Washington Wolf Conservation and Management Plan Information

[Spurs]

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I have been reading and researching the Draft Wolf Conservation and Management Plan for Washington, August 2009, along with the pertinent cited supporting data. I believe that it is important to be accurately informed in order to arrive at an acceptable and workable solution. I realize that this may be tedious for some, but time is very short until acceptance and implementation of the final plan.

The following are excerpts directly from the plan:

1. INTRODUCTION
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) initiated development of a Wolf Conservation and Management Plan for Washington in response to the anticipated dispersal of wolves into Washington and return to state management. In January 2007, WDFW Director Jeff Koenings, appointed 18 members to a Wolf Working Group…to advise WDFW in the development of the plan. The Working Group began meeting in February 2007.

(Note: “The group was reduced to 17 members during the course of its meetings when one person was no longer able to participate”).

The group met six times during 2007 and twice in 2008; seven public scoping meetings were held throughout the state during August 2007. Scientific peer review and addressing of the comments was completed in July 2009. A Working Group meeting to review the changes resulting from peer review was conducted in September 2009. The plan then underwent a 90-day public review under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) process from September to December 2009, including 12 public meetings throughout the state. The Working Group met an additional time prior to completion of the final plan and presentation to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission for final approval in 2010.

(Note: Obviously we are still in the last days of August, but the date projections are an integral part of the final draft of the plan).

The plan will consider various approaches to meeting recovery objectives including, but not limited to, regulation, mitigation, land acquisition, incentives, and compensation mechanisms.

In developing this plan, WDFW sought to establish a wolf conservation program that is achievable, realistic, fair, flexible, cost-effective, defensible, sustainable, fundable, engages the public, and provides incentives for meeting wolf conservation goals. Several aspects of the plan are critical to its success. One of the first and foremost is to have broad support to ensure sufficient funding for implementing the plan. Conservation tools and strategies will need to be implemented to achieve a healthy, self-sustaining wolf population. Because human tolerance has been and remains the primary limiting factor for wolf survival, tolerance and acceptance must be adequately addressed for citizens who will be directly affected by the presence of wolves. This makes technical assistance, compensation, and outreach some of the highest priorities for wolf conservation.

(Note: There has been an additional recovery region added to the revised plan).

The number and distribution objectives for wolves are expressed in terms of occupancy within four defined recovery regions of the state. These regions are: the Eastern Washington Region, Northern Cascades Region, Southern Cascades Region, and Pacific Coast Region. The western boundary of the Eastern Washington Region follows Highways 97, 17, and 395 and matches the line used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to demarcate the western edge of the Northern Rocky Mountain distinct population segment for gray wolves in Washington (USFWS 2009). Packs with territories straddling recovery region (or state) boundaries will be counted only in the area where the den site is located. If the den location is not known with certainty, then other criteria such as amount of time, percent of territory, or number of wolf reports will be used to determine pack residency. Thus, a pack will not be counted in more than one recovery region.

There have been some significant changes in the definition of depredation criteria and compensations programs.

More later if anyone is interested.

[lionhunter]

 O.K. I checked out all the deterents the Friends of the Wolves have to offer.  I'm a rancher and I'll do what it takes but every single solution they presented is very ridiculous. 
 1.  put flagery around property.
     I have 11 miles of fence and am considered a small cattle rancher.  That consists of 38,133 flags at 18" apart, taking 39 days to put up if I get 2 per minute.  Then there's the areas I have no fence since it is natural rocky and steep cows can't manipulate but wolves can.  This area will have to have small rope hung which will take more time and money. 
    QUESTION?   So who buys the flags?   Who puts in the time to hang the flags?  Who maintains the flagery?

2.  Put range riders out.

    I'm a one man operation.  I start at 5 a.m. changing sprinklers, milking a cow, fixing fence, cutting hay, baleing hay, fixing machinery and come in the house when it's  dark.  When do I have time to ride range?   When I do check the cows I have to hop in the pickup and make a quick trip and back to work as fast as possible.
    QUESTION?   Who pays for the range riders?  Will this actually work since wolves are nocturnal mostly?  My cows don't all stay together so do we get several guys to chase each bunch around?  Are there actually people that will do this type of  thing for practically no money for long periods of time?  Do these ranger rides wear head lamps so they can ride at night?

3.  Get guard dogs
    Wolves eat dogs.  Dogs will stay with sheep perty good but you have to check in with them several times a day to feed and water them.  Would need several dogs (really big mean dogs) to protect cattle from wolves.  When my cows split up how will my dogs  know which bunch to go with?  Will dogs stay with cattle day and night?  Who buys  and trains the dogs?  This idea works great in Ireland where its all open country and with sheep that are brought in every night.  Would never work with cattle, besides, "wolves eat dogs".  Won't work.

4.  Use moveable fencing.

   How much time do I have to move moveable fencing consisting of several miles of fence every day.  A wolf proof fence might work on a corral but out on these rugged wooded mountains is out of the question.  Who buys this multmillion dollar fencing for me and who moves it every day?  Who actually is going to move this fencing regularly and who pays this Paul Bunyan to move it?

5.  Bring animals in at night.

  It only takes about a day to round up my cattle on my small place sometimes 2.  How can I bring them in every night if it takes all day to bring them in just once?  So if I'm bringing in my cows every day for the nights stay in my corral, who changes my sprinklers, milks the cow, fixes my fences, cuts and bales the hay, fixes my junk equpment?  Who pays for all this?

Finally, folks seem to think us cattlemen are rich.  Just a quick math quiz.   Last summer alfalfa was worth 200 per ton.  My cows eat 3 tons  ea. per winter.  That's 600 just for the hay costs to support a cow for one winter.  When I took my steers to market last fall I averaged 512.00 per steer.  Figure that one out folks.  I lost 88 dollars per cow just on the hay expense.   I haven't told you about the fencing costs, irrigation costs, taxes, fuel bill, break down expenses, salt, baleing string, tractor payments plus some cows don't raise a calf because it dies from scours or she aborts  from eating pine needles or it gets eaten by wolves. So us rich ranchers are suppose to take on another big expense with money we don't have.  Most of us have our wives working to help support the place.   These solutions  the folks come up with are so far in left field I can't believe anybody ever put it in print.   Can't figure out why us cattlemen are not included in the loop when solutions are SERIOUSLY looked at.        gotta git back to work.

[WDFW-SUX]

Post of the week.

[denali]

I agree post of the week!

lionhunter you have it all wrong, "we dont care how hard you work, we don't care how much time it takes, we don't care how much it will  cost you......it's all about the wolves!...common get with the "program".   

sorry i'm with you bro.

[MichaelJ]

Its a sad deal all the way around....  Lionhunter, do you graze any of your cows on public land at all???

Michael

[wolfbait]

O.K. I checked out all the deterents the Friends of the Wolves have to offer.  I'm a rancher and I'll do what it takes but every single solution they presented is very ridiculous. )

This plan is managing everything around the wolves. They have tried all of these deterents on wolves, even helicopter hazing and still had to shoot the whole pack. Washington wolf plan just flat out sucks. The way the plan reads now, even if you see a wolf/wolves chasing your stock you can't shoot it till it takes a bite. If you just raise a few head for your own beef or? Well they won't pay you for what the wolves eat. Cattle rancher here in the Methow Valley had to hold up on his spring release out on range, cost him quite a chunk of money to feed while the little brains were trying to figure out where their wolf den was. The defenders of wildlife said they would pay him the cost, so he sent his voucher in, they sent him a join defenders of wildlife form, He still hasn't been paid.

[Spurs]

lionhunter...I am so sorry--I understand exactly what you are saying. My goal is to actually help everyone interested to become informed and hopefully as proactive as possible. The time is so short before this plan becomes formally accepted by and legally implemented by the WDFW. I purposely began with their calendar for that purpose (although it was dry reading). I also copied the transcription of their last meeting when they reviewed and amended the plan. This conservation and management plan is ridiculous, and honestly, for the most part it will be impossible to function safely and profitably under its constraints. The urban and suburban folks will think it's just wonderful--they can actually hear wolves howl once a year on their vacation and live in their movie fairyland.

Bearpaw has given us a list of representatives that we can start intelligently contacting with informed objections. While the "deed is done" and the wolves are with us, the "management" (and I use that term loosely) of the plan can and should be modified. I'll start posting reasonably short sections that I think are seriously flawed and dangerous.

[Spurs]

The Wolf Working Group and the WDFW met to review and amend the August 2008 draft of the plan. I will be directly quoting from the transcripts of that meeting, along with the amended August 2009 plan.

From the meeting transcript in the "General Remarks" section: "The anticipated budget appears high for a single species management plan. Is this a common funding level for other species management plans? I believe one of the imperatives to gaining long term tolerance and social acceptance of wolves is to nurture a public perception that wolves are a part of the natural landscape just as are other predators, and can be managed as we do other species. I believe it is important to recognize that anytime a state wildlife agency approaches wolf management differently than other predator species (level and intensity of monitoring, level of compensation, justification for disproportionate funding, level of media coverage, etc...), it perpetuates and enforces the mythology of the wolf and frustrates effort to generate tolerance and acceptance."

Response to the above: "The costs of recovering and managing wolves in Washington are expected to be lower early on when wolf numbers are smaller, but will increase as wolf abundance expands. After wolves are state delisted, they will be managed similarly to other large carnivores, which is expected to reduce costs considerably. Because wolves are a large carnivore, the costs of restoring and managing them will probably be higher than for many other listed species that do not cause conflicts with humans. Nevertheless, recovery budgets for many listed species are often large and are required for many years."

General Remarks, continued:"A majority of peer reviewers thought the wolf plan's conservation/recovery objectives were adequate or barely adequate, but a significant number believed they were inadequate. This indicates that the objectives for numbers presented in the plan border on being too low. Because of this, language has been added to chapter 3 stating that long-term viability of the state's wolf population will depend in part on maintaining connectivity to the broader regional wolf metapopulation comprising Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, and Oregon. Management actions to improve connectivity for wolves have been added to chapter 12. Additionally, wording changes to the plan further emphasize that hunting of wolves in Washington should not occur until an adequate population exists to support this activity. Continued monitoring of the population after delisting will be important so that any declines in numbers can be detected and remedied."

Response to the preceding paragraph: "This plan could be improved by: 1) expanding the role of translocations in the establishment and management of poplulations; 2) including in the plan the need and intent to reestablish substantial wolf populations in the Willapa Hills and the Olympic Peninsula; 3) including among the criteria for downlisting to game animal status that the overall wolf population in Washington have a genetically effective population size of 50 or more. These suggestions are expanded upon below. Incorporating these suggestions would allow much greater management flexibility to address wolf-livestock conflicts, to manage deer and elk populations, and in supporting legal harvests of wolves."

[wolfbait]

O.K. I checked out all the deterents the Friends of the Wolves have to offer.  I'm a rancher and I'll do what it takes but every single solution they presented is very ridiculous. 
 1.  put flagery around property.
     I have 11 miles of fence and am considered a small cattle rancher.  That consists of 38,133 flags at 18" apart, taking 39 days to put up if I get 2 per minute.  Then there's the areas I have no fence since it is natural rocky and steep cows can't manipulate but wolves can.  This area will have to have small rope hung which will take more time and money. 
    QUESTION?   So who buys the flags?   Who puts in the time to hang the flags?  Who maintains the flagery?

2.  Put range riders out.

    I'm a one man operation.  I start at 5 a.m. changing sprinklers, milking a cow, fixing fence, cutting hay, baleing hay, fixing machinery and come in the house when it's  dark.  When do I have time to ride range?   When I do check the cows I have to hop in the pickup and make a quick trip and back to work as fast as possible.
    QUESTION?   Who pays for the range riders?  Will this actually work since wolves are nocturnal mostly?  My cows don't all stay together so do we get several guys to chase each bunch around?  Are there actually people that will do this type of  thing for practically no money for long periods of time?  Do these ranger rides wear head lamps so they can ride at night?

3.  Get guard dogs
    Wolves eat dogs.  Dogs will stay with sheep perty good but you have to check in with them several times a day to feed and water them.  Would need several dogs (really big mean dogs) to protect cattle from wolves.  When my cows split up how will my dogs  know which bunch to go with?  Will dogs stay with cattle day and night?  Who buys  and trains the dogs?  This idea works great in Ireland where its all open country and with sheep that are brought in every night.  Would never work with cattle, besides, "wolves eat dogs".  Won't work.

4.  Use moveable fencing.

   How much time do I have to move moveable fencing consisting of several miles of fence every day.  A wolf proof fence might work on a corral but out on these rugged wooded mountains is out of the question.  Who buys this multmillion dollar fencing for me and who moves it every day?  Who actually is going to move this fencing regularly and who pays this Paul Bunyan to move it?

5.  Bring animals in at night.

  It only takes about a day to round up my cattle on my small place sometimes 2.  How can I bring them in every night if it takes all day to bring them in just once?  So if I'm bringing in my cows every day for the nights stay in my corral, who changes my sprinklers, milks the cow, fixes my fences, cuts and bales the hay, fixes my junk equpment?  Who pays for all this?

Finally, folks seem to think us cattlemen are rich.  Just a quick math quiz.   Last summer alfalfa was worth 200 per ton.  My cows eat 3 tons  ea. per winter.  That's 600 just for the hay costs to support a cow for one winter.  When I took my steers to market last fall I averaged 512.00 per steer.  Figure that one out folks.  I lost 88 dollars per cow just on the hay expense.   I haven't told you about the fencing costs, irrigation costs, taxes, fuel bill, break down expenses, salt, baleing string, tractor payments plus some cows don't raise a calf because it dies from scours or she aborts  from eating pine needles or it gets eaten by wolves. So us rich ranchers are suppose to take on another big expense with money we don't have.  Most of us have our wives working to help support the place.   These solutions  the folks come up with are so far in left field I can't believe anybody ever put it in print.   Can't figure out why us cattlemen are not included in the loop when solutions are SERIOUSLY looked at.        gotta git back to work.

Hello lionhunter, if you read the article below you will see that even if you do all the things they ask you to do to prevent wolves from killing your stock, in the end after all is said and done the wolves will have to be shot. Thats after of course they radio collar the wolf and let it kill more of your stock or someone else's. ..wolfbait


State: Two wolves killed in eastern Ore.

A trail camera set up by USFWS and ODFW captured this photo of wolves at the site of a depredation of sheep in Baker County on April 13 at 3:05 a.m. Photo courtesy ODFW.

Story Published: Sep 5, 2009 at 2:51 PM PDT
This is a press release from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife

Two problem wolves involved in five separate incidents of livestock depredation in the Keating Valley area were killed in Baker County this morning by USDA Wildlife Services.

ODFW authorized Wildlife Services to kill the wolves on Saturday, Aug. 29, after both agencies investigated and confirmed the last two depredation incidents at a private ranch in the Keating Valley area of Baker County.

The first incident occurred the evening of April 9, 2009 and the last occurred the evening of Aug. 27, 2009 on the same ranch. ODFW and Wildlife Services documented the loss of 29 domestic animals in the five separate incidents, all of which occurred on private property. Four of the five incidents occurred on one ranch and the fifth occurred at an adjacent ranch.

Evidence including bite marks and other wounds on the livestock, track sizes, the wolves’ historic use of the area and the style of the depredation itself confirmed that the same two wolves were involved in all of the livestock losses.

After the first incident, ODFW, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Defenders of Wildlife and the landowners worked together to try non-lethal measures to keep the wolves from killing livestock again. Those measures included radio-collaring one of the wolves so they could be monitored, installing fladry (flagged fencing that can be a wolf deterrent), using a radio-activated-guard box that makes noise when a radio collar approaches, double-penning livestock, keeping livestock near homes at night, burying carcass piles and using guard dogs.

ODFW hazed the wolves out of the Keating Valley area multiple times with an airplane or helicopter and also used cracker shells (noise making devices) to discourage them from remaining in the Keating Valley area around livestock operations.

http://www.kpic.com/news/57570172.html

http://washingtonwolf.info/

Quote Post 1

[bearpaw]

 

Lionhunter....maybe "Defenders of Wildlife" will send you some volunteer help to deter those wolves.....