Once again the Idaho Fish and Game is the butt of many jokes. They can’t catch a wolf and put a collar on it, after all, how difficult can that be? Most of us don’t know and never will. If you will recall, back last March, IDFG officials where trying to move a few wild animals that got trapped behind former Denver Broncos football player Rulon Jones’ fences when he built them for his elk hunting ranch, outside his fences. With all the cheap talk going around about how easy it is to shoot an elk or other wild ungulates within an enclosed ranch like Jones’, how difficult could it be to open the gate and chase them out? They couldn’t do it and hunting these animals with a rifle behind those same fences isn’t as easy as some would have us believe.
Now, IDFG wants to collar one wolf within each of Idaho’s wolf packs for study purposes. Again, how difficult can it be to trap a wolf and put a collar on it? Harder than one would think as, try as they may, they failed to accomplish their task.
Steve Nadeau, large carnivore coordinator for IDFG, said that in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness area where they were attempting to catch and collar wolves, they learned more of where the “rendezvous” areas are for wolves and will try again next year believing that they now know better where to set traps.
This effort makes inquiring minds ask a few questions. First question: Who is paying for this effort? It is my understanding that the state of Idaho has laws that fees collected from hunting licenses must be used for the management of game animals. The wolf is not a game animal, at least not yet and according to some, will not be for perhaps another decade while animal rights groups tie up the delisting process in the courts for many years to come.
According to an article I read in the Missoulian, the IDFG and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are sharing the expense. You can’t land a helicopter in the Wilderness area, so going in there to catch wolves has to be done on foot and horseback. Radio collars are not cheap and the labor hours involved here have to be sizable, so once again I ask, who is paying for this venture?
Question number two: How many wolves are there? That’s anyone’s guess. Ask a rancher and they will tell you too many. Ask a wolf lover and they would prefer we get rid of a few humans and make more room for wolves. I was over visiting the website of the Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition. They say if you want to do the math, you can figure out how many wolves there are. They suggest not believing what the IDFG and USFWS say.
* According to USFWS wolf pack sizes average 6 wolves
* According to USFWS, USUALLY only the alpha male and female mate
* Litter size varies from 4 pups on up.
* There were initially 35 wolves introduced to Idaho from Canada in 1995.
* Wolves live up to 13 years – 2008 is thirteen years!
If you use their math and logic, they derive an estimate of 9,023 wolves by the end of 2006 using the low end of reproduction rates, etc.. The state of Idaho claims there are somewhere in the vicinity of 788 wolves.
Now, on to question number three: If there are between 788 and 9,023 wolves in Idaho and full-time Fish and Game “experts” can’t trap a wolf and the management of this predator calls for the use of hunting as the major tool for population control, does anyone else ask how this is going to work? It is my understanding that any wolf hunting will be man against beast. No dogs, etc. just man stalking a wolf.
I know there are plenty of Idaho resident hunters who will claim to be a lot smarter than an Idaho biologist and a USFWS employee but really, how many wolves can be harvested through hunting each year?
Both sides of this issue can make arguments about the effectiveness of current uses of management skills. Wolf lovers, who will never be satisfied with any number of living and breathing wolves, can claim that unless someone knows for certain exactly how many wolves there are, we shouldn’t be hunting or trapping them.
On the other side, ranchers want the wolf better managed to reduce livestock losses. Their frustration comes when they see the difficulties in hunting and trapping these animals. Their best hope is that they will be better able to shoot and kill wolves that are preying on their livestock. What they really want is slacker rules allowing for easier means to protect their property, something wolf advocates seem to care little about.
When was the last time someone actually went out into the woods and stocked a wolf and shot it? Many hunters can better answer that question by sharing their experiences hunting and trapping the wily coyote – not an easy task. A wolf, like a coyote, is a smart animal that learns quickly. They learn the tactics of the hunter and trapper and learn to avoid them.
It really becomes somewhat of a laughing matter when animal lovers are crying that man is going to kill off all the wolves again. If they would be honest with everyone, they could easily admit that that is not going to happen. Even though most believe the wolf was eradicated many decades ago, some knowledgeable of the wolf believe it was never completely done away with, only reduced to levels where humans seldom, if ever, saw them. Man has been stripped of all his tools and methods to be able to effectively kill off all the wolves. The argument that this will happen is a joke.
The animal advocates were up in arms back last winter when Gov. Butch Otter stood on the steps of the state capital and claimed he would be the first in line to buy a wolf hunting license. He also ranted that Idaho would reduce the wolf population back to its minimum sustainable numbers. Wishful thinking on his part because with little for tools to work with, Idaho will have a difficult time maintaining wolf numbers at present levels, say nothing about reducing them.
On the other hand, it is also a laughing matter to think that by opening up a limited season, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are going to be able to have any control over the growth of the wolf population. I would more liken the event to sending Gunga Din off to kill an elephant with a pea shooter.
Let’s face it, wildlife experts can’t trap a wolf and put a collar on it. Heck they can’t even round up a few head of wild elk, a couple of moose and a handful of other assorted wildlife and chase them out from behind a fence. If it is that difficult to trap one out of perhaps as many as 9,000 wolves, what effect are a handful of hunters going to have on a wolf population?
Tom Remington
