by Michael Jamison of the Missoulian
KALISPELL – When a Columbia Falls man pleaded guilty last week to poaching two wolves just outside Glacier National Park, many thought the area’s wolf-hunting quota would be adjusted accordingly.
They were wrong.
“Looking at Idaho might have been somewhat constructive,” said Louisa Wilcox of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “They had a poaching incident there, and they cut the quota in response.”
But state wildlife officials say Montana and Idaho came at their quota counts in different ways, and in Montana those poached wolves already were considered dead, long before they were killed.
Caroline Sime, Montana’s wolf program coordinator, said Montana researchers have tracked wolves for more than two decades. They know, roughly, how many wolves are poached each year, and how many are hit by cars or are killed by wildlife managers in livestock conflicts.
On average, Sime said, people kill between 5 percent and 8 percent of Montana’s wolf population each year. Armed with that data, and with total wolf numbers – births, deaths, dispersals, arrivals – wildlife managers used computer models to “create a range of scenarios” that simulated the state’s first-ever fair chase wolf hunt.
At one end of the modeling spectrum was a quota of about 200, and at the other was no hunt at all. They landed, finally, somewhere in the middle – a statewide hunting quota of 75. That’s about 15 percent of the state’s estimated 550 wolves.
The two wolves poached by the Columbia Falls man, as well as another poached in the same general area, had already been accounted for in Montana’s “biologically conservative” system, Sime said.
In Idaho, by contrast, state wildlife officials figured out how many wolves they had, and how many they could afford to lose. They then waited until the fall hunting season, subtracted the number already known dead that year, and set the quota at “whatever was left.”
Under that system, Sime said, it makes sense to adjust for poached animals.
The different approaches – and Wilcox’s skepticism – point to how many unknowns have dogged this season’s inaugural wolf hunt.
Even Sime said she was somewhat surprised to learn how vulnerable the animals would be to hunters. Some hunting zones were closed early, as regional quotas were quickly filled.
“We weren’t exactly sure how this would go,” she said, “and we’ve acknowledged that uncertainty.”
Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said some amount of learning curve was to be expected, although for his part, “I personally thought the hunters might be even more successful than they have been.”
He predicts hunters in Montana and Idaho will take a combined 150 or so wolves this season.
In both places, Bangs said, “the approach the states have taken is really smart. Everybody had an opinion, but nobody really knew how vulnerable the wolves would be.”
And so the states, he said, “went with very conservative numbers. At these quota numbers, they can’t possibly impact the overall wolf population.”
Mike Jimenez, who oversees wolf recovery in Wyoming, agrees – and notes that historic data out of Canada suggested wolves would prove far harder to hunt.
Wilcox, however, insists there was ample evidence, from both sides of the border, to suggest that quotas would quickly be filled.
She and her conservation group oppose the wolf hunt in general, and in particular argue against several specific elements. She wants large no-hunt buffer zones around Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, and protected backcountry corridors for wolves to move from place to place, ensuring genetic diversity.
National parks, she said, are unique not only in terms of secure habitat but also for scientific study into the species. Some study animals already have been killed outside the parks.
Wilcox also wants the hunts coupled with a commitment for money that can be used to help resolve livestock conflicts.
And while state officials have made no move toward buffer zones, they are talking about possibly creating “sub-quotas” for “sub-units,” perhaps pushing the hunt away from parks and closer to front-country ranchland where conflicts more often occur.
“The quota system,” Sime said, “is very flexible and responsive.” The models that built it are constantly updated, “and we can make changes right up to the last minute, if something surprising happens.”
Something like poaching. Wilcox, for one, thinks more poaching is inevitable now that wolves no longer enjoy the protections of the Endangered Species Act, and are instead considered fair game.
Sime, however, thinks the open season might actually result in less poaching than was experienced in years past.
“But nobody really knows,” Sime said. “I believe we should let the data answer that question.”
Of course, the court might answer it first. Although a federal judge allowed this year’s hunt to continue despite ongoing legal wrangling, he still has to rule on a case that would place wolves back on the endangered species list.
“All of this discussion,” Wilcox said, “could very well be moot before next year’s hunting season.”
