Look at the dates, Washington should not be just starting wolf recovery. Washington has had wolves for many years. For the last six years we have seen wolves every year, we have had wolves looking in our house windows, spent countless nights with our stock because of wolves all around them, had wolves kill deer within a hundred yards of the house. .
http://washingtonwolf.info/ Is a wolf site that was started this spring about wolves in the Methow Valley and surrounding Washington state. In the Methow valley It has been said that their are three possibly four wolf packs. I talk to a guy tonight who said some of the wolves in the Methow are wearing yellow collars, yellow collars are GPS. WDFW is not being honest with the people of Washington. Not only do we have wolf packs throughout Washington but we also have the wolves that are not connected to packs which are not counted in the overall wolf count. Washington was in wolf recovery in the 1980's and early 1990's, The money for Washingtons wolf research went to Idaho in 1994, just becuase there was no money does not mean the wolves stop breeding and populating Washington state. Washington is not just now starting wolf recovery!
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19970714&slug=2549520Monday, July 14, 1997 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
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Norm Dicks Puts Gray-Wolf Study On The Fast Track -- Reintroduction Wasn't Priority For Agencies
By Jim Simon
Seattle Times Staff Reporter
Not all endangered species are created equal. And few have Rep. Norm Dicks, Bremerton Democrat and former University of Washington football player, blocking for them.
Dicks has put on the fast track the campaign to bring the northern gray wolf back to Olympic National Park, with the House expected to include $300,000 for a feasibility study when it votes on the budget this week.
Funding for a wolf study, which Dicks' office says eventually could cost about $1 million over the next three years, is barely pocket change for most government programs.
But dollars for actual species-recovery work - outside of the high-profile cases like salmon and the spotted owl - can be as scarce as the creatures themselves: In this year's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service budget, the Western Washington field office says it received no money for recovery.
When it comes to saving an endangered species, the story of the Olympic wolves is a lesson in how one influential and eager congressman in your corner is often worth a laboratory full of scientists.
Reintroduction of wolves to the Olympics wasn't a high priority among federal agencies or many Northwest wolf advocates until Dicks, urged by Defenders of Wildlife, an East Coast-based conservation group, got excited about the idea. "Wolves in the Olympics haven't been our priority," said Jim Michaels, endangered-species coordinator for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Western Washington field office. "But dollars certainly are very scarce and competitive for this stuff. If you've got a congressman who is interested, you better snag the chance."
Indeed, Dicks' patronage of wolves in the Olympics stands in contrast to the fate of recovery plans for their brethren in North Cascades National Park.
Biologists say gray wolves, migrating from Canada, have begun to repopulate the Cascades in small numbers during the past decade. But in 1994, the Fish and Wildlife Service cut the roughly $200,000 being spent annually on recovery efforts for wolves and grizzly bears in the North Cascades, diverting the money to programs in Idaho.
The agency has never written a recovery plan for wolves in the Cascades. There is little monitoring of wolf packs or counting of the wolves that have returned to the Cascades, Michaels says.
Some biologists say the recovery of wolf populations in the Cascades would pay bigger dividends toward ensuring the species' survival in North America than reintroducing wolves to the Olympics.
And federal officials didn't include the Olympics as part of a nationwide wolf-recovery plan.
Ed Bangs, head of wolf recovery for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency's priority is restoring wolves to large land areas where they can link up with existing populations. The Olympics, as a wolf habitat, is virtually an island, and restoration of wolf populations there requires direct human intervention.
While advocates like Beth Church, conservation manager for Wolfhaven, a research and wolf advocacy south of Olympia, applaud Dicks' effort in the Olympics, they are still rankled by the budget cuts in the North Cascades.
Argues Mitch Friedman, director of the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, "Wolves in the Olympics make perfect political sense because you've got a congressman who wants them in his district. But biologically speaking, why are we starting another batch of cookies while we let the ones we've already got in the oven burn?"
While funding for the Olympic wolf-restoration program has been rolling through the House, the Fish and Wildlife Service last week announced it had completed a grizzly-bear recovery plan for the North Cascades - a study first begun in 1991.
What the agency didn't mention is that it has no money to implement the grizzly plan. The only "recovery" efforts the agency can afford, said spokesman Jon Gilstrom, is to present a slide show he's assembled.
Hank Fischer, who heads the wolf program for Defenders of Wildlife, shares concerns about how spending priorities for endangered-species recovery are set. Like many critics, he worries that the federal government spends far more energy deciding what animals and plants to list as endangered rather than on actual recovery.
But he notes that wolves already are repopulating the North Cascades, with or without government help.
The Olympic Peninsula presents what he considers a low-cost opportunity to place wolves back in an area where they were systematically wiped out by settlers and the federal government more than 60 years ago.
"What we're looking at is a specific opportunity in a specific location," Fischer said. "In this business, there are biological opportunities and political opportunities. You have to find where the two things merge." Study money for wolf restoration still must survive a final budget agreement between the House and Senate.
Washington Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, who chairs the Interior Appropriation Committee, is publicly noncommittal on the project. His aides say Gorton has heard lots of complaints from residents and local officials on the Olympic Peninsula, who argue wolves could threaten livestock and scare away tourists.
Federal studies will look at questions on whether there is an adequate prey base of elk and deer on which the wolves can survive and whether there is enough suitable habitat to accommodate them.
If the studies pan out and local opposition is quieted, Dicks has envisioned airlifting wolves from British Columbia and Alaska within the next few years.
There is, of course, nothing unusual about a congressman hopscotching the priorities of federal scientists. Of the $39 million budgeted nationwide this year for plant and animal-recovery programs, about one-third of that was earmarked for specific projects by Congress.
Vicki Finn, an assistant manager in the Fish and Wildlife Services Western regional office, said the big money is reserved for the "glamorous" creatures - wolves, bears, California condors - that stir the public's imagination. "You won't see any member of Congress pulling in an appropriation for Delhi Sands Flower-Loving Fly," Finn said, referring to a Southern California insect that made the news recently when its endangered designation forced changes in the design of a new hospital.
Copyright (c) 1997 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved.
Where have wolves been seen in the North Cascades?
Since 1984, wolves have been seen roaming in the vicinity of Ross Lake (Ross Lake National Recreation Area in Washington and Skagit Valley Recreation Area in British Columbia) on both sides of the International Boundary. Wolves were photographed near Hozomeen (shown at left) at the north end of Ross Lake in 1991. Locations of other sightings in the North Cascades include McAlester Pass, Pasayten Wilderness and Twisp River drainage of the Okanogan National Forest, Glacier Peak Wilderness, and Stevens Pass.
What kinds of wolves are they?
Gray wolves (Canis lupus), sometimes called timber wolves. This species once roamed much of North America from Alaska to Mexico -- from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
How many gray wolves are there in the North Cascades?
No one knows but probably very few. No one knows whether the population is increasing, decreasing or remaining the same.
Are there gray wolves in Washington State outside the North Cascades?
Yes. Wolves have been sighted throughout the Cascade Range and in the Selkirk Mountains in the state's northeast corner.
Are gray wolves reproducing in the North Cascades?
In 1990, adults with pups were seen in the Hozomeen area. This was the first known reproduction of wild wolves in Washington State in at least 50 years! Since 1990, biologists have seen three separate groups of adult wolves with pups in the Cascades. Wolves mate in February or March. About 63 days later a litter averaging six pups is born.
http://www.nps.gov:80/archive/noca/wolf.htmSunday, September 8, 1991 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
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As The Wolves Reappear, So Do Old Range Conflicts
By Sean Kelly
Washington Post
WASHINGTON - For the past decade, gray wolves have been gradually making their way south from Canada, extending their range down the spine of the Rocky Mountains, and are now living in several Western states from which they were exterminated half a century ago.
An estimated 40 to 50 wolves now live in Montana, with smaller numbers in Idaho and perhaps even some in Wyoming.
While wildlife biologists see the return of the wolves as good news, they are concerned that the animals may settle near ranches and kill livestock, renewing old conflicts that led to their deliberate extermination.
The Western adage, "No wolves, no way," still is quoted among many in the livestock industry, and biologists fear the wolves could be killed off in secret. Biologists suggest that a more reliable way to regain wolf populations would be to plant breeding pairs in remote areas where they cannot prey on livestock. At the same time, they say, the natural populations that take up residence near ranches should be monitored and destructive animals should be removed if necessary.
If an approved experimental population can be established, portions of the Endangered Species Act can be relaxed, permitting livestock owners to kill any wolf that threatens domestic stock.
"The question really boils down to: Now that we have wolves, what's the best way to get them off the endangered-species list and have viable populations that people can really enjoy?" said
biologist Ed Bangs, leader of the wolf-recovery program in Montana for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Biologists say Yellowstone National Park is ideal for wolf reintroduction. But, for the past decade, the livestock industry has opposed the idea.
In Congress, Sen. Steve Symms, R-Idaho, and Rep. Ron Marlenee, R-Mont., are among a group of anti-wolf campaigners in Congress who assert that wolves are a threat to humanity. On the other side is Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah, a proponent of artificial introduction. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., opposes introduction but favors natural wolf recovery.
Yellowstone, where the last gray wolf was killed more than 50 years ago, consists of 2.2 million acres surrounded by national forests and on three sides by rigidly protected wilderness areas. Large wild populations of ungulates - hoofed mammals - are found in and around the park, including elk, mule deer, bison, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and moose, with smaller populations of white-tailed deer and mountain goats.
"There's certainly concern that ungulates have increased in numbers too large for the (park's) available lands," said Hank Fischer of the activist group Defenders of Wildlife "People think predation's cruel, but it doesn't compare to starvation."
Fischer said that if wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone efforts by officials to control wolf dispersal would focus on the park's periphery, where ranch owners are "rightfully concerned" about their livestock.
Gray wolves can travel great distances in short periods of time. For example, one wolf that was recently radio-collared in Montana's Glacier National Park was killed a few months later 500 miles north in Canada. If that wolf had traveled in the opposite direction, it would have been 100 miles south of Yellowstone.
The wolf movements are a result of growing wolf populations in the Western provinces of Canada.
Wolf packs maintain stable territories for years. So when pups leave home to start new packs, they must move out to the fringe of the old territory. As Canadian wolf numbers grew, they spread. The first wolf den in that part of the United States was confirmed in 1986 in Glacier National Park.
Recently, one wolf was found fatally injured - apparently accidentally - in central Idaho. Confirmed populations of gray wolves also exist in northern Washington and small packs are documented in Wisconsin. A large wolf population has long existed in northern Minnesota.
Removing the wolf from the endangered-species list is the primary objective of Montana's recovery plan.
Although wolves generally prefer to prey upon elk and deer, and although attacks on humans almost never happen, livestock owners contend that they prey indiscriminately. But Fish and Wildlife Service figures indicate that domestic livestock are rarely killed by wolves.
Nevertheless, the service said it is trying to appease ranchers. "I think, at least in Montana, we're doing everything we can to look at the ranchers' interests, which are legitimate," Bangs said.
Copyright (c) 1991 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com:80/archive/?date=19910908&slug=1304367("There's certainly concern that ungulates have increased in numbers too large for the (park's) available lands," said Hank Fischer of the activist group Defenders of Wildlife "People think predation's cruel, but it doesn't compare to starvation."
Fischer said that if wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone efforts by officials to control wolf dispersal would focus on the park's periphery, where ranch owners are "rightfully concerned" about their livestock.)
Now the wolves are not only desimating elk and deer herds but also the elk herds are starving to death do too many wolves and elk having to change their eating habits.
(Recently, one wolf was found fatally injured - apparently accidentally - in central Idaho. Confirmed populations of gray wolves also exist in northern Washington and small packs are documented in Wisconsin. A large wolf population has long existed in northern Minnesota.)
(Although wolves generally prefer to prey upon elk and deer, and although attacks on humans almost never happen, livestock owners contend that they prey indiscriminately. But Fish and Wildlife Service figures indicate that domestic livestock are rarely killed by wolves.)
The wdfw wolf group does not care about the truth, Lie after bald-face lie has been told since the start of the wolf introduction.
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:80/archive/?date=19920417&slug=1486887
