Wolves - Managing Breeding Pairs

[rasbo]

spay and nueter...

[KillBilly]

Is there any legal grounds for an organization to demand the WDFW provide detailed information on how they plan to locate, monitor, confirm, then track these BP's ... let alone fund all of this?  I can't for the life of me understand how they can just shove this plan down our throats without having to show how they intend to make sure the plan works.  I would think legally, they would be required to show this type of information if asked to by a court of law.

As to ideas on how to track a breeding pair and their pups for 3 years .... this is honestly constructive and not meant to be anything but.  Have they been able to do this in Idaho, Montana, or Wyoming?  It seems if they have been successful in doing so elsewhere it is only because there are so many wolves that they simply just have to pick the easiest 15 packs to locate and go from there.  I honestly don't know how to track 15 BP's until there are WAY more than that present

well they have brought a lawsuit against the liquor initiative so why couldn't we bring a lawsuit against the state for accepting the wolf plan? You all know the answer to that.... we don't have the numbers or dedication to fund it or support it.   Still an option though, I hope someone has an idea that will prove me wrong here... maybe Popeshawnpaul will do it free gratus.

[KillBilly]

Reminder, you have been assigned to monitor 1 BP for 3 years. How would you do it and be deads nuts accurate.
We may need to help the state with a comprehensive process for doing it.

and this is good conversation so far.

[KillBilly]

So rfid chips then. Pull some of civil air patrol off highway ticket writing and get them used in tracking wolves. Every batch of pups that appears and survives each year confirms a BP no?

My turn to ask a Q. Is more than one female in a pack allowed to breed?

Here is your answer Wraithen:

Breeding Biology
Wolves are sexually mature when two years old, but seldom breed until they are older. In each pack, the dominant male and female are usually the only ones to breed. They prevent subordinate adults from mating by physically harassing them. Thus, a pack generally produces only one litter each year, averaging five to six pups.

[Woodchuck]

Call me a skeptic but to be honest I for one believe that there is no correct answer to your question. I also believe that this whole "breeding pair" garbage is just a way to try and appease the con crowd while keeping a moving target that can not be confirmed so the "wolf management plan" will never go into effect. There are too many variables. How far does a pair roam? How long before a pair depletes the resources and moves on to another? How many pups does a pair generate in the three years after the 15th pair is "confirmed"? How many pairs go unconfirmed? Do we really expect a bunch of people who wanted the wolves here in the first place to be Johnny on the spot to get this done? Especially with the fact that there is no funding? How many years does this go until they figure how high to jack our tag prices to fund this garbage? I am sorry folks but I for one believe that this state's wildlife resources are effed in a big way starting 10 yrs ago or more. How long did it take for them to even admit wolves were here? Sad in my opinion, very sad.

[CedarPants]

Is there any legal grounds for an organization to demand the WDFW provide detailed information on how they plan to locate, monitor, confirm, then track these BP's ... let alone fund all of this?  I can't for the life of me understand how they can just shove this plan down our throats without having to show how they intend to make sure the plan works.  I would think legally, they would be required to show this type of information if asked to by a court of law.

As to ideas on how to track a breeding pair and their pups for 3 years .... this is honestly constructive and not meant to be anything but.  Have they been able to do this in Idaho, Montana, or Wyoming?  It seems if they have been successful in doing so elsewhere it is only because there are so many wolves that they simply just have to pick the easiest 15 packs to locate and go from there.  I honestly don't know how to track 15 BP's until there are WAY more than that present

well they have brought a lawsuit against the liquor initiative so why couldn't we bring a lawsuit against the state for accepting the wolf plan? You all know the answer to that.... we don't have the numbers or dedication to fund it or support it.   Still an option though, I hope someone has an idea that will prove me wrong here... maybe Popeshawnpaul will do it free gratus.

I was thinking not so much suing them for adopting the plan (that won't get us anywhere), but filing some sort of injunction or somehow going about having them served with a court order demanding they detail exactly how they plan on going about all of this confirmation and documentation process.  This plan should be transparent to the public, and it has been anything such.  There has got to be some sort of recourse we can utilize as a group in this regard.

Reminder, you have been assigned to monitor 1 BP for 3 years. How would you do it and be deads nuts accurate.
We may need to help the state with a comprehensive process for doing it.
and this is good conversation so far.

The only way I can fathom monitoring 1 BP for 3 years and being dead nuts accurate is to go the Tim Treadwell route and dedicating all of your time to actually physically living amongst the wolves, like Treadwell did with the grizzlies in Alaska.   He collected some pretty good data and knew the bears by name and where they would be at any given time.

Of course it should be noted that Treadwell was in fact eaten by these bears

[CAMPMEAT]

Some excerpts I found on a pro wolf website...

Wolves can and do suffer from PTSD,  just like people.
Wolves have no place to hide, they’re being monitored as if they were common criminals.  Wearing a radio collar is like being under house arrest. The authorities know where you are at all times.
Collaring wolves is out of control. Wolves have enough problems, they don’t need to be hounded by biologists or Wildlife Services to further some nebulous agenda.
What right do we have to chase wild wolves around for collaring? Wolves don’t belong to us. Let them live in peace for godsakes!!

I sure hope these morons don't try to sue on behalf of the wolves.

All I can say to the greenies is : Peace, love, dope. Love beads and bongo drums !!

[WAcoyotehunter]

Wolves are smart- they are tough (almost impossible) to recapture in a trap.  Baiting and darting might work once, but would take a LONG time.  Aircraft darting is going to be TOUGH with the canopy and cover available in out wolf areas.
Idaho has been pretty successful trapping near denning or rendevous sites and can capture adults or pups that way.  Once you have a collar on an adult you can find the pack it's associated with via aircraft.  If they disperse or change packs you have to go after the new pack too.  Pups can't be collared effectively.  Ear tags are a decent visual marker and sometimes can be spotted with trail cams. 
Like Killbilly mentioned- WDFW is broke and short staffed.  All of this work is necessary, but they don't have adequate funding to perform the tasks.  Hopefully they will start some serious partnerships and find help to do field work.

[wraithen]

You feed them in the same spot enough times for long enough and they won't realize you drugged them. Might also keep them around longer. Chip them. the chip is activated by the remote transponder so you don't need to replace the chip. If you can follow the pack for a year you will know who the bp is. After that it seems like it would be pretty easy to redrug the pups when old enough and restart the process. The ones that leave the pack are easier to track and monitor. Check in once every 6 months and you will see if they are breeding as well. Someone find more holes with this plan so I can fix em.

All neigh sayers that don't have anything constructive, go to the hunter backlash post instead please.

[Woodchuck]

How does that get funded? Do we create another division to do this? Do we hire more people for that specific purpose? What is that payroll?

[wraithen]

We are already paying the bios. Make them work. Every yeah if they miss a breeding they are lifetime banned from grants in the future. Track them with civil air patrol. The cops will have to troll the highways to actually write the tickets. The materials are the only cost left. Might get meat donations and drug donations from some people in the state. Gonna have to buy the chip system somehow. I don't yet have the extra revenue idea for that. It SHOULD NOT come out of wdfw though. Maybe publicly tell the gov to put her own money where her mouth is???

License plates! Sell wolf license plates to all the wolf lovers! They pay to track and monitor their wolves! Sell them access to see the tracking of the wolves online.

[KillBilly]

How does that get funded? Do we create another division to do this? Do we hire more people for that specific purpose? What is that payroll?

WDFW talked about grants and other possible funding & License Plate Sales were mentioned but no concrete dollar amounts were ever mentioned. I'll guarantee they don't have an inkling of an idea what it will cost per manhour to accomplish this task. I am sure they will eventually have to enlist reputable and reliable outside help. so get practiced up...

[CedarPants]

We are already paying the bios. Make them work. Every yeah if they miss a breeding they are lifetime banned from grants in the future. Track them with civil air patrol. The cops will have to troll the highways to actually write the tickets. The materials are the only cost left. Might get meat donations and drug donations from some people in the state. Gonna have to buy the chip system somehow. I don't yet have the extra revenue idea for that. It SHOULD NOT come out of wdfw though. Maybe publicly tell the gov to put her own money where her mouth is???

License plates! Sell wolf license plates to all the wolf lovers! They pay to track and monitor their wolves! Sell them access to see the tracking of the wolves online.

The catch 22 is that most pro-wolf groups pretend like they are promoting a "science based plan", yet they absolutely decry the fact that mankind has the ability to electronically track wolves.  They are against it.  From one of the many pro-wolf sights I troll around in:  "Radio collars and any type of tracking device are nothing more than a state imposed death sentence for our wolves"

[WAcoyotehunter]

I like the idea of the chips, but to survey them you have to get a "reader" quite close to the animal.  They do not send out a signal that can be collected with telemetry or satelite.

Lotek collars are the ones that send a GPS point and telemetry reading and they cost ~5k.  They have a pretty good lifespan and give the best data, but they're costly.  Telemetry equipment is less expensive but requires more tracking time.  I think if we're only interested in minimally surveying (for breeding sites, and survival) a telemetry collar would be fine.  If you want to understand home range, check kill sites...ect... a GPS collar is necessary.

Find some groups to help purchase collars to place in packs-  Conservation NW is providing funding for a collar for a pack up in NE wa to determine kill rates and species.  It will be helpful to know what the wolves are eating and it may protect some cattle from wolf predation.

[wraithen]

Cedar, I bet we could catch enough of the blind followers to fund what we need before they catch on. I don't think that the majority actually research what they're told.

WAcoyote, Kill billy said that we could read the chips by flying over them from what I understood from his earlier post. The issue with collars is it involves way more interaction with the wolves for recollaring and replacing batteries. Plus they would be far cheaper than the collars. A quick search from me produced some that can be read from a mile away. Some go much farther as long as there is line of sight. They don't have batteries to die as they are powered by the "query" signal from the reader. The issue is if one runs off before it can be followed and is lost. The other thing is the anti's won't have a collar to point at.