Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Sen. Max Baucus Proposes to Use Drones to “Manage” Wolves, Native Carnivores

Appeal to Restore Protections to Wolves Pending
Contact: Wendy Keefover (303) 573-4898 x 1162

Denver, CO – Justas conservation groups are headed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals seekingto reinstate Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the NorthernRockies, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has proposed to use unmanned drones onpublic and private lands to “manage” native wildlife, including wolves andcoyotes.

Baucus,commenting on the potential economic benefits of manufacturing drones inMontana, told the Great Falls Tribune: “Our troops rely on this type of technology every day and thereis enormous future potential in border security, agriculture, and wildlife andpredator management.” He notedthat the drones can distinguish between coyotes and wolves.

“Whatexactly is Senator Baucus suggesting—that we should monitor, count, and even bombwolves using drones?” asked Wendy Keefover of WildEarth Guardians. “The Senator has some explaining to do.We need to figure out how to co-exist with native carnivores not take moresteps to escalate the government’s war on wildlife.”

“Predator management”is a common euphemism for lethal controls such as poisons, traps, and aerialgunning.

“Priceless,wolves’ beauty and majesty is only exceeded by their value as ecosystemengineers. Wolves make ecosystems robust and ecologically diverse, but theycan’t do this work if they’re constantly harassed or killed from above,”remarked Keefover.

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Background Information

Last April, Senator Max Baucus andothers authored a legislative rider that eliminated federal protection forwolves in the Northern Rockies. The rider contravened a judicial decision andordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the gray wolf in Montana,Idaho, and portions of Utah, Washington, and Oregon. The U.S. District Court inMontana upheld the rider in August, although Judge Donald Malloy wrote that, ifnot constrained by other caselaw, he would have ruled it unconstitutional.

Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friendsof the Clearwater, and WildEarth Guardians appealed the decision to the NinthCircuit to preserve wolves and protect the public’s interest in wolfconservation and the enormous investment in the 16-year wolf recovery program.The Ninth Circuit will consider the case this month. In the meantime, thestates of Idaho and Montana offered new wolf hunting seasons this autumn.

Wolf Hunting in Idaho

The Fish and Wildlife Service estimatesthat Idaho has 705 wolves (although the state claims it has 1,000 wolves).Idaho has neither set limits on the number of licenses it intends to issue tohunters and trappers, nor restricted the number of wolves that may be killed. Idaho’s stated goal is reduce the state’s population to the federally-mandatedminimum of 150 wolves. Hunting seasons began August 30 and will extend wellinto spring, making pups vulnerable to starvation and death if adult packmembers, particularly the alpha pair, are killed. Residents pay just $11.50 fora wolf-hunting license, while non-residents pay $31.75. To date, Idaho has sold25,500 wolf tags.

Wolf Hunting in Montana

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimatesthat Montana has 566 wolves (although the state estimates the total at 645).Montana has issued over 11,400 hunting licenses and set a kill quota of 220wolves for 2011. The hunting season, which commenced on September 3, will lastuntil the end of the year. Residents pay $19 for a wolf tag, whilenon-residents pay $350.

HuntingHarms Wolves

Biologists, inpeer-reviewed literature, have written that wolves in the northern RockyMountains are not yet recovered and that hunting could put populations at risk.Other researchers warn that hunting can reduce wolves beyond their ability torecover. Killing wolves causes social disruption in wolf packs, which can causepacks to disband. Killing the alpha pair can also lead to the loss of pups fromstarvation. Humans wiped out wolves in the lower 48 states by the 1940s becauseof misunderstanding and intolerance. Yet Aldo Leopold and others began tosignal a warning in that same time period that wolves are critical ecosystemengineers on the landscapes where they occur. The loss of these apex nativecarnivores can negatively affect entire biological systems.

Mythsabout Wolf-Livestock Conflicts in the West

Idaho claims that one purpose for wolfhunting in that state is to reduce wolf conflicts with domestic livestock, butthe number of cattle and sheep depredated by wolves as reported by ranchers inthe Northern Rockies is highly exaggerated. Two different federal agencies tracklivestock losses attributed to wolves—the Fish and Wildlife Service and theUSDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). While the FWS uses verified reports from agents, NASS relieson hearsay from the livestock industry. The difference between their annualcounts is astounding.

Idaho

• Cattle: The FWS verified 75 dead cattle, while NASS reported 2,561 unverified cattle losses,which represents a 3,415-percent difference.

• Sheep: FWSverified 148 sheep losses, compared to NASS’sunverified 900 losses, which represents a 508% difference.

Montana

• Cattle: FWSverified 87 losses, while NASSreported 1,293 unverified cattle losses, which represents a1,486% difference.
• Sheep:FWS verified 64 losses, while NASSreported 600 unverified sheep losses, which represents a938% difference.

Effectsof Wolf Predation on Big Game

With thepossible exception of a few geographically isolated elk herds, prey populationsalso experience relatively minor effects from wolf predation. Elk, deer,pronghorn, and moose are affected by a suite of factors, including weather,environmental conditions (i.e., prolonged drought or too much snow), numerousnative carnivores, disease, and especially, overhunting by humans. In several elk population studiesconducted in and around Yellowstone National Park, biologists consistentlyfound that human hunters had the greatest negative effect on elk. Furthermore,while wolves select for vulnerable age classes and diseased elk, humans selectfor prime age, breeding animals. Human hunters in the Yellowstone areatypically killed female elk in the age range of 6.5 years, whereas wolveskilled much older, non-breeding elk that were an average of 14 years old.

The elkpopulation that lives on the northern range of Yellowstone Park are more likelyto die from human hunters than wolves. Wolves modulate their prey populations.The long-term effect of wolves on elk is most likely to hold the population atlower levels that mediate other losses from starvation, weather, and otherstochastic events.

American Values,Federal Expenditures and Wolf Recovery in the Northern Rocky Mountains

The majorityof Americans surveyed want to see wolves conserved. Moreover, wolf-watchingtourism by 94,000 visitors to the northern Rockies in 2005 generated $35.5million in one year. By comparison, Montana reported that its total licenserevenue for wolf-hunting tags generated $325,916 in 2009 (although hunterslikely also spent several million dollars on travel, lodging and provisions).

Taxpayers andprivate donors have funded the wolf recovery program in the Northern RockyMountains since 1995. Taxpayers have also funded research, including theYellowstone National Park’s wolf project in the amount of $480,000 over a5-year period. In 2009, hunters shot six members the Cottonwood Pack on thenorthern border of the park. Two wolves had radio collars that cost $1,500 perwolf. The pack was destroyed andso the long-term research project abruptly ended (95% of the Cottonwood Pack’sterritory was in the Park).