FWS Biologist Says Wolf Numbers Underestimated
Mech Says 3,000 Wolves Exist in ID, MT & WY
In a widely circulated article titled, “What They Didn’t Tell You About Wolf Recovery,” in the Jan-Mar 2008 Outdoorsman, I documented the fact that Fish and Wildlife Service and state wolf biologists are knowingly underestimating wolf numbers in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. The article explained that only individual radio-collared wolves, and packs including at least one wolf that has been radio-collared (or otherwise documented as having survived in the wild) are considered in minimum wolf population estimates published by FWS and state agency biologists.
I reported that the FWS policy of ignoring most other wolves was first announced by Wolf Project Leader Ed Bangs in an Aug. 12, 1994 letter to FWS official Charles Lobdell. I also published Idaho F&G Biologists’ February 2008 written admission that the so-called 2007 “minimum estimates” did not include seven “suspected” packs and many known wolves in smaller groups that were not wearing radio collars.
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.
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, Y ukon 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.
Read more@
http://idahoforwildlife.com/files/pdf/georgeDovel/The%20Outdoorsman%20No.28%20May%202008%20FWS%20Biologist%20Says%20Wolf%20Numbers%20Underestimated%20Mech%20Says%203,000%20Wolves%20Exist%20in%20ID,%20MT%20&%20WY.pdf
