State to look at changing rules to boost wolf hunters' success
By Sean Ellis
As expected, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s final 2009 wolf report shows the first-ever wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana did not reduce the overall population of the animals in the Rocky Mountain region.
In fact, despite the fact that a record number of wolves were killed last year, their overall population still rose almost 4 percent.
The hunts’ inability to reduce the population means some of the rules for next year’s hunt could be altered.
“We’re going to be reviewing the successes and shortcomings of the hunt this year and we will be evaluating what we need to do in the future to make more progress in decreasing the wolf population,” says Jon Rachael, the state wildlife manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
On the table for discussion could be such changes as a longer hunting season, raising quotas in some areas, altering the hunting rules to allow the use of electronic calls, lowering prices for non-residents and using hunters outside of hunting season to help reduce wolf numbers in areas where they are causing chronic problems.
USFWS’ annual wolf recovery report, released in March, estimated the overall wolf population in the Rocky Mountain region was 1,706 at the end of last year, a 4 percent increase from the 1,645 total at the end of 2008. The report estimated there were 843 wolves in Idaho, 524 in Montana and 320 in Wyoming. Fourteen wolves were in eastern Oregon and five were in eastern Washington.
For the first time, breeding pairs were confirmed in eastern Washington and Oregon.
The Idaho total was a slight reduction from 856 at the end of 2008, but Rachael says the difference could be attributed to the difficulty in making precise population estimates. In reality, “Idaho’s numbers are essentially unchanged from the end of last year,” he says.
A record 586 wolves were killed or died in the Rocky Mountain region in 2009: 272 were killed by agency control actions and legal landowner take in response to wolf-livestock depredation incidents, 206 by hunters and 108 by all other known causes, including illegal, accidental and natural.
In Idaho, wolf packs ranged from the Canadian border south to Interstate 84, and from the Washington and Oregon borders east to the Montana and Wyoming borders.
There were still no documented packs in the Southern Idaho Zone, which is the state’s largest by far and stretches clear across the southern third of the state. But there have been multiple sightings of lone wolves in Southeast Idaho during the past couple of years, according to Toby Boudreau, Fish and Game’s regional wildlife manager.
According to the USFWS’ 2009 report, multiple wolves have been sighted in the Soda Springs area, south and southeast of Blackfoot, southeast of Preston, and in Power County southwest of American Falls. Several have also been sighted in Bonneville County north of Idaho Falls.
Boudreau says some of the sightings in this area were not verified because people who reported them didn’t notify Fish and Game in time.
Before last year, the wolf population in the Rocky Mountain region had been growing at about 25 percent per year. While the wolf hunt stopped the population from growing much further, it didn’t reduce the numbers, which is the ultimate goal.
The state’s wolf management plan calls for managing the animals somewhere between their 2005 and 2007 levels, which were 500-700.
“We are committed to manage wolves long-term as part of the landscape at that level of 500 to 700 wolves,” Rachael says. “We need to make more progress ... if we’re going to be more successful at reducing the population from where it is now.”
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