Wolf caught snatching a chicken near Colville

[wolfbait]

I watched a program last night about the wallowa area in NE oregon,elk populations are dropping and the conclusion they seem to be arriving at is cougar and bears are killing calves at an alarming rate...Now toss in the wolves in that area which of course dont cause many problems ..and the were not mentioned I might add...cullling bears and cougars seem to be where oregon might go with their problem,why and when will wa state get on the ball?

"cullling bears and cougars seem to be where oregon might go with their problem,why and when will wa state get on the ball? "

Never, would be your correct answer, Rasbo. WDFW won't even admit they have a bear/cougar problem. Remember Oregon and WA came out with the first wolf pack in 70 years the very same day, Oregon's wolves showed up in the middle of cattle country and look at ODFG and the USFWS's record of confirming livestock kills,, and then look at WDFW. As pitiful as ODFG confirmed wolf kills are, WDFW is far worse.

[AspenBud]

 
 But on the other hand some packs do not seem to be surviving well in our human populated countryside. Maybe they don't like all the human activity here and that's why some are going back to Canada, maybe locals are putting more hurt on them than we imagine, I'm not sure why exactly, but I am hoping for whatever cause the number of packs don't multiply like they did in Idaho.

I haven't heard that but it would be in line with everything I've read about the differences between North American wolves and their Eurasian counterparts. Russian wolves are supposed to be much more tolerant of human activity and up until recently, wolves have occurred in the middle of nowhere in the lower 48.

[AspenBud]

I watched a program last night about the wallowa area in NE oregon,elk populations are dropping and the conclusion they seem to be arriving at is cougar and bears are killing calves at an alarming rate...Now toss in the wolves in that area which of course dont cause many problems ..and the were not mentioned I might add...cullling bears and cougars seem to be where oregon might go with their problem,why and when will wa state get on the ball?

"cullling bears and cougars seem to be where oregon might go with their problem,why and when will wa state get on the ball? "

Never, would be your correct answer, Rasbo. WDFW won't even admit they have a bear/cougar problem. Remember Oregon and WA came out with the first wolf pack in 70 years the very same day, Oregon's wolves showed up in the middle of cattle country and look at ODFG and the USFWS's record of confirming livestock kills,, and then look at WDFW. As pitiful as ODFG confirmed wolf kills are, WDFW is far worse.

They can admit they have a problem with bear and cougars all they want, but the citizens of this state tied their hands. What part of the initiative process don't you understand?

[BOWHUNTER45]

The only ones that know anything are the ones who are enforcing the laws    they want these wolves and no one will change their minds ..pretty funny when they tell someone who lived in the country their whole life that they are seeing coyotes  maybe it is best not to report seeing any of them...they only report they would get from me is POOOOOOOOOOOOW ! Whop !

[wolfbait]

I think it's simply a miscommunication problem. I very much doubt that the WDFW employees are telling people they are absolutely, 100% not seeing wolves. I think they question these people when they make a report. They most likely ask the people if it may have been a coyote and in talking to that person they probably try to get an idea if he or she knows the difference between a wolf and a coyote. The person then turns this around and says "the WDFW told me it was not a wolf that I saw!" When all they really did was question the validity of the report and try to determine if the witness is credible.


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I suppose as long as it wasn't your cows etc. that you saw the wolf/wolves kill, then your " miscommunication problem" will work out just fine for you, Bobcat.

 WDFW have made it part of their "management" plan, not to confirm wolves anywhere unless forced to do so, this has been going on in WA long before WDFW finally had to confirm the pack in the Methow Valley.

 WDFW have good reasons for not acknowledging wolf problems. Wolf packs are confirmed when livestock is being killed by wolves or wolves are hanging out at a school bus stop such as the lookout pack was. With WDFW's refusal to acknowledge people's wolf problems, ranchers etc. take care of their own wolf problems and WDFW are not forced to confirm another wolf pack.


The USFWS, Ed Bangs:


"Ignore All But Known Breeding Pairs and Packs"

In his 1984 letter to Lobdell, Bangs listed the "key recovery issues that will be consistently presented to the public." Issue number 6 stated, "Only breeding pairs of wolves that have successfully raised young are important to the recovery of viable wolf populations. "At this time there is no such thing as a truly ‘confirmed’ wolf’ until it has been determined to have successfully raised young in the wild or has been captured, examined, and monitored with radio telemetry. (F)rom this dayforward we (will) use the strictest definition of confirmed wolf activity (i.e. individual wolves or members of packs that have been examined, radiocollared and monitored in the wild). "We should be comfortable with this definition in all phases of wolf recovery such as when discussing the criteria for use of an experimental rule or for delisting the species because the population viability criteria have been reached." (emphasis added)

http://www.idahoforwildlife.com/Website%20articles/George%20Dovel/The_Outdoorsman%2026%20January%202008%20full%20report.pdf

[Special T]

In true bureaucratic form Definitions and process are everything...
Idahoehuntr you posed the question what could the WDFW's motivation be? With out 

By the states Definitions a wolf is not a wolf unless there is DNA evidence that confirms it. This has been stated many times by the WDFW when investigating "wolf activity" and they are waiting on DNA conformation to speak further. So as an employee or agent for the WDFW would it be hard to imagine that they have been instructed to not affirm wolf prints, scat, sightings, attacks etc until there is DNA evidence to back it up?

Special "Training" is required to determine if an attack on lives stock is a wolf attack or not, even if it is obvious..

Here is the main problem i Have with Giving the WDFW the "Benefit of the Doubt". These poor deflections are a uniform response. They have been given here in the Skagit, as well in several places on the east side and they are all nearly identical. Rather strange if it is merely "Miscommunication" and they are all alike.

Why would the WDFW respond this way? De-escalate conflict, reduce the number of "Wolf" investigations, keep it quiet... Again why would they want to do this? Lawsuits... They cost the Department LOTS of $ and do nothing beneficial for anyone.

Avoidance of lawsuits  fall right in line with other WDFW in/actions in other areas regarding Tribes or Enviro groups. There is no conspiracy, it is just an attempt although a poor one, to protect itself from bleeding its funds dry via lawsuit.

[bobcat]

Maybe avoiding lawsuits, yes, but that's understandable and all they're really doing is following scientific protocol. It's kind of hard to fault them for that.


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[h2ofowlr]

The ranchers should be shooting these yotes.  Game department confirmed they were yotes, so why not.

[bigtex]

I don't work in an area with wolves (at least not yet) so I am not an expert on the matter, but I will say this.

It's amazing how many people are 100% sure what they saw was a wolf, bear, cougar. Then they show you the picture of the "cougar" and it's fluffy the 10 lb garfield cat, or sparky the yellow lab. But by god they know it's a cougar! Don't believe me? Look at the cougar reports.

There's a link on the WDFW website that shows all the wolf reports, for some reason I have a hard time believing the wolf reports coming out of Tacoma or Seattle streets.

Are there reports that are being ignored? Probably, but find me an agency that doesn't ignore something. Is it getting to a point where 100% of the reports are ignored? No. Could WDFW do better? Yes

Sometimes people get more stuck on "the guy who's reporting it is a good guy" so it must be true! I've known hardcore hunters who reported a "cougar" and it was a fat yellow lab...

[snowpack]

Kind of sound like the wardens were trying to get someone to shoot a wolf.  They will tell people they are seeing coyotes in hopes that people will believe them and shoot one, or maybe they hoped word would spread and the guy that killed the collared wolf would show up in the area.   

[Ccortez]

Eh just shoot one then call up wdfw and tell them you told me it was a coyote so I shot it 

[AspenBud]

It would be interesting to see their call logs and know how many calls they get stating a wolf killed this or that animal. My guess is the rate is over 90%.

In the absence of a body it's probably easier to say it was a coyote since there are arguably so many more and they kill a lot of the same animals, particularly chickens.

[AspenBud]

Eh just shoot one then call up wdfw and tell them you told me it was a coyote so I shot it 

That would actually be smart.

[nwwanderer]

Competitive hand ringing is nothing new with our department, what to do, what to do.  Family experience going back more than sixty years exists.  It is going on today.  Wolves, elk, deer, turkeys, etc. all cause the problems and our reactions can get your head patted in Olympia and a threat of jail locally or visa versa.  You have administrators, biologists and enforcement not on the same page locally, regionally and at the Olympia level.  They often seem to compete with each other while not knowing what the other is doing.  I apologize for not having a constructive path, been at it for decades and it just gets more bizarre.

[Jingles]

So the solution is simple unless it is wearing a color it is a coyote, Coyotes huntable year round. Poor quality fur in the late spring, summer and early fall no need to drag out of the field.
population reduced.....