• No more protection for gray wolves in Lower 48? Draft rule proposes that

    Macneill Lyons / AP file

    An image provided by Yellowstone National Park, Mont., shows a gray wolf in the wild.

    By John Flesher and Matthew Brown, The Associated Press

    BILLINGS, Mont. -- Federal wildlife officials have drafted plans to lift protections for gray wolves across the Lower 48 states, a move that could end a decades-long recovery effort that has restored the animals but only in parts of their historic range.


    The draft U.S. Department of Interior rule obtained by The Associated Press contends that roughly 5,000 wolves now living in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes are enough to prevent the species' extinction. The agency says having gray wolves elsewhere — such as the West Coast, parts of New England and the Southern Rockies — is unnecessary for their long-term survival.

    A small population of Mexican wolves in the Southwest would continue to receive federal protections, as a distinct subspecies of the gray wolf.

    The document was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday the rule was under internal review and would be subject to public comment before a final decision is made.

    If the rule is enacted, it would transfer control of wolves to state wildlife agencies by removing them from the federal list of endangered species.

    Wildlife advocates warn that could effectively halt the species' expansion, which has stirred a backlash from agricultural groups and some hunters upset by wolf attacks on livestock and big game herds such as elk.

    Some biologists have argued wolves will continue spreading regardless of their legal status. The animals are prolific breeders, known to journey hundreds of miles in search of new territory. They were wiped out across most of the U.S. early last century following a government sponsored poisoning and trapping campaign.

    In an emailed statement, the agency pointed to "robust" populations of the animals in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes as evidence that gray wolf recovery "is one of the world's great conservation successes."

    Wolves in those two areas lost protections under the Endangered Species Act over the last two years.

    In some states where wolves have recovered, regulated hunting and trapping already has been used to drive down their populations, largely in response to wolf attacks on livestock and big game herds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently reported that wolf numbers dropped significantly last year in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana for the first time since they were reintroduced in the mid-1990s.

    Federal officials have said they are monitoring the states' actions, but see no immediate threat to their survival.

    In Oregon and Washington, which have small but rapidly growing wolf populations, the animals have remained protected under state laws even after federal protections were lifted in portions of the two states.

    Between 1991 and 2011, the federal government spent $102 million on gray wolf recovery programs and state agencies chipped in $15.6 million. Federal spending likely would drop if the proposal to lift protections goes through, while state spending would increase.

    John Flesher reported from Traverse City, Mich.

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Protected no longer, more than 550 gray wolves killed this season by hunters and trappers

    AP file

    This image provided by the National Park Service shows a gray wolf in the wild. The Obama administration on Wednesday May 4, 2011 announced it was lifting endangered species act protections for gray wolves in eight states in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes.

    By Jeff Black, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Long an endangered predator, the northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf is once again the prey.

    More than 550 gray wolves have been killed by hunters and trappers in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming this season, the second period in which hunting has been allowed in order to manage the population. For over 30 years the animals were considered endangered.

    Add in the number of wolves killed by federal Wildlife Service agents because they are a threat to livestock, as well as those killed by poachers, diseases, collisions with vehicles and other means, and it's not clear that these levels are sustainable, according to conservationists.

    Sitting at the top of the food chain in many wild areas, wolves often conjure up frightful images in people's minds, primarily due to fairy tales going back to "Little Red Riding Hood," "Peter and the Wolf" and even horror-film depictions of werewolves.

    But in reality, experts say, while wolves are known to sometimes attack livestock such as sheep and cattle, attacks on humans are extremely rare.

    Still, wolves were hunted to the point where they were listed as endangered under federal law in 1974. After years of recovery efforts -- and countless lawsuits -- gray wolves were completely taken off the endangered species list in 2012 when Wyoming became the last of the Rocky Mountain states to manage its gray wolf population. Hunting started last season in Idaho and Montana,  and in Wyoming in October 2012.

    As the hunting season winds down, Montana reported that hunters have killed 225 wolves and Idaho 259. In Wyoming, which hosted its first gray wolf hunt this year, 42 wolves were killed in a controlled trophy hunting area near Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks in the northwest part of the state. Another 32 were killed in the rest of the state where gray wolves can legally be shot on sight, Eric Kezler of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department told NBC News.

    "Hunters were very cooperative with us in reporting the animals they killed and provide the samples we need to track genetics," Kezler said. "It went extremely well. Based on whatever else is happening in Wyoming, we're confident we can maintain a health population."

    Meanwhile the federal government reported that 216 wolves were killed by federal Wildlife Service agents because they were attacking livestock, The Los Angeles Times reported.

    Related: Wolves, no longer endangered in Wyoming, now labeled 'predators'

    According to the latest federal wolf counts “by every biological measure” the wolf population in the Northern Rockies region, excluding Wyoming, is fully recovered, according to federal experts. As of Dec. 31, 2011, the Rockies contained at least 1,774 wolves in at least 287 packs.

    Derek Goldman, with the Endangered Species Coalition, points to gray wolves as an endangered animals success story, though he says his organization, based in Washington, D.C., is still awaiting word on the final population figures of wolf packs for this year.

    “We recognize that hunting of wolves while we may not be enthusiastic about it that once a species is no long endangered that oftentimes hunting is going to be a reality,” Goldman told NBC News. “But we definitely want it managed by the best available science and not by politics.”

    Marc Cooke of the Wolves of the Rockies conservation group, however, said some legislators in Montana want to make it open season on wolves. One bill, Senate Bill 200, would make it legal to kill a wolf on site on private property. "How is this managing wolves?" he asked.

    “These animals can’t take this much more persecution,” Cooke told NBC News. “When you go and kill these wolves, a lot of times you’re killing the teachers, and when you kill the teachers of the pack you get the youngsters who haven’t absorbed the skills that would’ve been passed down over time to them from the elders in the pack. Now you have youngsters who don’t know how to kill things going after the easiest thing to kill, lambs and cattle, which leaves them open to being killed by in control hunts by the federal government.”

     

     

  • Gray wolves probably real target of poisoned meat that killed dog

    Defenders of Wildlife

    This gray wolf is part of a pack near Ketchum, Idaho, that might have been the intended targets of poison-laced meat.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    Fearing that someone is trying to kill gray wolves in central Idaho, an environmental group and a sheep ranch this week put up a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever laced meat with poison that instead killed one dog and sickened another.


    That the poisoning happened wasn't so much a surprise. The resurgence of gray wolves across the Pacific Northwest is controversial, including this area of central Idaho known as the "sheep superhighway."

    But Defenders of Wildlife and the Flat Top Ranch hope their reward will galvanize locals and showcase the value of using non-lethal tools to try to minimize wolf conflicts.

    "It would be a real shame for incidents like this to undermine all our hard work," Suzanne Stone, the Defender of Wildlife's Northern Rockies representative, said in a statement announcing the reward. "We hope the community will use this as a rallying cry to continue promoting greater tolerance for all native wildlife."

    John Peavey, owner of Flat Top Ranch, acknowledged that the resurgence of wolves has meant "many challenges," but he added that "we must meet them within the framework of our laws. Those responsible need to be brought to justice." 

    The poisonings happened in mid-August, when two dogs fell sick after eating chunks of meat while on separate hikes with their owners outside Ketchum, a town that also is home to the world-famous Sun Valley Lodge and ski resort.

    One dog died a few days later, while the other recovered.

    The meat was poisoned with Xylitol, an artificial sweetener used in human food but which can be lethal to animals by causing a surge in insulin and becoming toxic to its liver.

    Xylitol first surfaced in connection with wolves in 2010 when anti-wolf activist Toby Bridges blogged that many hunters were packing "a healthy dose of the sweetener whenever they head out for big game."

    He also warned hunters to make sure their dogs didn't get near poisoned carcasses.

    Washington state completes a sharpshooter cull of a wolf pack that had been feeding on livestock. KING's Gary Chittim reports.

    Stone told NBC News she didn't know of any confirmed cases of wolves being poisoned with Xylitol, but added that federal and state officials with whom she met suspected the batch eaten by the dogs was meant for wolves.

    Gray wolves used to be abundant across the Northwest, but settlers a century ago nearly wiped them out.

    In the 1990s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began an effort to return them to the northern Rockies, bringing 66 wolves into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho from Canada.

    The wolves eventually went beyond the park's borders and into other parts of Wyoming and neighboring states. About 1,400 are in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where wolves were taken off the federal endangered list due to their rising numbers.

    The poisoning incident comes after several years of progress with local sheep ranchers in minimizing wolf attacks, she added.

    Defenders of Wildlife

    A hidden camera used to track wolves captures the alpha female of a pack near Ketchum, Idaho, in mid-August along with her pups.

    Part of what's known as the Wood River Wolf Project, those non-lethal tools include:

    • Using more sheepdogs during parts of the year;
    • Tracking the local wolf packs with motion sensitive cameras; 
    • Firing starter guns or air horns to scare wolves;
    • Deploying portable strobe light/alarm systems to alert herders that wolves are near;
    • Electrified barriers made with small flags to keep wolves out;
    • Keeping humans with bands of sheep at night.

    Lava Lake Lamb

    A herder with Lava Lake Lamb sets up a fence made with flags to deter gray wolves as part of the Wood River Wolf Project in Idaho.

    "Our field crew has spent more than 70 nights camping with the sheep bands this summer," Stone said. "The deterrents are working very well despite the almost constant presence of wolves near sheep." 

    Out of more than 10,000 sheep in the area, she added, just four were lost this summer.

    Those four sheep belonged to a project partner who initially wanted the wolves killed but then backed off when it was realized the pack was a new one that hadn't been tracked, Stone said.

    "As a result of his support," she said, "no wolves were killed and our nonlethal deterrents kept wolves from killing more sheep since that event in early July."  

    Related: Killing of wolf pack draws anger of key lawmaker

    This week and next, field crews will sleep with a band of sheep as it makes its way down the "sheep superhighway" and then through Ketchum on Oct. 13 for the annual Trailing of the Sheep Festival, Stone said.

    "We have wolves right where the sheep are now," she told the Idaho Mountain Express. "We’ve had our field crew intercept wolves coming in to howl and bark at the dogs. So far, the deterrents have been holding."

    Defenders of Wildlife explains its Wood River Wolf Project.

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