Human Harvest Does Not Halt Wolf Increases
On page 8 of the Jan-March 2008 article, I reported
the Alaska study in Denali National Park where biologists
found they had been underestimating total wolf numbers by
50% by documenting primarily packs of wolves instead of
also documenting dispersing and transient wolves. Yet
Idaho biologists continue to ignore the Alaska research and
pretend that pups, yearlings and older wolves that emigrate
from packs suddenly disappear from the face of the earth
just because they are not wearing a radio-tracking collar.
A six-year study of the impact of hunting and
trapping on wolf populations in Alaska’s Central Brooks
Range by Layne Adams and four other scientists concluded
that liberal harvest by hunters and trappers of 29% or less
of a wolf population has no impact (yes I said NO impact)
on wolf population increases. If you doubt that, I suggest
you read more about this study, published in the May 2008
issue of Wildlife Monographs, later in this article.
Simple Math: 1,600 Minus 428 = 1,172
The 29% mortality from hunters and trappers did
not include mortality from all other causes yet on May 22,
2008 the Idaho F&G Commission set a new combined
death loss goal of 428 wolves “from natural causes,
accidents, wolf predation control actions and hunter kills,”
and said that will result in its new goal of about 518
wolves on Dec. 31, 2008. Sources including Dr. David
Mech, indicate there are ~1,600 wolves in Idaho now,
counting this year’s pups, so 428 wolves dying from all
causes would result in ~1,172 wolves remaining in Idaho –
twice the number claimed by the Commission.
continued on page 2
Page 2 THE OUTDOORSMAN May 2008
3,000 Wolves in ID, MT, WY - continued from page 1
About 1,172 actual wolves – not paper wolves –
would represent the minimum number of wolves in Idaho
this coming winter and this should trigger loud alarms in
the minds of those who are responsible for perpetuating
Idaho’s wildlife resource. That is nearly 12 times the
number of wolves the public was told would exist in a
recovered wolf population and eight times the minimum
number agreed to by all parties in the only Idaho Wolf Plan
approved by both the Idaho Legislature and the FWS!
Will Wolf Activists Believe Their Idol?
If the wolf preservationists and the doubting
Thomases refuse to believe these facts because they didn’t
appear in the major media, what source will they consider
reliable? The obvious answer is Dr. L. David Mech, the
undisputed wolf authority in North America and perhaps in
the entire world.
Although Mech eventually refuted the “Balance-of
Nature” theory he and his mentor, Durward Allen, foisted
off on the world during 1958-1962, he has generally
remained silent while similarly inexperienced fledgling
wolf biologists supply misinformation about wolf
populations to the media. But the April 28, 2008 legal
challenge to state wolf control by Defenders of Wildlife
and eleven other preservationist groups in a Federal Court
in Montana forced Mech to make public some of the facts
he and other FWS wolf activists have known all along.
As part of the FWS May 9, 2008 Response to
Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction (to halt wolf
management by the three states) Mech wrote the following
in his 22-page “Declaration under penalty of perjury:”
“Every year, most wolf populations almost double
in the spring through the birth of pups [Mech 1970]. For
example in May 2008, there will not be 1,500 wolves, but
3,000! (Wolf population estimates are usually made in
winter when animals are at their nadir*. This approach
serves to provide conservative estimates and further insure
that management remains conservative).”
(*lowest point)
“70% Kill Needed to Reduce Wolf Population”
Mech continued, “As indicated above, 28-50% of a
wolf population must be killed by humans per year (on top
of natural mortality) to even hold a wolf population
stationery. Indeed, the agencies outside the NRM which
are seeking to reduce wolf populations try to kill 70% per
year (Fuller et al. 2003).” (emphasis added)
“Such extreme taking of the kind necessary to
effectively reduce wolf populations is done via concerted
and expensive government agency (Alaska, Yukon
Territories for example) programs using helicopters and
fixed wing aircraft. Normal regulated public harvest such
as is contemplated in the NRM is usually unable to reduce
wolf populations (Mech 2001).” (emphasis added)
In his Declaration, Mech also refuted the 1,500
NRM (three-state) minimum wolf estimate as follows:
“Starting with a base population of 1,545 wolves in
late 2007 (Final Rule) and adding the average 24% annual
increase shown from 1995 through 2006 yields 1,916
wolves expected to be present in fall 2008. (Here I should
note that the estimate of 1,545 wolves is a minimum
estimate, i.e. there were supposedly a minimum of 1,545
wolves. As wolf populations increase, it becomes
increasingly harder to count them accurately and the
minimal counts become increasingly lower than actual.
Thus a better estimate of the actual population could be
about 1,700, and thus the 2008 estimate would be 2,108.)
Assuming the minimum figure and that ID actually takes
328 wolves which is its limit” (was its limit until May 22,).
In other words, Mech is saying that if the three
states had a total of 1,700 wolves after hunting season last
fall, they will have approximately 2,108 wolves after
hunting season this fall regardless of the take by hunters
(1,700 wolves multiplied by 1.24 [a 24% increase after all
death losses] equals 2,108 wolves this fall). Multiplying
the 2,108 wolves by another 1.24 would leave 2,614
remaining wolves at the end of 2009.
Viewed from just the Idaho perspective, the
“minimum” wolf estimate reported in Idaho late in 2007
was 732 (47.4% of the 1,545 wolves in the three states). If
we correct that 1,545 to 1,700 as Mech suggests, double it
to 3,400 to equal the present population with pups as Mech
suggests, and then multiply the 3,400 by 47.4% we
calculate that Idaho presently has about 1,612 wolves.
Then if we subtract the 438 wolves that will die
from all causes according to IDFG biologists, that would
leave a total of 1,174 wolves in Idaho in December 2008.
If you prefer using Mech’s other formula, multiply the
1,700 by 47.4% and multiply the 806 wolves by 1.24
which projects a Dec, 31, 2008 population of 999 wolves.
In either scenario many of the single wolves and
groups of 2-3 are still not included in Mech’s calculation.
In my rural county and throughout much of Idaho,
outdoorsmen report encountering far more evidence of
single wolves and small groups than they do of packs so
the total number of actual wolves remains a mystery.
Hunter Take Replaces Most Natural Mortality
The Declarations filed with the court by other wolf
biologists agreed with Mech’s and the Alaska scientists’
claim that regulated sport hunting and trapping will not
impact wolf populations. On page 7 of NRM Wolf Project
Leader Ed Bangs’ Declaration, he wrote that human-caused
mortality accounted for an annual average of 23% of the
wolf population (agency kill–10%, illegal kill–10% and
vehicle and other–3%) yet the wolves still multiplied at a
rate of 24% per year despite additional mortality from
natural causes.
Bangs added, “Studies indicate that human-caused
mortality can compensate for as much as 70% of the
natural mortality that might have occurred anyway (Fuller
et al. 2003). Hunting would disproportionally remove the
May 2008 THE OUTDOORSMAN Page 3
boldest wolves in the most accessible open habitats, the
very type of wolf in the typical location where most
livestock depredations, agency control actions and illegal
killing occurred when the NRM gray wolf was listed.
“Wolf populations can maintain themselves despite
annual human-caused mortality rates of 30% to 50%
(Brainerd et al. 2008; Fuller et al. 2003). Wolf populations
below habitat carry-capacity can quickly expand,
sometimes nearly doubling within one or two years,
following sharp declines caused by temporarily high rates
of human-caused mortality or other causes.”
Where wolves with adequate habitat are protected
from intensive human harvest they ultimately saturate an
area, forcing young or transient wolves seeking to form
new packs to either leave the area or be killed. In Denali
National Park, hunters, trappers and all other human causes
account for only 3% of annual wolf deaths (see Bulletin
No. 26).
By comparison 60% of the remaining wolf deaths
are caused by other wolves and the average wolf pack lasts
three or fewer years. When prey becomes scarce as it
eventually does, starvation, disease and cannibalism further
reduce wolf numbers emphasizing the “feast-or-famine”
nature of so-called “natural management.”
FWS Knew Sport Harvest Can’t Stop Wolf Increases
The six-year wolf harvest study in Alaska’s Brooks
Range that was published in Wildlife Monographs this
month (see page 1) was actually conducted during 1986-
1992. Wolf biologists Mech and Bangs knew then, before
any wolves were transplanted into the NRM, that hunting
and trapping, even with liberal seasons and bag limits, does
not stop continued annual increases in the wolf population.
From this and similar research in several countries,
they also realized that sport hunting and trapping creates
healthier wolf populations by removing surplus wolves that
would otherwise be killed by other wolves or die from
starvation or disease. So FWS dangled the carrot of
allowing states to “control” wolf populations by making
wolves a big game animal to get two of the three states to
accept a series of changes to the original delisting criteria.
While the Governors of Idaho and Montana went
along with the mythical claim that wolf numbers could be
significantly reduced once states were allowed to manage
their wolves as “Big Game,” Wyoming’s Governor and
Legislators insisted that wolves be classified as predators
outside of federal wilderness areas and parks. In Idaho, the
Governor’s Office of Species Conservation and the F&G
Commission refused to use the alternate “Special Predator”
classification approved by FWS in the Idaho Wolf Plan.
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