about whether the numbers make any sense or not,” she said.

Baker added that the tribes have been a valuable partner in wolf recovery, and the agency’s interest in retaining that relationship makes it difficult to publicly question their figures.

Fred Koontz, a former Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife commissioner who became a target of hunting groups and resigned in 2021, believes the agency’s long history of suppressing tribal fishing rights — now considered a black mark in the state’s history — has made agency staffers wary of challenging the Colville numbers.

“There’s a swirl of stories, but nobody’s willing to take on the tribal part of it,” he said. “Shouldn’t the department have a more sophisticated joint cooperation [with the Colville tribes]?”

Baker said she would not hint at how she plans to vote, nor has she consulted other commission members on their intentions.

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