WDFW isn't providing estimates...so your allegation they underestimate is bogus.
So according to you and WDFW there are only 68 wolves in WA?
Low Estimates Hide Extent of Impact
But regardless of the number of breeding pairs counted, central Idaho is saturated with wolves. Other wolf packs and breeding pairs are constantly forming and dispersing to saturate adjacent areas – yet an unknown number of them are never included in the current year’s minimum estimated wolf population.
It can be argued that most of these undocumented wolves will probably be documented sooner or later if they remain in the area, since 17 new packs were reportedly documented in 2007. But by pretending that the minimum estimate reflects the actual number of wolves, officials and the media downplay their negative impact.
The Real FWS Wolf Recovery Agenda
That agenda has been promoted in “Society for Conservation Biology” publications by federal biologists involved in wolf recovery since Canadian wolves were first transplanted. David Mech’s “The Challenge and Opportunity of Recovering Wolf Populations” appeared in the 1995 Volume. 9(2) issue of “Conservation Biology.”
In 2001, environmental groups, including The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund, joined with the National Park Service in creating a more sophisticated magazine called “Conservation Magazine” designed to sell the wildlands/biodiversity agenda to academia. In 2004 FWS Wolf Team Leader Ed Bangs praised a BS thesis by a biology student concerning non- lethal wolf “control” (later published in Conservation) and announced he had hired her as a wolf “specialist”.
Wildlife biologists in all three recovery states knew about the numbers deception but only Wyoming G&F, under pressure from its Governor, attempted to hold FWS to the original de-listing criteria. IDFG Director Groen’s Jan. 14th News Release declared the Department’s intention only to “stabilize” (halt the dramatic annual increase in) existing wolf populations in Idaho.
Because IDFG estimates Idaho had a minimum population of 732 wolves in the fall of 2007 that means F&G intended to maintain a minimum of at least seven times as many wolves in Idaho as we were told would exist after recovery. But pretending that the biologists’ estimated minimum fall wolf population is near the actual wolf population is simply another deception misleading Idahoans and their elected officials as will be illustrated later in this article. Read more@
http://idahoforwildlife.com/files/pdf/georgeDovel/The%20Outdoorsman%2026%20January%202008%20full%20report.pdfExistence of Many Wolves Ignored
Bangs also explained that it was too difficult to locate individual wolves or small groups of wolves that were not packs and emphasized that the existence of these wolves was not important to recovery. Once the transplanted wolves began pairing and successfully raising young, the Nez Perce and FWS recovery teams declined to investigate sightings of individual wolves or groups of wolves unless they involved livestock killing.
But even then, if the livestock was moved to a different location and/or the wolf predation stopped, any investigation abruptly ceased. In some parts of Idaho where wolf populations are excessive, including the county we live in, local citizens report frustration over the Wolf Teams’ refusal to investigate reports of apparent pack activity unless there is evidence of at least two pups.
The excuse used by the FWS/NezPerce Team for its failure to investigate such activity is that it is too expensive but it also is not interested in recording wolves unless they meet the confirmed wolf criteria agreed upon by Bangs, Ted Koch and Steve Fritts in 1994. The exception is the need to radio-collar one or more wolves to facilitate removal of one or more members of a pack that continues to kill livestock.
Wolf Numbers Underestimated
There are so many variables involved in attempting to estimate the total number of wolves in a state that any such estimate is prone to large errors even with the best information available. But when the existence of every wolf that has not been part of a “collared” pack is ignored, any such estimate is suspect.
For example, local residents reported several wolf packs in Boise County yet FWS had documented only two. When the Team finally documented the existence of three more packs there were 2-1/2 times as many wolf packs as had been recorded and a similar increase in the number of breeding pairs – indicated both by pups and by yearlings that were born in the prior year and survived.
Although FWS goes back and adjusts the number of breeding pairs for the prior year when this evidence is documented, this system always results in initially underestimating both total wolves and breeding pairs. Recovery goals in all three states were met at least 2-3 years before then current FWS estimates said they were, yet the actual number of breeding pairs was not admitted and recorded until after the fact.
In the future the policy of including only the wolves in currently documented packs in the “minimum estimate” could result in wolves being declared below the recovery minimum of 10 breeding pairs in any of the three areas when the actual number of breeding pairs could be 2- 3 times what is estimated. Theoretically this could result in wolves being declared threatened in one or all three states and an end to state wolf management.
http://idahoforwildlife.com/files/pdf/georgeDovel/The%20Outdoorsman%2026%20January%202008%20full%20report.pdf
