Call For 'Serious Debate' On Wolf

A "serious debate" has to be held on the potential impact of reintroducing wild wolves to the Scottish Highlands, a UK conservation charity has said.

Richard Morley, of the Wolves and Humans Foundation, has forecast that public support for the move will grow over the next 15 years.

There is already official backing for the reintroduction of wild beavers in Scotland by next year.

Mr Morley said previous talks on wolves had been too "simple or romantic".

The charity - formerly The Wolf Society of Great Britain - is holding an informal, paid-for event in April at Alladale Wilderness Reserve, north of Inverness, which has wild boar and European elk.

With that kind of exploitation of woodlands, more commercial style of farming and a big expansion of cattle droving out of the Highlands the wolf was doomed to extinction

While not campaigning for the return of wolves, Mr Morley said he wanted to make sure the foundation was included in any future debates on the issue.Reserve owner Paul Lister is keen to see the mammals and other animals once native to Scotland reintroduced.

He said: "A time will come when media reports will generate a public demand for the government to look seriously at the reintroduction of wolves.

"We want to be at the table when that happens."

Mr Morley added: "What I have tried to organise before and still want to do is hold a major conference, maybe in Inverness, bringing together scientists and communities."

He said farmers and crofters have serious concerns about the effect wolves could have on their livestock, particularly sheep, that have to be acknowledged.

Serious concerns

However, Mr Morley said there was also potential for attracting tourists.

Yellowstone National Park in the US has generated extra income from its wolves, he said.

"There have been problems, such as what to do when they stray outside the boundaries, but a key issue is the $3m a year it gets from people coming to see the wolves," he said.

Last year, a research team from the UK and Norway published a study that found reintroducing wild wolves to the Scottish Highlands would help the local ecosystem.

Writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the researchers - which included experts from the Imperial College London - said this would aid the re-establishment of plants and birds currently hampered by the deer population. There are conflicting accounts of where the last wild wolf in Scotland was killed. One of the claims is that it was dispatched near Findhorn, Moray, in 1743 amid an outcry that it had killed two children. Whatever the truth, Professor James Hunter, director of the UHI Centre for History in Inverness, said wolves were doomed to extinction by dramatic changes within society, politics and to land management. By the end of the 17th Century and start of the 18th, the long-standing clan system, its chiefs and way of life in the Highlands were under pressure. Prof Hunter said: "The Scottish Government was looking to extend its influence very heavily into the Highlands and to subvert Highland chief and draw them more into southern society. "It was a time of huge change in terms of the natural environment and landscape. "There was growing exploitation of Highland woodlands for charcoal for iron smelting. "With that kind of exploitation of woodlands, more commercial style of farming and a big expansion of cattle droving out of the Highlands the wolf was doomed to extinction."

Wolves Released in Mexico Mountains Near Arizona

Mexican officials have released five wolves in the Sierra San Luis mountains of northeastern Sonora, a Mexican environmental group said in a news release.

The wolf release occurred Oct. 11, the group Naturalia said. It gave no specific information about where the release occurred, but that mountain range abuts the New Mexico and Arizona borders with Sonora and ends about 80 miles south of the international border at Douglas.

The release came after years of planning by Mexican officials and opposition by U.S. ranchers, who are worried the wolves will cross into the United States and be completely protected from capture or killing.

Environmental groups have said they hope the wolves cross into the U.S. and mix with wolves living in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona.

7 Thousandth Wolf Hunting License Sold !!!!!!!!

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks sold the 7 thousandth wolf hunting license Friday.

The season begins Saturday for archers. FWP communications chief Ron Aasheim says there probably won't be a lot of success with archery. He says they expect more wolves will be killed after the general season opens up on October 22nd. Aasheim says hunters have a variety of reasons for buying wolf tags.

"I think there are some hunters that are disgusted with wolves, there's some hunters that want this unique opportunity, there's kind of a novelty thing here, but I really think they're engaged and they want to help us manage wolves.

We need to manage them and right now that's the only tool we have is hunting,” says Aasheim. This year's statewide quota for wolf hunting is 220. 

Grey Wolf Hunt Gets Legal Backing Again

LIFE must be confusing for the grey wolves of Montana and Idaho. Last week those states' annual hunts were declared back on, despite a judge's ruling in 2010 that made them illegal.

The two states allowed hunting in 2009, after the US Fish and Wildlife Service decided the wolves there no longer needed the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Last year a district judge overturned that decision, halting the 2010 hunts and triggering a protracted legal battle. In the latest instalment, the Ninth 

Circuit Court of Appeals once again ruled that the hunts can restart. Both states' hunts open this week.

Properly managed, the Idaho hunt should not be a serious threat, says Lisette Waits at the University of Idaho in Moscow, who monitors the local wolves. The Idaho population is "really healthy", she says.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, however, insists that those wolves are threatened by shrinking habitat.

Wolf Hunts Get Under Way in Montana, Idaho

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Gray wolf hunts are under way in Montana and Idaho as state officials seek to sharply reduce the predator's numbers in hopes of curbing attacks on livestock and big game herds.

Montana's hunt kicked off at sunrise Saturday with a six-week, archery-only wolf season. A general wolf hunting season opens Oct. 22 and runs through the end of the year.

Montana wildlife officials have set a statewide harvest quota of 220 wolves, which would reduce the state's population to a projected 425 animals.

Idaho's hunt began Tuesday. There is no quota across most of Idaho and hunting is scheduled to run through June 1 in some areas.

Wildlife advocates failed in their bid to get a federal court injunction barring the hunts, which became possible after gray wolves in five states lost their federal protections this spring under an act of Congress.

License sales are down in both states compared to hunts in 2009. That could undermine the states' goal of killing enough wolves to reduce attacks on cows, sheep and big game such as elk and moose.

But officials said they expect sales to pick up as the hunting season goes on. Also, wildlife commissioners from the two states adopted changes this year meant to target wolves where predation has been the biggest problem.

"We're trying to be more surgical and distribute the harvest," said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim.

The 2009 wolf seasons marked the first time the animals had been subject to organized public hunting in the Lower 48 states since they were nearly exterminated in the 1930s.

Wyoming briefly allowed the animals to be shot on sight in 2008. The state's 343 wolves have since been returned to the endangered species list because Wyoming's wolf management law was considered too hostile.

Many of the 72 wolves killed in Montana in 2009 were taken in remote backcountry locations where livestock attacks are infrequent. That meant fewer wolves could be killed in the more populated, agricultural areas where problems with wolves have been more common.

For this year's wolf season, state officials divvied up the quota among 14 hunting units, versus just three in 2009.

Idaho hunters in 2009 failed to reach the state's 220 wolf quota even after the season was extended by several months. This year, commissioners set no limit on the number of wolves that can be killed in most parts of the state.

The move sparked criticism from wildlife advocates who said wolf populations could be decimated without quotas.

Idaho officials counter that they can call off the hunt if wolf numbers get too low, although no minimum number has been offered. Idaho had at least 705 wolves at the end of 2010 and state officials say there could be more than 1,000.

"If you believe the rhetoric, we would have already wiped out half our wolves by yesterday," said Idaho Fish and Game Deputy Director Jim Unsworth. "It's just not going to happen that way. We're not rookies at managing hunters and hunter harvests."

Wolf management actions by the states will be monitored for five years by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under terms of the animal's removal from the endangered species list. If wolf numbers tumble, federal protections could be restored.

Protections also could be restored if state laws or policies change in a way that "significantly increases the threat to the wolf population" said Seth Wiley, a recovery specialist with U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

But Wiley said his agency was confident both Montana and Idaho would maintain enough wolves to keep them off the endangered list. Agency officials already determined Idaho's decision to largely forego quotas did not meet the benchmark for revoking state authority.

A lawsuit from wildlife advocates challenging the transfer of authority over wolves to the states remains pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court last month rejected an injunction that was sought to block the hunts. But the decision left unresolved whether Congress had violated the Constitution when it inserted an unprecedented provision into a budget bill rider this spring that excluded wolves from protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Oral arguments are expected in November. It could be months more before a final decision.

"I think it's highly unlikely at this point that the hunting season will be stopped," said attorney Tom Woodbury with Western Watersheds Project, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Ranchers Relieved, Critics Rankled by Open Season on Wolves

100 MILE HOUSE, B.C. — Hunted to near-extinction in North America by the 1950s, the British Columbia wolf population has long since rebounded.

Now, this secretive nocturnal predator finds itself in the glare of the public eye once again after the provincial government lifted hunting restrictions on wolves in a region of the province.

Ranchers in the Cariboo region say they're relieved that they'll be able to hunt and trap wolves preying on their cattle, but critics say the open season is bad management based on poor science.

This summer, the Ministry of Forests and Lands eliminated any bag limit and will keep the wolf hunt season open indefinitely in the region west of the Fraser River on the Chilcotin plateau, said Rodger Stewart, director of resource management for the area in the Interior of the province.

Stewart said ranchers and First Nations have been reporting for the past three years an increase in the number of wolves and an increase in the number of wildlife and cattle falling prey to them.

"It's quite evident from the information we've got from First Nations and from our own occurrence reports that the frequency of wolf observations and the size and composition of the packs we do see has grown considerably in the last while," Stewart said in an interview.

It indicates "a significant imbalance with wolves in the ecosystem." People in the area say not just cattle, but moose and caribou are falling prey in increasing number.

"That is of considerable concern to First Nations communities that want to ensure we maintain rigorous game populations for their traditional uses," Stewart said.

Nobody from the Tsilhqot'in First Nation was available for comment, but Stewart said the change in regulation in the Cariboo region west of the Fraser River only brings the area in line with the open hunt that has been in place on the east side of the river and other areas of the province for some time.

He was adamant it is not a cull.

"We're not wiping wolves out. We're managing pack size and density."

But Paul Paquet, a biologist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, said the ministry doesn't even have the information it would need to make that decision.

"What they're basing it on is entirely anecdotal," said Paquet, an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary.

"We don't really know what the wolf populations are, we don't know the extent of predation compared with previous years, we don't know at all if it's having an effect on wild ungulates, deer and elk and moose."

It harkens back to the days when wolves were hunted to extinction throughout most the United States and even threatened in Canada, he said.

"This is what we were hearing in the 1950s and earlier and we've made a lot of progress since those

days.

"I understand the kinds of concerns that ranchers have," said Paquet, who grew up on a ranch and is a hunter himself.

But rather than reduce livestock predation, he said an open hunt could see young wolves from disrupted packs out hunting the easiest prey they can find: cattle.

"We've got very good research from many, many years that have demonstrated that this kind of attempt to reduce populations creates more problems than it solves," said Paquet, who has studied wolves for 40 years.

Al Ley, of the provincial Conservation Officer Service, disagrees.

"It's not going to solve all the problems but it should lessen their concerns," he said of ranchers.

The open season hunt is specific to areas where livestock activity is the heaviest, and where wolves are preying on the cattle. But it's an emotional issue that is divided along urban-rural lines, he said.

For Kevin Boon, general manager of the B.C. Cattlemen's Association, it's an issue muddied by misinformation.

Boon said cattle producers around Prince George, Vanderhoof and the Peace River region are reporting the same problem.

The change in hunting rules basically allows ranchers to shoot wolves near cattle while they're grazing on Crown land, he said. Ranchers don't expect the expanded hunt will resolve the problem but it might help.

Nobody is out to eradicate wolves, he said, but if something isn't done to control the population, nature will by way of disease or starvation.

"Last winter we had ranchers who were coming in and they weren't getting the cattle but they were watching them kill the deer right in their feed yards," Boon said.

"When you start seeing them come in and lose that fear, when they're getting hungry enough that they're taking down deer in a guy's yard, it's a really good sign that there are too many of them out there for their own good, too."

Second wolf hunting season opens in Montana this September

It's been a summer of contention for the Endangered Species Act, and gray wolves are about to find out how their status changed.

This Saturday, Sept. 3, the second wolf hunt of the 21st century opens in Montana. Wolves were previously delisted in 2009, before being reinstated in 2010.

This April, Congress lifted federal protections of wolves in Montana and Idaho as well as parts of Oregon, Utah and Washington. The removal of wolves in these states from the endangered species list takes away their federal protections and hands management of the animals over to state wildlife agencies. Wolves in Wyoming will remain listed as an endangered species.

This year's congressional involvement came after Judge Molloy ruled in August 2010 that endangered species in different states could not be managed separately.

"Including hunters in wolf management is still a pretty new practice and a learning experience," said Vivaca Crowser, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesperson. "It's exciting, because hunters are so much a part of wildlife management. Now wolves are part of this management as well."

Numerous groups, including the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater and WildEarth Guardians, sought to overturn this congressional action, arguing Congress overstepped its authority in doing so. Yet, last Thursday District Court Judge Donald Molloy rejected arguments to stop this fall's wolf hunt ,while the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decides if the act of Congress was constitutional.

"Licenses sold quickly in 2009 [for the wolf hunt]," Crowser said. "This was due in part to the novelty of it being the first hunt. This year, people haven't been too sure if the hunt was going to continue, but with the ruling earlier this month, people are more confident in spending money for tags."

Other conservation organizations continue to question whether the current wolf populations are sufficiently recovered.

"Looking particularly at Idaho, and somewhat for Montana, wolves are being irresponsibly managed," said Gary MacFarlane, director of Friends of the Clearwater, a conservation organization based in Idaho.

"In Idaho, they have no specific limits on how many wolves can be killed, they can be trapped in some wilderness areas and the season can last up to 10 months," Macfarlane said. "It's an all out assault on wolves."

Though his organization did not succeed in halting this year's hunt, Macfarlane thinks there is a strong legal case to declare the Congressional move unconstitutional.

He said wolf management in states like Minnesota is an example of responsible management, because they won't even consider a wolf hunt for another five years.

There they are looking at wolf behavior and how a pack structure is changed when dominant males are killed.

"You have younger males vying for territory and fragmented packs may turn to livestock for food," he said.

Yet, state wildlife agencies have determined that populations are healthy enough to support a wolf hunt to benefit wildlife and people alike. Hunters in Montana may take 220 wolves in this year's hunt. As of Aug. 28, there were 5,331 resident wolf tags and 34 non-resident tags sold in Montana alone.