The grey wolf and language deception

[wolfbait]

The grey wolf and language deception
January 25, 2005
By Robert T. Fanning, Chairman and Founder, Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd, Inc.

rtfanning@att.net
Nate Helm, executive director of Idaho Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, says, "...delisting must be our focus" -- WHY?
Reclassification of the grey wolf, from "PREDATOR" to "BIG GAME", castrates the Secretary of Agriculture and the power vested in him under Title 7 of the U.S. Code http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode07/usc_sup_01_7.html -- and does the same for the Secretary of Interior, whose power is vested under Section 11(h) of the Endangered Species Act http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org/articles4/unspoken_issues_of_the_endangere.htm, which gives both Secretaries absolute power to order "PREDATOR" Control.
Bob Fithian, Executive Director of the Alaska Professional Hunters Association, said, "In twenty years in Alaska's bush, I have never once had the opportunity to
harvest the wolf, a nocturnal hunter."
What makes the people of Idaho think they will have any better luck or skills than Mr. Fithian?
What makes the people of Idaho think that wolves -- which reproduce at a 30%
annual rate -- will be culled by sport hunting at a rate equal to or greater than the rate of reproduction?
If you change the legal definition in your state code, you are not only going to
be hanged, but you will assist your executioners by kicking out the stool from
underneath yourself.
NEITHER *10 J http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/others/recoprog/sect10j.htm NOR "DELISTING" has any money attached to it. Why would you want either?
The State of Montana bought into this scam -- which was foisted on us by Ted Turner and the Earth Justice League -- by passing S.B. 163 and revising our code to read "big game animal".
This error will be reversed in the Montana Legislative Session currently underway.
-----
*10 J - [P]rovides for the designation of specific populations of species listed as "experimental populations." Under section l0(j), reintroduced populations of endangered or threatened species established outside the current range but within the species' historical range may be designated, at the discretion of the Service, as "experimental," lessening the Act's regulatory authority over such populations.

Thus, because these populations are not provided full Endangered Species Act protection, management flexibility is increased, local opposition is reduced, and more reintroductions are possible. Two types of experimental population designations exist: essential and nonessential. An essential experimental population is a reintroduced population whose loss would be likely to appreciably reduce the likelihood of the survival of the species in the wild. These populations are treated as threatened species (with special rules) for the purposes of section 9 of the Act. Therefore, they can be managed with greater flexibility with regard to incidental take and regulated take.

A nonessential experimental population is a reintroduced population whose loss would not be likely to appreciably reduce the likelihood of the survival of the species in the wild. These populations, besides being treated as threatened species, are treated as proposed species for the purposes of section 7. However, if the population occurs within the national park system or the national wildlife refuge system, it is still treated as if listed as threatened for the purposes of section 7.

The establishment of experimental populations is a valuable tool for use in the recovery of some listed species. Examples of experimental populations include the black-footed ferret in Wyoming, Guam rail on Rota, and red wolf in North Carolina.
Source: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/others/recoprog/sect10j.htm
 
http://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/wolves/greywolfdeception012505.htm

[luvtohnt]

So would a predator classification with a kill quota be a better option? I would assume that is what would make sense according to this article.

Brandon

[Shootmoore]

So would a predator classification with a kill quota be a better option? I would assume that is what would make sense according to this article.

Brandon

Yes, I would rather see them left as a predator or varmit classification.  They could put a kill quota on them if they wanted to.  It may be semantics of wording, but once listed as Big Game, it severly restricts the options of control on them.

Shootmoore

[luvtohnt]

If control is ultimatly up to WDFW once delisting happens won't they be able to use lethal force? Or do you think predator status would mean year round hunting with quota? WDFW seems to use lethal force on others eg. bear and cougar. I know most would prefer the predator or varmant classification but from a monetary stand poit (WDFW favorite view point) big game classification makes better sense.

Brandon

[Special T]

I'm sure the "big game" status is the buy off for working with reintroduction. It offers a carrot, more $$$ suposidly, at some point. I think a game of semantics wouldn't be necessary if the state, WDFW and other agencies, had some credibility with hunters and other stakeholders... 

[wolfbait]

Actually I think the switching from predator to big game was a carrot, for states who wish for management sooner. Which actually back fired because each time delisting came around lawsuits relisted. USFWS are run by the environmentalists. Wyoming was the only state that said no to the wolves listed as a big game animal throughout their state, and the only reason that Wyoming's wolf plan will not pass. If the crooks can't get their own way they will find a judge to flood your state with wolves. Sort of like trying to buy a range permit in the Methow and when deny to sell, they then tell the rancher "it really don't matter because we are going to fill your range with so many wolves you won't have any cattle left to graze" True story.

[wolfbait]

Protection of wolves could bring backlash
BY DAN EGAN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MILWAUKEE - (KRT) - Conservation groups were overjoyed last week when a federal judge ruled in their favor that the gray wolf should be put back on the endangered species list in most states, but one of the world's foremost authorities on wolf biology frets that their victory might come back to bite them.

The ruling means that wildlife officials in almost every northern state, including Wisconsin, will no longer be able to kill wolves that develop a taste for livestock or otherwise become a menace. The goal in providing such protections, of course, is to pull a beleaguered species back from the brink of extinction.

But Wisconsin's wolf population is thriving. The federal recovery goal was a combined population of 100 in Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Today, there are more than 700, which biologists say is probably more than the Wisconsin and UP North Woods can support; 24 nuisance wolves were trapped and destroyed in Wisconsin last year, and wolves spilling south have already been killed on I-94 near Milwaukee, and a few have met their demise as far south as Illinois, Indiana and Missouri.

The question is no longer whether the wolf can recover. The question now is whether humans can learn to live with it, and renowned wolf biologist David Mech says the no-kill rule for problem wolves in a place such as Dairyland could actually spell trouble for the wolf everywhere. If cow-attacking wolves can't be destroyed, he says, the bad actors could cost the entire species its tenuous public relations revival.

"I like to compare it with something like the bison," said Mech, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Service. "We could have bison all over the place too, but they'd be running into cars and through wheat fields. With all these species, you have to have some control on their numbers."

The court case that tossed the wolf back onto the endangered species list is as much about bureaucracy as it is about biology.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has carved on the nation's map three distinct wolf populations - a Southwestern population, a Western population and an Eastern population. The Eastern area stretches from the Dakotas to Maine and includes Wisconsin.

Recognizing the strides Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan had made in bringing back the wolf, in spring of 2003 the Fish and Wildlife Service dropped the wolf from the endangered species list in the Eastern recovery zone and designated it as threatened, one notch up the recovery ladder.

Unlike "endangered" wolves, "threatened" wolves can, in some cases, be killed for getting in the way of humans trying to make a living.

But the problem, according to conservationists, is that Fish and Wildlife's "downlisting" order for the Eastern zone, driven by the success in the Midwest, also lifted the no-kill protections in New England states where suitable wolf habitat exists but the animal still needs every bit of help the government can offer.

Fish and Wildlife's 2003 rule also changed the wolf's endangered status in much of the Western recovery zone. Because of its recovery in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, the agency upgraded the wolf from endangered to threatened across the entire region.

Conservationists pounced on the 2003 ruling, arguing in court that the sweeping downlistings for the Eastern and Western zones would kill any chance for wolf recovery not only in the Northeast, but also in northern California, Oregon and elsewhere in the West.

Last week, Federal District Judge Robert Jones sided with the 19 conservation groups that took the case to into his Portland, Ore., courtroom.

"Today's decision shows that the Bush administration is not a true partner when it comes to species conservation, that they only want to remove species protections as quickly as possible, regardless of what the science shows," declared Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.

DNR caught off-guard Fish and Wildlife responded to the ruling the next day by telling Wisconsin DNR officials to stop its wolf-killing program until attorneys can sort through the legal ramifications of the ruling.

"It's unfortunate," says Ron Refsnider, Fish and Wildlife's regional endangered species listing coordinator. "We felt we'd done it (the downlisting) all properly and under all the rules and regulations."

DNR officials were caught off-guard by last week's orders to stop killing problem wolves.

In the 22 months since the wolf was moved from endangered to threatened, wildlife officials in Wisconsin have killed 41 problem animals, said Adrian Wydeven, head of the DNR's wolf recovery program.

Before the 2003 downlisting, the only tool Wisconsin had to manage problem wolves was to trap them and release them somewhere else.

Wydeven says that is what the state will have to do now that the judge has declared the species endangered again, but he worries there are few places remaining where a transported wolf will be able to make it on its own because state forests are virtually filled with them.

In some cases, existing wolf packs in an area attack and kill a transplanted animal. In others, it's human hostility that dooms a transplanted wolf.

Wydeven says several Wisconsin counties, including Oconto, Taylor and Lincoln, have passed rules or resolutions that prohibit the DNR from transporting wolves across their boundaries. Wydeven says counties don't have the legal authority to ban the DNR from moving wolves, but his department gets the message nonetheless - marauding wolves are wearing out their welcome in the state.

He said that last year eight wolves were illegally shot in Wisconsin. In 2002, the last year Wisconsin could not kill problem wolves, the number of illegal killings was double that.

Conservationists are thrilled with what the ruling means for wolves on a national level, but nobody is happy about what it means now for Wisconsin. Not the farmers who have to live with wolves prowling the pastures. Not the biologists who have made careers out of restoring the predator to the top of the food chain. Not even some of the organizations that liberally use the wolf's image to stir public passions - and donations - for their conservationist agendas.

"The Great Lakes states got caught up in the national rule, and frankly got kind of held back by the fact that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had lumped Great Lakes states, which do have healthy wolf populations, together with the Northeast, which does not have any wolves," said Nina Fascione, a vice president for Defenders of Wildlife. "Wisconsin has done a good job, and I'd be supportive of Wisconsin being able to play a greater role in management of the state's wolves, but that won't happen now."

The timing of the ruling is particularly stinging to Wisconsin biologists, because this was the year when three decades of recovery efforts were finally supposed to pay off with the wolf being removed altogether from the federal threatened and endangered lists and its management turned over entirely to the state.

The species was first listed as endangered in 1974, the year after passage of the Endangered Species Act. The crux of the federal plan to bring the king of the carnivores back to the deer-rich state forests was remarkably simple: Do nothing.

Doing nothing meant, most importantly, not killing wolves that roamed over from Minnesota, which, unlike Wisconsin, never completely lost its wolf population in aggressive hunts in the previous century. Minnesota's wolves, which have been listed as threatened since 1978, were not affected by last week's ruling.

In 1973, Wisconsin had zero wolves. It had 25 by 1980, and 248 by 2000. Today, there are more than 370 wolves roaming the state and a similar number in the Upper Peninsula.

The relatively smooth natural recovery in this region occurred in stark contrast to controversy it sparked in the Western states, where wolves were plucked from Canada and transplanted into the wilds of central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in an exercise many perceived as more about federal muscle-flexing than wildlife biology.

"What separates the northern Great Lakes from many other places is that wolves walked back here - we didn't reintroduce them," says Pam Troxell, of Ashland's Timber Wolf Alliance. "There really was no human control, except protection."

Some fear the judge's ruling has endangered Wisconsin's wolf population - not just legally, but literally.

"Because the wolf is a top predator, it is a very controversial species and when it causes damage, which it does, it engenders very strong feelings," says Signe Holtz, director of the DNR's endangered resources bureau. "As a result, we in the DNR feel very strongly that we want to be able to manage those conflicts between humans and wolves, and by managing them I believe we build more support for having wolves as part of the natural world in Wisconsin."

Representatives of the farming industry see problems ahead.

"I don't think this is going to help wolf recovery," Eric Koens, board member for the Wisconsin Cattlemen's Association. "It's going to harm recovery because it's going to create so much animosity."

"There is going to be a greater burden on Wisconsin," acknowledges conservationist Fascione.

Fascione said the solution is for Fish and Wildlife to designate Upper Great Lakes wolves as a distinct population. That, she explained, could reopen the door to killing problem wolves in this region, without relaxing protection measures in Northeastern states.

But federal bureaucracies are as lumbering as wolves are nimble, and some predict the fur will be flying soon if something isn't done.

"There is going to be more illegal action in taking wolves," predicted Koens. "I don't think that would be a surprise to anybody."

Biologist Mech looks at the big picture, and he doesn't like what he sees, not just for wolves in Wisconsin, but for wildlife recovery efforts across the country.

"I worry about backlashes, in terms of Congress," said Mech. "Will this make Congress more apt to want to modify the Endangered Species Act?"

Source

[Shootmoore]

This last article is a good history lesson of what we can come to expect with WDFW's new bed partner Defenders of Wildlife et al.  If we think we can expect the conservation groups to act differently once and if we hit there target goal of 15 bp throughout the state, I again point to learn from the past or be doomed to the same mistakes in the future.

Also expect Eastern Washington to suffer mightily and for a long time before they will finally "document" the final bp's needed throughout the state.  Then with our wonderfull plans put before the commission, prepare to wait for 3 more years under the strain before total delisting.  Well I guess we could change our state flag from a picture of George Washington to a wolf.

Shootmoore