Idaho Wilderness Wolf Control Ends
by Cat Urbigkit, Pinedale Online!
January 29, 2014
Environmentalists are calling it a victory, but state wildlife managers report it as mission accomplished. The subject of these differing views is the recent Idaho Fish and Game decision to hire a trapper to enter an Idaho wilderness with the purpose of eliminating two wolf packs in order to help the declining elk population.
Here's the Idaho Fish and Game press release:
"The Idaho Fish and Game is ending this year's agency action to reduce the wolf predation on elk in the Middle Fork Salmon area of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.
Fish and Game has removed 9 wolves since the action began in December, with no wolves taken in the past two weeks.
Fish and Game's action is part of a larger strategy to help elk recovery in the backcountry. Elk cows and calves in the area have been vulnerable to predation, and the Middle Fork herd has declined significantly in recent years - down 43 percent since 2002. The number of elk calves surviving is too low to replace the adults dying each year, and the herd is continuing to decline. In addition to reducing wolf predation, Fish and Game offers extra tags for black bears and mountain lions - other predators affecting the Middle Fork elk population.
It will take a few days to complete the collection of equipment and transport of Fish and Game personnel out of the area.
This action generated strong responses from people with wide ranging values. "We remain committed to working with Idahoans to ensure that both wolves and healthy elk populations remain part of the wilderness," Fish and Game Director Virgil Moore said. "This action was an important step toward achieving our goal of stabilizing the Middle Fork elk population."
In early February, Fish and Game will post on its website a predation management plan that outlines all future efforts being considered to restore the Middle Fork elk population. The plan is consistent with the Fish and Game Commission policy on predation management, which is the basis for ongoing efforts in other backcountry areas."
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Here's how Earthjustice reported the action:
"Faced with a looming deadline to defend its actions before a federal appeals court, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) announced this afternoon that it is halting its wolf extermination program in the Middle Fork region of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness as of today.
The announcement represents a stay of execution for the remaining wolves that constitute the Golden Creek and Monumental Creek wolf packs, which inhabit the Middle Fork region. To date, nine wolves from the two packs have been killed by IDFG’s hired hunter-trapper, who entered the wilderness and began his wolf extermination program in mid-December. It is unknown how many wolves remain in the two packs.
"IDFG’s hunter-trapper killed nine wolves and we are happy to report that the rest no longer face the same threat," said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso. "We are sorry it took an emergency injunction request to the court of appeals to get Idaho to halt this illegal program, and we hope that the federal government in the future will take more seriously its public trust responsibility to protect the wilderness from state efforts to exterminate native wildlife."
IDFG’s action comes in the midst of an emergency proceeding before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in which conservationists were seeking an injunction to halt the wolf extermination program. The conservationists, represented by Earthjustice, sued IDFG and the U.S. Forest Service earlier this month, arguing that the state wolf extermination program would degrade the largest forested wilderness in the lower-48 states. After a federal judge in Idaho rejected a request to stop the program on January 17, the conservationists took their fight to the court of appeals, where they filed an emergency request for an injunction on January 23.
IDFG is halting trapping in the Middle Fork starting today and the trapper will take a few days to remove traps and snares from the area. Additional trapping in the area will cease, at least through the end of the state fiscal year, which is June 30.
"This is bittersweet news," said Ken Cole with the Western Watersheds Project. "I am happy that IDFG has relented but it is unfortunate that so many wolves have been taken in this senseless plan to manhandle wildlife in an area that Congress recognized as a wilderness 'where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man'"
In mid-December 2013, IDFG hired a hunter-trapper to pack into central Idaho’s 2.4-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness to eradicate two wolf packs, the Golden and Monumental packs, in the interest of inflating elk populations for outfitters and recreational hunters. The U.S. Forest Service, which administers the wilderness, approved the extermination program by authorizing use of a Forest Service cabin and airstrip to support wolf extermination activities.
"Today’s news is welcomed by wilderness and wolf advocates alike," said Suzanne Stone of Defenders of Wildlife. "Wolves belong in our wilderness. They are the heart and soul of what makes it wild and free. While we mourn the loss of the nine that were killed needlessly, we are thankful that some survived to preserve the value of wilderness."
"It’s a tragedy that nine wolves had to die before the state of Idaho finally pulled the plug on its needless effort to eradicate two whole wolf packs from one of America’s largest wilderness areas," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director with the Center for Biological Diversity. "The wolves were only playing the role they play in nature and should never have been killed. It should not take court action to stop such cruel, unnecessary and wasteful killing, but I’m glad it has stopped."
The region of the Frank Church Wilderness where IDFG’s hunter-trapper was killing wolves is a remote area around Big Creek and the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. Even though this region hosts one of the lightest densities of hunters in the state, IDFG prioritized elk production over protection of the area’s wilderness character. The Forest Service failed to object to IDFG’s plans and instead actively assisted them.
Earthjustice represented long-time Idaho conservationist and wilderness advocate Ralph Maughan along with four conservation groups—Defenders of Wildlife, Western Watersheds Project, Wilderness Watch, and the Center for Biological Diversity—in the lawsuit challenging the wolf extermination program."
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The Associated Press reports that the hunter was effective at his job, so there was no reason to keep him in the area. The Associated Press report that is linked below.
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In a filing with the federal appeals court in the litigation over the control program, an Idaho wildlife manager reported to the court that the control program was concluding, and noted "The Department will not conduct any agency control action to lethally remove wolves from the Middle Fork area during the remainder of this state fiscal year (i.e., through June 30, 2014."
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