12 CapitalPress.com
February 2, 2018
‘I don’t think people realize (wolves are) all around us’
WOLVES from Page 1
To some, given Idaho’s
overall opposition to wolves,
the state has reach something
of an equilibrium in regard to
wolf numbers and their im-
pact on livestock and wildlife.
Rancher Wyatt Prescott,
former executive vice pres-
ident of the Idaho Cattle As-
sociation, said that, all things
considered, the state is doing
a pretty good job of managing
the predators, and the stable
population and depredation
numbers show that.
“We’re in a good spot,”
he said. “But we still need
to remain active in managing
wolves that are taking out
livestock.”
But those at ground zero
— producers who continue
to lose animals to the preda-
tors — feel differently about
wolves.
“You’re not in a good place
if you’re producing the live-
stock they are killing,” said
Richard Savage, a past presi-
dent of the cattle association.
He ranches in Clark County,
near the Montana border in
Eastern Idaho. “That’s still a
major concern.”
Wolves in Idaho were
taken off the federal endan-
gered species list in 2011 by
an act of Congress. The state
then assumed management of
the animals from the federal
government for a five-year
probationary period. In 2017,
the state assumed full man-
agement of wolves without
federal oversight.
Idaho stopped estimat-
ing its wolf population after
2015, when the population
was about 786. It had varied
between 681 and 786 from the
years 2010 to 2015.
“Based on the trend be-
tween 2010 and 2015, I’d
say the population remains
within that range,” said Ida-
ho Department of Fish and
Game wildlife biologist Jim
Hayden, who manages the
wolf program. Idaho now
manages wolves based on the
total number of packs — 108
— using a network of trail
cameras across the state to
monitor them.
More wolves
Some livestock producers
believe the wolf population
is much higher than the esti-
mate.
Wilder, Idaho, sheep
rancher Frank Shirts said
wolves howl around his sheep
every night in the hills.
“They have way more
wolves than they think they
have,” he said at his ranch 40
miles west of Boise. “If the
men aren’t with the sheep 24
hours a day, wolves are going
to be in there because they’re
everywhere out there.”
The
Farm
Bureau’s
Thompson agrees.
“I don’t think people real-
ize they’re all around us,” he
said. “They’re in the Boise
foothills. They’re everywhere
that coyotes are.”
Idaho’s wolf population
had been growing at about 28
percent a year and peaked at
about 856 in 2009. But that
trend stopped once the state
began a wolf hunting season
Idaho Department of Fish and Game
A wolf in Northern Idaho is
shown in June 2017. Since
peaking in 2009, Idaho’s wolf
population has stabilized,
according to state officials.
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Sheep rancher Frank Shirts is shown at his ranch near Wilder, Idaho, on Jan. 25. He believes there are a lot more wolves in Idaho than
the generally accepted estimate of around 700. He said the predators cost him a couple hundred thousand dollars a year because of
weight loss in his lambs due to the presence of wolves.
Known wolf packs in Idaho, 2015
Biologists documented 108 packs statewide at the end of 2015
with a mean pack size of 6.4 wolves, down slightly from 2014.
Additionally, there were 20 documented border packs in Montana,
Wyoming and Washington whose territories overlap with Idaho.
Wolf Management Zone
1. Panhandle
2. Palouse-Hells Canyon
3. Dworshak-Elk City
4. Lolo
5. Selway
6. McCall-Weiser
7. Middle Fork
8. Salmon
9. Sawtooth
10. Southern Mountains
11. Beaverhead
12. Island Park
13. Southern Idaho
N
1
0
Coeur
d’Alene
2
20 40
Miles
4
Lewiston
5
3
Source: Idaho Department
of Fish and Game
7
The pork and poultry trade
groups attached to their brief
a letter signed Jan. 19 by 10
Democratic senators taking
the EPA to task for not giving
more guidance to producers.
The senators, who didn’t
comment on whether the rule
was necessary, urged the EPA
to ask the court to delay the
rule. The lawmakers said they
were concerned unprepared
farmers would be sued for not
complying.
“In our view, the agency
has been woefully late in roll-
ing out guidance on this mat-
ter, and needs more time to
ensure that our constituents,
who face legal liability for
untimely or inaccurate report-
ing, understand the reporting
requirements,” the senators
wrote.
The court ruled last year
producers have to report
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
8
6
11
9
Boise
12
10
Ketchum
Idaho
Falls
IDAHO
Twin
Falls
for part of 2009 and then re-
sumed it in 2011 after a law-
suit temporarily halted it.
Idaho hunters have har-
vested between 205 and 358
wolves annually since 2012.
About 62,000 wolf hunting
tags are purchased each year.
Impact of hunting
Hunting has “absolutely
had an impact,” said Todd
Grimm, the Idaho director of
Wildlife Services, a USDA
agency that resolves conflicts
between humans and animals.
“When sportsmen and
trappers are able to remove
(up to) 350 wolves a year, it
stops wolves from overpopu-
lating in those areas and spill-
Government can levy fines
of up to $50,000 a day for
not reporting emissions
EPA from Page 1
Packs
21
1
16
6
6
13
5
11
13
8
2
5
1
manure emissions to com-
ply with the Comprehensive
Environmental
Response,
Compensation and Liability
Act, commonly known as the
Superfund law. The federal
government can levy fines of
up to $50,000 a day for not
reporting emissions. The law
also allows environmental
groups to sue to enforce the
law.
The Waterkeeper Alliance
led a coalition of environmen-
tal groups that sued the EPA
to force producers to report
emissions. Efforts to obtain a
comment from the organiza-
tion Tuesday were unsuccess-
ful.
The D.C. court has grant-
ed two previous delays. EPA
filed a motion for a third
stay Jan. 19. It told the court
it would spend the time ed-
ucating farmers and devel-
oping streamlined reporting
forms.
13
Pocatello
ing over into the agricultural
areas,” Grimm said.
But not everyone supports
hunting wolves, including
Defenders of Wildlife, one of
the conservation groups that
has been most active in sup-
porting the animals in Idaho.
The organization advo-
cates non-lethal control meth-
ods to keep wolves away
from livestock over shooting
and trapping and believes the
evidence shows that non-le-
thal control reduces livestock
depredations in the long-
term, said Suzanne Stone, the
group’s regional director.
“Lethal control can cause
more livestock losses long-
term than using non-lethal
to wolves and has a lot to
learn,” Stone said. “We’re
hopeful Idaho will learn to
live with wolves and let go of
some of these archaic killing
programs and work on im-
proving their management.”
Ranchers directly impact-
ed by the animals have a far
different take. Most would
prefer the state take more le-
thal control actions.
‘We’re paying’
Idaho Department of Fish and Game
A wolf in Northern Idaho is shown in August 2016. Since peaking
in 2009, Idaho’s wolf population has gradually decreased to about
700, according to state officials.
control methods,” she said.
“If your goal is to minimize
livestock depredations, then
you need non-lethal methods
to do that.”
Thompson said non-lethal
methods are expensive and
have never been proven to be
effective.
“I think that’s a load of
crap,” he said about the asser-
tion non-lethal control works
better than lethal control for
problem wolves.
Attacks add up
Since wolves were re-in-
troduced in Idaho in 1995,
396 livestock producers have
had confirmed wolf depreda-
tions, according to Wildlife
Services.
The agency has conducted
more than 2,150 wolf depre-
dation investigations in Ida-
ho since 1995 and confirmed
more than 1,400 attacks on
livestock and domestic ani-
mals. Confirmed and proba-
ble wolf kills of livestock and
domestic animals since then
include 4,068 sheep, 1,055
cattle, 102 dogs, 10 horses
and one bison, according to
Wildlife Services.
That doesn’t include hun-
dreds more animals that were
injured by wolves.
And it doesn’t include oth-
er losses that ranchers believe
are because of wolves but
that they can’t prove, partly
because the animals can’t be
found, said Shirts, who esti-
mates he has lost 300 sheep
to wolves. Most of those are
unconfirmed.
Shirts also says the pounds
that his lambs don’t put on
due to the presence of wolves
is where he takes the biggest
financial hit. He estimates
harassment by wolves makes
his average lamb eight pounds
lighter. At $1.50 a pound,
that’s about $12 a lamb — and
he runs 15,000 lambs a year.
“Weight gain losses are
costing me a couple hundred
thousand dollars a year,” he
said.
Stone, of the Defenders
of Wildlife, said, “There is
no proof that wolves being
present causes weight loss in
livestock.”
Given the total number of
livestock that die for other
reasons such as illness, Ida-
ho’s wolf depredation num-
bers are minimal, Stone said.
“We’ve never had a large
number of livestock lost to
wolves in Idaho.”
She said her group ”would
like to see more wolves out
there and have them less ha-
rassed than they are now.”
“I think Idaho is still
heavy-handed when it comes
“There are a lot of wolves
in Idaho,” said Cascade, Ida-
ho, cattle rancher Phil Davis,
who has had more than 60
confirmed cattle losses due to
wolves. “We have to use ev-
ery tool we have available to
us to keep the numbers at an
acceptable level.”
Shirts said pro-wolf advo-
cates have no skin in the game
and don’t feel the pain the
producers do.
“These people that want to
hear them howl, they’re not
paying anything for that,” he
said. “We’re the ones paying
for it. How would they feel if
someone was sneaking into
their house and eating the gro-
ceries out of their house every
day?”
Ranchers are indemnified
for livestock that is confirmed
as killed by wolves, but it
doesn’t make up for the added
time, effort and expenses of
dealing with the predators, the
lost weight or the losses that
can’t be confirmed as wolf
kills, they said.
Dustin Miller, who man-
ages the Idaho Governor’s
Office of Species Conserva-
tion, said the state will always
maintain a robust population
of wolves to prevent the fed-
eral government from putting
them back on the endangered
species list, but it will also
continue to respond to prob-
lem wolves and the concerns
of the livestock community.
Idaho is now “managing
wolves ourselves and we in-
tend to keep it that way,” Gov.
Butch Otter, a rancher, told
Capital Press in an email.
“With more than 700 of the
big carnivores now roaming
our state, Idaho wildlife man-
agers are working full-time
to ensure wolf numbers stay
above recovery thresholds
while aggressively removing
those that prey on livestock
and weaken our deer and elk
herds,” Otter said.
‘Its importance is felt well beyond the borders of Europe’
GMO from Page 1
For U.S. agriculture, Europe’s ap-
proach to gene editing is significant
because the technology is expected to
become more widely commercialized
among American farmers in coming
years.
Already, the USDA has cleared nu-
merous gene-edited crops for the mar-
ket without subjecting them to the en-
vironmental review required under the
deregulatory process for GMOs.
Apart from affecting exports of such
crops to the European Union, the con-
tinent’s biotech policies have a “huge
impact” on other global regions, par-
ticularly in the developing world, said
Mary Boote, CEO of the Global Farmer
Network, which supports gene editing.
“Its importance is felt well beyond
the borders of Europe,” Boote said.
A French agricultural union repre-
senting small growers, Confédération
Paysanne, claimed that new gene-edit-
ed crops resistant to herbicides should
not be exempt from the EU’s “GMO
directive” for regulating genetically
engineered crops.
The directive involves environmen-
tal analysis, labeling, traceability and
monitoring requirements for GMOs.
Crops developed through tradition-
al mutagenesis, in which radiation or
chemicals randomly alter plant genes,
are exempt from the GMO directive.
However, Confédération Paysanne
argued that targeted mutagenesis — in-
cluding the CRISPR or TALEN meth-
ods of gene editing — is a new tech-
nology that shouldn’t qualify for this
exemption.
Advocate General Michal Bobek
found that targeted mutagenesis should
remain part of the exemption as long
as the alteration can occur natural-
ly and doesn’t incorporate foreign
genes.
However, he held that member na-
tions of the European Union may still
develop their own rules for such tar-
geted mutagenesis.
Bobek’s view is heartening, as
gene editing can accomplish the same
changes as traditional breeding but
much faster, said Boote of the Global
Farmer Network.
“It’s meant to give some direction,”
Boote said of the advisory ruling. “It’s
not the end of the conversation but it
is good news.”
The distinction drawn between
gene editing and transgenic methods
is a key part of the decision, she said.
“That may be the most important
thing to come out of this, not only for
how it’s regulated but for public per-
ception,” Boote said.
Hanson, of the Center for Food
Safety, is skeptical the advisory deci-
sion will warm European consumers
to gene editing, since the public in Eu-
rope is more resistant to food biotech-
nology than in the U.S.
Countries within the EU, such as
Germany or France, can still decide to
prohibit planting of gene-edited crops,
even if the European Justice Court
adopts the advisory opinion, he said.
Gene editing will also probably
continue to fall under the internation-
al definition of genetic engineering
established by the United Nations, he
said.
The Center for Food Safety isn’t
entirely opposed to CRISPR and oth-
er gene editing technologies, but the
group believes the U.S. and Europe
should adopt new laws to regulate
such crops.
Bobek’s ruling makes the same
mistake as the USDA by approaching
gene editing based on laws that pre-
dated the technology, Hanson said.
“Trying to fit new techniques into old
laws doesn’t work so well.”