Latest: Oregon continues to kill members of the Lookout Mt. pack at the request of livestock owners. Thjis weekend the state killed three wolves on private land including the yearling male who was identified as the pack's breeding male. The fact that a yearling was the alpha male of the pack indicates the impact of the state's rentless removal policy. The male wolf was wearing a VHF collar. ODFW is issuing limited duration kill permits to four impacted livestock producers that allow them to take two uncollared wolves from on land they own or legally occupy (lease) from now until Oct. 31. With that decision the fate of the Lookout Mt. pack is eventual collapse. According to the state agency the pack numbered nine wolves before the latest cull. So far, five wolves have been exterminated since this summer. A female hunting alone will be unable to feed her surviving pups. ODFW claims that the pack will continue to pose a threat to livestock in the area. Wolves have been present for two years with little direct conflict. The agency claims that predation on livestock started in February 2021 when wolves began visiting calving pastures. Producers in the area increased night checks, installed flags, and hazed wolves from near their calving and winter pastures.
“This pack has made a shift in their behavior,” says Roblyn Brown, ODFW Wolf Coordinator. “Instead of the occasional opportunistic killing of a vulnerable calf, now they are targeting livestock despite the high numbers of elk and deer in the area where the depredations have occurred and extensive human presence to haze wolves.” No mention has been made in press releases of efforts to relocate the pack or use of trained guard dogs to deter predation on cattle. The Oregon Department of Agriculture estimated there were 1.28 million beef cows in 2014. While predation impacts on individual stock owners can be significant, the impacts are primarily related to the marginal profitability of cattle ranching on public land.
{16.09.21} Update: The Biden administration has said that it will review the de-listing of the grey wolf. That is certainly news welcomed by conservationists as several states have completely relaxed the restrictions on wolf hunting since the species was removed from the Endangered Species list. The status review by the US Fish & Wildlife Service will take about a year, during which time more wolves will be killed. Over the summer the Service received several petitions asking for relisting the species. On Wednesday, FWS said that the petitions “present substantial, credible information indicating that a listing action may be warranted". The federal agency also said that the hunting regulations in Idaho and Montana threaten the species survival in the wild. Idaho now lets hunters shoot wolves from parachutes, ATVs, or snowmobiles. Montana now allows for hunters to snare and bait wolves. Politicians in the those states are keen to endorse such policies, as they believe them to be popular with their supporters. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte said, “We don’t need Washington coming in and second-guessing our science-based approach, Needless extermination of wolves seems to be more of a hate crime than science because allowing only an artificially low level of breeding pairs could cause the surviving population to collapse.
To underscore this dire situation, Oregon's Lookout Mountain pack that lost two juveniles to human demands for lethal removal on August 1st survived the reissue of a culling permit, which expired on September 14th, without further losses. The demand for eradicating the entire pack has not lessened as the pack has become another flash point in the unending culture wars. Given the state agency's bias toward ranching interests, and lack of transparency about its removal operations it may be that the ODFW will acquiesce yet again to local demands for lethal removal. The Lookout Mt pack has not reacted as expected to the state "reduc[ing] the caloric needs of the pack”. This is a standoff that only federal relisting can resolve since several western state appear to lack the political will to ethically administer a wolf recovery program based on science and not myth.
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| Colorado grey wolf, credit UK Guardian |
His administration has so far backed the de-listing of the gray wolf from the federal Endangered Species Act, which exposes them to hysterical persecution by wolf haters in a few western states. Federal wildlife officials are concerned that new hunting rules passed by states in the northern Great Lakes and Rockies pose a threat to the species full recovery. Wolf numbers are increasing, but are nowhere near their historic levels or existing habitat capacity. The new rules reflect the traditional wolf hatred of European colonizers' concerned for their livestock despite reimbursement programs for incidental wolf predation. States took over wolf management last decade in the Northern Rockies and in January for the remainder of the Lower 48 states.
In Montana, legislation to allow wolf hunting a night and substantial payments reminiscent of bounties that led to the wolf's extermination are advancing. Idaho legislation would allow hunters to kill wolves from the air without limits and the use of dogs. Wisconsin wolf haters killed twice as many wolves as the state wildlife authorities planned. Hunters and trappers killed at least 216 wolves of Wisconsin’s 1,100 wolves over three days, and forced an early shutdown of the season. Attorneys representing the Biden administration asked a California federal court to reject the petition of wildlife advocates to reinstate federal wolf protections last week, apparently signaling the administrations conclusion to allow the Trump era delisting to stand.
What is different from the 1800's eradication effort is that wolf killing has become politicized, a symbol of rebellion against perceived government overreach. The group behind the Wisconsin lawsuit that accelerated the opening of wolf killing in Wisconsin, Hunting Nation, has close links to Republican political circles including influential donors the Koch brothers, and other notable Trump supporters. The resumption of aggressive persecution of the wolf has become a way of expressing political outrage among right-wing extremists and gun owners. “It’s not a scientific approach to wildlife management. It’s management based on vengeance,” said Dan Vermillion, former chairman of Montana’s fish and wildlife commission. Hunting Nation leader, Luke Hilgemann, formerly served as CEO at Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group backed by industrialists Charles Koch and his deceased brother, David, that has spent tens of millions of dollars on Republican candidates. Former federal wildlife agent Carter Niemeyer, who killed wolves that preyed on cattle in the Northern Rockies and was later involved in restoration efforts, said wolves are too resilient to be easily eradicated. “They’re running them down with hound dogs,” he said. “ That’s wolf killing. That’s not wolf trapping or wolf hunting.” Delusional behavior dies hard.