Time for Delisting in Washinton!

[wolfbait]

What would you say if you herd that the state of Washingtons wolf recovery was way ahead of say, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Perhaps all the states put together. Well acording to our very own biologists and USFW the wolves in Washington have been doing quite well since the 1990. My next question, why then did they transplant some more this spring on the new golden doe wolf recovery area? I bet it had something to do with the all mighty dollar!

It would appear that the Lookout pack is not the first wolf pack in Washington, in say 70 years. Please Note the Dates!



http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900603&slug=1075265



Sunday, June 3, 1990 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

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Northwest Briefly

Rare Wolf Pups To Be Isolated, Photographed
Times Staff: Times News Services

Wildlife biologists hope to capture the first wolf pups known to have been born in Washington in decades - but only on film from unmanned, infrared cameras set up near the den site in the North Cascades.

State and federal biologists in May located the gray wolf den containing pups by howling at them and getting distinctive barks and howls in return. It is the first confirmation in 15 years that wolves are living in Washington, says Harriet Allen, state biologist.

More importantly, she said, ``it's the first wolf den, first indication of breeding since the early 1900s. We've always thought there were transient wolves in the Cascades based on tracks.''

Biologists will not attempt to get close enough to see the den in the Hozomeen area of Ross Lake National Recreation Area for another month for fear of disturbing the she-wolf and causing her to move her pups.The road into the Hozomeen has been closed to all traffic until June 14.

Copyright (c) 1990 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved

Friday, April 17, 1992 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

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Gray Wolves' Return Subject Of Monday Meeting
Times Staff

Wolf-watchers, take note: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service will take public comments and answer questions about reintroduction of the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho at a Seattle meeting Monday.

It's the first step in developing an environmental impact statement for reintroduction to those areas, said Doug Zimmer, Fish & Wildlife spokesman. The EIS will guide federal officials in determining whether the wolf should be reintroduced in those areas, and how it should be managed if it is.

Why should Seattleites care? Aside from being a controversial topic expected to draw comments from friends and foes of the wolf nationwide, the Yellowstone EIS could serve as a model for a plan to manage wolves that are rehabitating Washington state.

State wildlife agents already have identified six packs of wolves in Washington's Cascades, and more are expected to migrate from Canada to the state's protected forests.

Monday's meeting, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Shorline Community College's Lecture Hall 1605, is an open house. Biologists will be on hand to show a videotape of wolves in the U.S. and answer questions from the public.

Formal public hearings will take place in May 1993. The Yellowstone wolf EIS will be released in 1994, along with a federal

decision.

Copyright (c) 1992 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920417&slug=1486887

[wolfbait]

6 packs in the Cascades in 1992? How many now? Where and who are the state wildlife agents that reported this in 1992?

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920205&slug=1473981



Wednesday, February 5, 1992 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

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Endangered Gray Wolf Trapped Near Mt. Baker
By Eric Pryne

For the first time in anyone's memory, wildlife biologists have captured an endangered gray wolf in Washington.

State Wildlife Department biologists said they trapped the animal, a healthy 56-pound female, near Mount Baker last Friday. The wolf was fitted with a radio collar and released the next day on national forest land a few miles away.

The capture is an exciting development, said John Pierce, manager of the department's non-game program. "If she's part of a pack, we should know it pretty soon," he said.

The gray wolf, listed as endangered in every state but Minnesota and Alaska, disappeared from Washington in the early 1900s. But reports of wolf sightings in the wild North Cascades have increased in recent years. In 1990 biologists discovered two dens - the first time wolves had been sighted in the state since 1975.

Pierce said the animals probably are migrating south from Canada, where wolves still are hunted.

"It appears we're in the early stages of re-colonization of the former range in Washington," he said. There's evidence the animals are breeding as far south as the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area just north of Stevens Pass, Pierce added.

According to a Wildlife Department statement, the captured wolf, nicknamed "Nooksack," had been seen several times in recent weeks near a winter-cabin community outside Glacier, Whatcom County. After trying for 10 days, biologists Jon Almack and Scott Fitkin succeeded in luring the animal into a fenced swimming-pool area, using a fish carcass as bait.

Once she was inside, the gate was closed. The wolf was tranquilized, and a local veterinarian took X-rays of her skull to verify her species.

Pierce said Almack and Fitkin are participating in a long-range study of the gray wolf's relationship with its environment in Washington, including diet, movement and range.

Copyright (c) 1992 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved.

[WDFW-SUX]

Well I hope someone rubs this in there nose when it comes time to establish the number of breeding pairs in the state.....we should be really close to the objective for a hunt at this point. 

[WDFW-SUX]

also interesting they were using fish as bait....almost like the dogs were used to fish from before they were planted.

[WAcoyotehunter]

6 packs in the Cascades in 1992? How many now? Where and who are the state wildlife agents that reported this in 1992?

Good question!  If that is true we are further along than we thought previously, but not sure how we would be "way ahead of ID, and MT"?  Also sceptical of any idea of a release without some sort of factual information or documentation.  

Well I hope someone rubs this in there nose when it comes time to establish the number of breeding pairs in the state.....we should be really close to the objective for a hunt at this point.  

The tricky caveat to our delisting is that we have to have them in all the recovery zones and for three consecutive years.  That is the why the dfw brought up the idea that we could translocate (move WITHIN) washington to meet that goal.  There has been no discussion of relocating, and DFW has not moved any wolves at all.

[docsven]

Do you know what is really funny about this whole thing- The guy who wrote "The Horse Whisperer" wrote a book about 10 years ago, about the re-introduction of wolves in some place in Montana, and all these animal lovers read the book and formed an opinion about how harmless this would be and how bad ranchers and redneck hunters are to want to kill the harmless wolves.  I think if they do get de-listed here, that's a big if- it will be impossible to ever keep them under control, we got outmaneuvered by Hollywood.

[wolfbait]

Lets see here, wolves started coming into Washington in the 1980's, so according to my cowculator, that would be around 20 years of wolf travel into Wa. from Canada. Wolves have also moved from Idaho into Wa. and lets not fergit about the shwans wolf delivery trucks. The more info. that is dug up, the more we realize just how honest the people of the wolf recovery really are.

[boneaddict]

I like the dates.  1990 versus the first pack in 70 years as of last year.  OH BOTHER......  THey can't even keep their own facts straight.  What good would it be to expect proof of any being released.  Its just a piece of paper (if there is any) that must get lost on someones desk like this information.  

[boneaddict]

looks like you are digging in the right direction.

[wolfbait]

I like the dates.  1990 versus the first pack in 70 years as of last year.  OH BOTHER......  THey can't even keep their own facts straight.  What good would it be to expect proof of any being released.  Its just a piece of paper (if there is any) that must get lost on someones desk like this information.  

How bout these dates?


http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19921206&slug=1528536



Sunday, December 6, 1992 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

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Wolves Coming Back To Cascades
By Patty Wren

Wenatchee World

TWISP, Okanogan County - We may not be dancing with wolves, but they're here, their numbers are growing and it is possible to coexist with them in relative peace.

That's the message a Montana wolf specialist and wildlife advocates are trying to get out. .

At a meeting here on grizzly bears in the North Cascades, about 140 residents seemed intrigued.

Particularly when Pat Tucker, a biologist with the National Wildlife Federation, led a full-grown wolf past the audience, sat with her back to it and allowed it to upstage her by chewing loudly on an empty plastic soda bottle.

The presentation was the Okanogan National Forest's way of telling residents that the gray wolf, once slaughtered by the tens of thousands, has been making a quiet comeback in Washington.

In the Okanogan, one or more wolves have been spotted in five separate areas since 1989.

The plan is to let the wolves - moving into old haunts south of Canada after hunting stopped there in the 1970s - reproduce themselves, said Jon Almak, a state Department of Wildlife biologist.

The crowd responded with an audible sigh of relief, then applause and cheers.

Biologists are trying to write a wolf-recovery plan for Washington.

Originally planned as part of a recovery program for the northern Rockies, where wolves were brought in, the effort could become unique to Washington because of the apparently burgeoning population.

For example, 100 sightings were reported in 1981, and last year there were 200, ranging as far south as Mount St. Helens, Almak said.

Federal agencies have spent $3.3 million on wolf research in the Rockies since 1987.

Efforts in Washington, such as howling to find members of the endangered species, began two years ago.

Almak, chairman of a biological research subcommittee, said guidelines are being written to ensure that management, habitat and prey-base goals are met and hunters and the general public are educated.

Enter Tucker, whose appearance at the general meeting and at three schools also was sponsored by the Methow Valley Citizens Council.

Through a slide show depicting wolves at play, over bloody carcasses, howling in chorus and standing watchfully, Tucker spoke of her love and respect for the charismatic animals.

She began with a tape recording of a lone wolf howling, telling people in the audience to imagine themselves - as she'd been when she taped it - alone in the wilderness at nightfall.

Suddenly a stereo-like chorus of howls erupted. You could almost see the hairs raise on the backs of 140 necks.

Tucker grinned at the reaction. "I enjoy being out there with other animals that are my equals," she said. "It's not that I want to sell wolves to everyone, but that you will go away from this program with at least respect for them."

Wolves feed on large game animals, pose somewhat of a threat to cattle, run in family packs of about eight, breed annually, can travel 500 miles and need about 200 square miles per pack to thrive, Tucker said.

"They don't eat humans," she said. "We have documentation of bears - even white-tailed deer - killing people, and that's more common than wolves killing people."

The predators are equally preyed on by the pitfalls of life in the wild. "It's an old wolf that's 8 years old," Tucker said.

"Those of us who want wolves back have got to realize the emotional trauma" to cattlemen of coming upon a bloody calf, she said.

"But most ranchers are never going to have to deal with it.

"Some believe they eat cattle. Some believe they eat only sick, weak mice," Tucker said. "The two sides will never agree. . . .

Ranchers in British Columbia and Alberta have had some problems with predation, but the losses are not significant to the industry, she said, adding that knapweed poses a worse problem.

If prey habitat can be protected, human attitudes changed and wolves freed from human persecution, she said, "We shouldn't have to put a lot of restrictions on human activities."

Copyright (c) 1992 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved.

[wolfbait]

"They don't eat humans," she said. "We have documentation of bears - even white-tailed deer - killing people, and that's more common than wolves killing people."


I felt so much better after reading,,,,,

[wolfbait]

(Originally planned as part of a recovery program for the northern Rockies, where wolves were brought in, the effort could become unique to Washington because of the apparently burgeoning population)

This artical was written in1992, before the wolf introduction,,,, So whats up? Would appear as if they had already planted some wolves in the Nothern Rockies.

[cabin308]

Guess they count the deer that fly through the windshield. 

"They don't eat humans," she said. "We have documentation of bears - even white-tailed deer - killing people, and that's more common than wolves killing people."


I felt so much better after reading,,,,,

[zackmioli]

i love reading all this stuff. keep it coming. really good info! thanks.

[boneaddict]

"We shouldn't have to put a lot of restrictions on human activities

Is that a threat.

One I often suspect and have talked about.......