FWS Proposing Lowered Wolf Targets
To Speed Up Delisting
By David Gaillard
In late-breaking news this September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery Coordinator Ed Bangs announced a major weakening of its wolf recovery targets. Bangs told the Kalispell [Montana] Daily Interlake that the agency may consider wolves in the northern Rockies "recovered" once their numbers have reached 30 breeding pairs across all three populations (Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, central Idaho, and northwestern Montana), instead of the current recovery plan target of 10 breeding pairs in each of the three populations.
This change in wolf recovery targets would only make sense biologically if there were free interchange between the three wolf populations in the northern Rockies region. While PCA shares the goal of treating the three wolf populations as one connected "meta" population, the reality is that the needed interchange between these populations is not yet happening on the ground. Until this does happen, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has absolutely no justification for declaring that any wolf population fewer than 10 breeding pairs is recovered.
Instead, it is clear that this proposal has everything to do with removing the wolves’ Endangered Species Act protections as soon as possible. Considering that these protections cannot be removed until wolves in the region reach the FWS’s recovery goals of 10 breeding pairs in each of the three populations for three consecutive years, this new proposal explains how FWS plans to meet itscurrent mantra: "Wolves will be delisted in the northern Rockies by 2002." FWS has consistently failed to reach its recovery goal of 10 breeding pairs in northwestern Montana, even though wolves first recolonized the area more than a decade ago. Rather than implementing some added protections to prevent more wolf mortalities, FWS has opted to simply "move the recovery goalposts in mid-game," under the ridiculous claim that it is successfully meeting the intent of the wolf recovery targets, if not the targets themselves.
Further, if enacted, this policy would essentially change the recovery plan targets from minimum thresholds for recovery to desired wolf numbers. Under the current recovery goal target of 10 breeding pairs per population, chances are we would have more wolves in some populations than others, so to achieve the minimum target would result in more than 30 pairs of wolves in the northern Rockies. That would give us added assurance that we are not managing wolves right on the edge of extinction. Not so with the new proposal, in which wolves are declared recovered and federal protections dropped as soon as just 30 pairs are reached for three years. This would mean wolves would be managed on the brink of re-extirpation, and the innumerable ecological and social benefits of wolves would be limited to Yellowstone National Park and select other areas in the northern Rockies where we allow a few token wolves to live.
Also, what’s to prevent officials from abandoning their original charge to restore wolves across the northern Rockies, and instead limiting wolves to Yellowstone and some areas of remote wilderness in Idaho where it is most politically expedient to have wolves? When faced with this question, apparently FWS expects that the three states (Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming) will divide the "burden" of wolf recovery equally, and thus the wolves will remain more or less evenly distributed across the three populations. Yet, knowing how state politics operate here, it seems FWS is suddenly risking our precious and hard-won wolf recovery program in the uncertain and volatile arena of state politics.
Finally, Bangs mentioned we can expect a proposal to downlist the northwestern Montana wolf population this fall. This would change their status from endangered to threatened. As mentioned above, this population is not progressing well toward recovery, but rather than address the problems limiting wolf numbers, FWS is tinkering with the recovery targets. All this because the FWS is determined to meet its self-imposed and politically motivated deadline for delisting these wolves, and claim wolf recovery in the northern Rockies as an ESA success story. PCA will continue working to make sure the wolf recovery program in the northern Rockies is driven by science, and not politics.
Still More Challenges Lie Ahead For Wolves
Above and beyond resolving the legal deficiencies of the wolf reintroduction program and the dispute over what defines a recovered wolf population, there is increasing on-the-ground evidence that despite the tremendous progress made to date, big challenges lie ahead for wolves in the northern Rockies.
Predator Conservation Alliance did some research in advance of the July Federal Appeals Court hearing, and found that by the close of 1998, three-quarters of all human-caused mortalities of the Yellowstone wolves (22 of 29) occurred outside of Yellowstone National Park, even though the wolves have spent the majority of their lives within the Park’s borders. Half of those wolves were killed because they preyed on livestock, while the other half were illegally shot or died in Federal "Wildlife Services" traps set for coyotes. As our attorney Doug Honnold put it, "Wolf reintroduction has been a tremendous biological success within Yellowstone, but outside the Park wolves have had a hard time surviving. It’s time to move beyond photo-ops and enter the next phase of wolf recovery to protect wolves when they leave Yellowstone."
Cows Over Wolves, Even in a National Park?
A recent example of the many challenges wolves face outside of Yellowstone National Park comes from Grand Teton National Park. In July, PCA co-signed a 60-Day Notice of Intent to Sue against Grand Teton National Park for a management decision that favored domestic cattle over wolves, even within a national park. The "Teton Pair" were the first wolves to den in Grand Teton National Park in 50 years when they whelped five pups this June. Shortly thereafter, the alpha male was struck and killed by a vehicle on a park highway, leaving the lone female to hunt and care for her pups on her own. To make matters worse, the National Park Service failed to prevent —— even temporarily —— 1,000 cow-calf pairs from being placed onto a grazing allotment right on the doorstep of the wolf den, to aid this fledgling pack in its first year of survival. Grazing is allowed in Grand Teton National Park due to a clause written when the park was established, which the National Park Service has extended in recent years. "It’s asking for trouble, like leaving picnic baskets unattended in a campground. If you or I do that, the Park Service writes us a ticket," said Michael Scott of Greater Yellowstone Coalition, who co-signed the notice. Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance also signed the notice.
For a complete account of northern Rockies wolf recovery, please give call us for a copy of our recent wolf report, "At a Crossroads, The Wolf and its Place in the Northern Rockies."
