Page 6C
OUTSIDE
East Oregonian
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Neighboring states take different tacks to deal with wolves
WASHINGTON
State to kill wolf pack
in Stevens County
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The
state plans to kill some animals in
a wolf pack, which has repeatedly
preyed on livestock in Stevens
County, the Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife said Thursday.
The wolves, known as the
Smackout pack, has preyed on live-
stock four times since September.
“The purpose of this action is to
change the pack’s behavior,” said
Donny Martorello, a wolf manager
for the agency. “That means incre-
mentally removing wolves and
assessing the results before taking
any further action.”
The Smackout pack is one of 20
wolf packs, all in Eastern Wash-
ington, documented in Washington
state in 2016. At that time, the pack
was estimated to consist of eight
wolves, but it has since produced an
unknown number of pups. The pack
roams an area near the Canadian
border north of Spokane.
Wolves were wiped out in Wash-
ington early in the last century, but
begin moving back into the state
from Idaho and Canada earlier this
century.
The state is now home to at least
115 wolves, growing at a rate of
30 percent per year, and there have
been conflicts between wolves and
ranchers that prompted the state to
kill numerous problems wolves in
recent years.
Jim Unsworth, director of Fish
and Wildlife, authorized the lethal
action against the Smackout pack.
The department in June adopted
a policy of removing wolves that
prey on livestock three times in
a 30-day period or four times in a
10-month period, Martorello said.
The Smackout pack’s latest
depredation against cattle was
discovered July 18.
In June, a ranch employee caught
two wolves in the act of attacking
livestock and killed one of them, the
agency said.
“This rancher has made
concerted efforts to protect his live-
stock using non-lethal measures,”
Martorello said. “Our goal is to
change the pack’s behavior before
the situation gets worse.”
Gray wolves have been removed
from federal Endangered Species
Act protections in the eastern third
of the state, although they remain
protected under state law.
Chase Gunnell, a spokesman
for Conservation Northwest, called
the decision to kill several wolves
“heartrending,” but said it may
prevent the entire pack from being
wiped out.
“We see this is a test of the
theory that early lethal intervention
can disrupt depredating behavior,”
Gunnell said.
He said it was clear, based on
information from the agency, that
the ranchers involved in this case
have taken steps to avoid conflicts
with wolves.
AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Gary Kramer, File
This 2008 file photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife shows a grey wolf. A federal report says
gray wolves killed a record number of livestock in Wyoming in 2016, and wildlife managers responded
by killing a record number of wolves that were responsible. Throughout the west, states are dealing
with wolves differently.
WYOMING
Livestock deaths hit
record high
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) —
Gray wolves killed a record number
of livestock in Wyoming last year,
and wildlife managers responded by
killing a record number of wolves
that were responsible, according to
a new federal report.
The report released by the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service found
that wolves killed 243 livestock,
including 154 cattle, 88 sheep and
one horse, in 2016. In 2015, 134
livestock deaths attributed to wolves
were recorded.
Last year’s livestock losses in
Wyoming exceeded the previous
record of 222 in 2009.
As a result, wildlife managers
last year killed 113 wolves that were
confirmed to be attacking livestock.
In 2015, they killed 54 wolves.
Previously, the most wolves
killed in Wyoming in any year for
killing livestock was 63 in 2007.
Scott Becker, wolf program
coordinator in Wyoming for the Fish
and Wildlife Service, said managers
can only speculate on why conflicts
between wolves and livestock
increased so much last year.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know
with any certainty why one year
is bad and another year not quite
so bad,” Becker said. “It’s just
the dynamic nature of managing
wolves, and as managers we try to
do our best to minimize that chronic
loss of livestock if at all possible.”
Jim Magagna, executive vice
president of the Wyoming Stock
Growers Association, said the
problem is too many wolves are
allowed to populate areas where
cattle and sheep graze.
“Even though Wildlife Service
was responsive to livestock losses,
their approach has been that they
wouldn’t remove any wolves
anywhere in the state until there
had actually been losses,” Magagna
said.
Andrea Santarsiere, senior
attorney of the Center for Biological
Diversity based in Victor, Idaho,
blames ranchers for not using
nonlethal methods, such as portable
electric fencing, to keep wolves
away from livestock.
“And so when you have native
predators on the landscape and
non-native livestock on the land-
scape it’s not surprising that the
predators are going to view them as
prey,” Santarsiere said.
At least 377 wolves were counted
in the state in 2016, according to the
federal report.
Unlike Wyoming, neighboring
Montana and Idaho are no longer
subject to federal monitoring and
are not part of the Fish and Wildlife
Service report this year. Both states
are still monitoring their wolf popu-
lations but are working on different
and less expensive ways of counting
wolves.
Montana estimates its wolf
population at 477 in 2016, while
Idaho does not have a count for
2016. Idaho’s last wolf count was
786 in 2015.
Wyoming has had a compli-
cated history with wolves, which
were reintroduced to Yellowstone
National Park in the 1990s after
“When you have native predators on the
landscape and non-native livestock on the
landscape, it’s not surprising that the
predators are going to view them as prey.”
— Andrea Santarsiere,
Center for Biological Diversity in Victor, Idaho
they had been hunted and trapped
out of existence throughout most of
the continental U.S. last century.
Wolves were a protected species
in the state until 2012, when they
were delisted and handed over to the
state to manage. A federal judge in
2014 reinstated federal protections
for the wolves in Wyoming, but that
ruling was overturned by a federal
appeals court last March, allowing
Wyoming to regain management.
When wolves in Wyoming were
under federal control, they enjoyed
protection throughout the state.
Under Wyoming’s management,
wolves remain protected in Yellow-
stone and Grand Teton national
parks and the National Elk Refuge.
Areas adjacent to the parks will be
subject to a tightly regulated hunting
season, which is expected to be
approved soon by the Wyoming
Game and Fish Commission. In
the remainder of the state, wolves
can be killed throughout the year
without a need for a license, except
on the Wind River Indian Reserva-
tion, which oversees management
of wolves on its land.
Ken Mills, large carnivore biol-
ogist with the Wyoming Game and
Fish Department, said Wyoming’s
wolf management plan seeks a
reduced but stable population of
wolves.
“Usually the fewer wolves you
have the less conflicts you have,”
Mills said. “It’s not 100 percent
but that is certainly the goal of the
state.”
IDAHO
Fish and Game taking
heat from both sides
over wolf proposal
By Lewiston (Ida.) Tribune
A process to update Idaho’s wolf
management plan has rekindled the
sort of hot emotions scarcely seen
since the days the animals were still
protected under the Endangered
Species Act.
Officials at the Idaho Depart-
ment of Fish and Game are likely
to release a draft of their plan next
month, and wolf critics claim the
agency is going soft on the animals,
while wolf advocates say the state
is putting too much pressure on
them. Both sides are upset the
agency no longer intends to count
wolves the way it has for the past
20 years — with the annual release
of a minimum population, pack and
breeding pair estimates.
Critics are steamed the new plan
is not likely to include an official
population goal that matches
management objectives that grew
out of the state’s 2002 Idaho Wolf
Management and Conservation
Plan. The document sets a threshold
of 15 wolf packs. Above that
number, wolves will be managed
like other predators in the state.
When the population falls below the
threshold, management becomes
more conservative, with an eye
toward preventing animals from
reverting to federal protection.
The 2002 plan doesn’t mention
a population goal of 150 wolves,
but over time it became understood
the state would strive to maintain
a minimum of 15 packs and 150
animals as a way to prevent the
population hitting the threshold of
10 breeding pairs and 100 animals
established as a recovery goal when
wolves were reintroduced to Idaho
in the 1990s.
Wolf critics want the new plan to
adopt the 150 goal and for the state
to aggressively manage the animals
until it is met. Without the goal, they
say wildlife managers won’t keep
pressure on the animals.
Butch Suor of Stites acknowl-
edges the wolf population isn’t
likely to dip to 150 animals, but he
still wants that to be the stated goal.
“We are not even going to be
close to that, but the goal still has to
be 15 and 150 — period,” he said.
Jim Hagedorn of Viola is
accusing wildlife managers of
aiming for a higher wolf population
so the department can continue to
sell wolf tags.
“We want that target down lower
than what they are managing them
at now,” he said. “They would like
to manage it for a lot more wolves.
They want to sell wolf tags and they
know they can sell a lot of wolf tags
if there are wolves out there both-
ering people. They don’t want to
have any limitations on the number
of wolves, and that won’t fly.”
Wolf advocates sounded the
alarm this week when the depart-
ment asked for public comment
on a rule change that would allow
hunters to use bait such as road-kill
deer and elk to lure wolves into
shooting range.
“It’s just horrific, the ideas that
have come out in terms of how
people in Idaho want to manage
wolves,” said Suzanne Stone of
Defenders of Wildlife at Boise.
“They seem to have forgotten about
fair chase and any sense of ethics in
hunting. Those things seem to go
out the door when people talk about
wolves.”
At the end of 2015, the state had
an estimated minimum wolf popu-
lation of about 780 wolves. Stone
said Idaho may be underestimating
the number of wolves killed ille-
gally and thus underestimating the
population.
Hagedorn suspects the popu-
lation is much higher — perhaps
1,500 to 2,000.
Idaho no longer is required to
submit an annual wolf report to the
federal government, as it was for
five years following the animal’s
removal from the endangered
species list. The state did not release
an estimate for wolf numbers at the
end of last year. Jim Hayden, the
state’s lead wolf manager, said the
revised plan is unlikely to call for
annual wolf population estimates
and will instead aim to keep tabs
on population trends through things
like harvest information and remote
monitoring through a system of
game cameras.
Nor is the plan likely to have a
population goal. Instead, he said the
department’s management goal will
be to reduce conflict.
“What we have seen is a
decrease in the number of wolves
in Idaho,” Hayden said. “We want
to make absolutely sure they remain
a state animal and are not relisted
and manage the population to mini-
mize depredation on livestock and
ensure predation on ungulates is not
unreasonable, particularly in those
areas that ungulates are not meeting
management goals.”
Deputy Director Ed Schriever
at Boise said the department has
the ability to continue to monitor
wolves the same way it did during
the first five years following delis-
ting. But he said doing so would
drain resources. Instead, he said
the department is managing wolves
much like it does black bears and
mountain lions.
“It’s a question of prioritization.
We would rather utilize those
resources to really learn and under-
stand the impacts that wolves might
be causing more than an absolute
number with a confidence interval
around it,” he said. “By knowing
what is going on with our deer
and elk herds and determining the
specific causes of those mortalities,
we can know if we have an issue.
Just knowing the number of wolves
doesn’t let you know what their
relative impacts are.”
The Idaho Fish and Game
Commission is scheduled to hear
from Hayden about wolf manage-
ment at its meeting in Bonners Ferry
later this month. Commissioner Dan
Blanco of Moscow said he intends
to fight for a population goal to be
included in the plan. He said doing
so is important to the hunters who
recently supported the department’s
fee increase legislation.
“I have pretty much said I can’t
support a wolf plan that isn’t 150,”
he said.
BLOOMIN’ BLUES
By BRUCE BARNES
For The East Oregonian
Common Name: Alpine Paintbrush
Scientific Name: Castilleja rhexifolia
This is the paintbrush plant I’ve
written about over the years with this
column. And that is just brushing
the surface of the paintbrush genus.
There are nearly 100 paintbrush
plants in western North America,
and 26 of them are in Northeast
Oregon.
The Castilleja genus has been
moved in recent years to the family
Orobanchaceae, joining a family of
parasitic plants.
Though paintbrush plants do
produce chlorophyll and create much
of the energy they need, they also
have tiny root-like structures that
attach to the roots of nearby plants to
enhance their energy supply. Digging
up or pulling up a paintbrush plant
will break those structures and ensure
one will be making it nearly impos-
sible to transplant paintbrushes.
This paintbrush grows from the
Cascades in British Columbia to the
Blue Mountains, eastward to Mani-
toba, and south to New Mexico.
Within that range it is found
mainly at high elevations, on alpine
and subalpine meadows and slopes,
hence the common name alpine.
As I’ve mentioned in previous
articles, the genus Castilleja is named
for a Spanish botanist, Domingo
Castillejo. The species name rhexi-
folia means Rhexia-leaved, which
refers to the reddish-purple color
of the leaves of Rhexia virginica, a
wildflower of eastern North America.
The stems of the alpine paintbrush
are erect and seldom branching. The
leaves are lance-shaped and are
mostly smooth on the edges, though
the upper leaves will sometimes
have small pointed lobes on the leaf
edges.
As with others of this genus, the
upper leaves are replaced by colored
bracts. In this paintbrush the bracts
are a vivid red, which is more intense
in color than the similar Wyoming
paintbrush that is very common in
the Blues.
In some specimens of the alpine
paintbrush the color is more of a rich
reddish-purple. These bracts some-
times have one small pointed lobe on
each side of the leaf.
The flower is surrounded by a
cylindric bract-like calyx of the
same color as the bracts. Projecting
out from the calyx is a long, very
slender greenish structure which is
the flower, and which most people
never notice.
Many of the paintbrushes have
had a wide variety of uses by western
Indian tribes, however, there does
not appear to be any use associated
with this species.
Where to find: Alpine Paintbrush
can be found in a few scattered spots
in the Anthony Lakes area.
Photo By Bruce Barnes
Bright color attracts eye to alpine paintbrush