Washington Wolves Under Siege

Wendy Harris is a retiree who comments on development, mitigation and environmental impacts.

There were 55,000 head of sheep in Washington at the beginning of the year, subject to the lowest death rate among U.S. states.1 As of Aug. 26, there were 22 less. This has been attributed to predation by the Huckleberry wolf pack, which account for about 12 of the approximately 52 endangered gray wolves that have repopulated Washington. after being driven to extinction in the early 1900s.

Wolves attacking sheep is not unusual. However, the response by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) has been handled so poorly that it attracted national attention. This is due, in part, to the Department’s extermination of an entire wolf pack, the Wedge Pack, only two years earlier, in a similar part of the state, Stevens County. With regard to the current plans for the Huckleberry wolf pack, there was a troubling lack of transparency and accountability provided by WDFW regarding an announcement on Friday afternoon, Aug. 20 that it intended to engage in aerial gunning of 4 members of the Huckleberry wolf pack over the weekend. As of this date, one young female wolf has been killed, and tactics have now switched over to trapping.

Amaroq Weiss, West Coast wolf organizer with the Center for Biological Diversity, very pointedly stated that, “the department’s secretive weekend assault on this endangered wolf pack goes beyond the pale. It’s unconscionable that a public agency would take action to kill an endangered species without notifying the public. These wolves belong to the public and decisions about whether they live or die ought to be made in the clear light of day.”

The rationalizations offered by WDFW for their actions are equally troubling as they fail to recognize some very basic principles of conservation science and the behavior of predators. We were told that four of the twelve members of the wolf pack would be killed to “break the cycle of predation.” Huh? WDFW hoped that with fewer mouths to feed, the pack would return to its normal prey, such as elk, so they targeted the younger two year old wolf pups. The fact remains that sheep, left to roam canyons largely unprotected, despite being unsuited for the terrain, were quite literally “sitting ducks” for wolves, which may prefer elk meat, but not as much as they prefer an easy kill.

We were also told that “Maintaining working lands and the livestock industry is important both from the perspective of social tolerance of wolf recovery, and the overall maintenance of viable local economies and support for working lands (and the wildlife conservation benefits of those lands continuing in that status).”

I found the concept that “social tolerance” is necessary in order to protect the endangered wolf species particularly concerning. The government passes state and federal laws and citizens are expected to obey these laws. End of story. There is no special phasing in period for social acceptance. Imagine a local farmer violating his manure management plan in an impaired watershed, stating, “Gee, I knew dumping manure into the stream was illegal, but I just had not gotten socially acclimated.”

The reality here is that WDFW provides privileges to one special interest group, the livestock industry, to the detriment of the public’s interest in biodiversity and healthy ecosystems, which depends upon predators. This is hardly a surprise when the WDFW Director and the WDFW board of commissioners are composed of ranchers, farmers and hunters.

Predators play such important role in functioning ecosystems that is has been termed a “trophic cascade”. Predators control the population size of prolific prey mammals, such as rabbits, rats, and deer. This controls over-browsing or overgrazing of plant communities, allowing them to flourish and nourish a greater number of species. It also shifts how prey animals use habitat. For instance, it is well documented that the presence of wolves in Yellowstone has resulted in less elk browsing on riparian vegetation, allowing more movement and genetic exchange among other species using riparian areas as migration routes. The shift away riparian areas increases road distance, leaving more elk carcass in locations where other carnivores, such as bear, feel safe to feed.

Predators can also limit the effects of disease, since infected animals are weaker and therefore, more vulnerable to predators and thus, the most likely to be removed from the food chain. The presence of a large predator has a cascading effect on all other predators as well. For instance, the present of wolves results in fewer coyotes. Since coyotes are among the major predators on pronghorn fawns, presence of wolves, has led to higher pronghorn fawn survival.

Ecologist and writer George Wuerthner voices concern that wildlife management polices fail to consider the complex social interactions among predator groups, often resulting in policies that are counter productive to the goal of decreasing human conflicts. For instance, when killing wolves is used as a control method, the change in pack population leads to social chaos and its reduced size makes it less effective at bringing down larger wildlife, such as elk or coyotes, and therefore, more likely to attack livestock. And smaller packs are less successful at defending against the onslaught of scavengers, making it necessary to consume even more prey than before lethal reduction.

This science is in direct conflict with the WDFW’s attempt to “break the cycle of predation.” Our land is healthier, and therefore, we are healthier, when we simply allow predators to be predators. Unfortunately, WDFW policy is rarely based on science. In 2011, after a multi stakeholder group spent years developing a wolf management plan, jurisdiction over this plan was switched from the Endangered Species Division to the Game Division. It is not surprising, according to Bob Ferris, Executive Director of Cascadia Wildlands, that the Game Division instituted a lethal control program, granting themselves the authority to make decisions that so far, have proven to be far from science based. Bob speculated in a recent online interview that “their actions with the Huckleberry pack is more punishment based than science based. As if killing four wolves will tell the rest of the pack to steer clear of sheep.”

One thing is abundantly clear, with the exception of the livestock and hunting community, the lethal removal of wolves has been strongly opposed by many Washington residents. The governor’s office and WDFW have been besieged with telephone calls and letters from the public demanding a halt to harmful actions against the Huckleberry wolf Pack.

This outrage was fueled, in part, by inaccurate information provided by WDFW to the public regarding the nature and extent of non-lethal control methods employed. It appeared that the rancher was somewhat reckless in allowing a large number of sheep to graze in deep canyons that had been frequented by wolves. Then it was revealed that the rancher was the president of the Cattle Producers of Washington and a family member was on the board of the Steven’s County Cattlemen’s Association, both widely known to be anti-wolf organizations.

Last year, conservation organizations filed a petition with the WDFW Director for greater accountability, transparency and documentation that obligations to engage in non lethal methods were employed prior to killing wolves. The petition was denied. Now, an appeal has been filed with Governor Jay Inslee. The items requested in the appeal would make Washington’s wolf management plan on par with the plans and policies implemented in other western states. The fate of Washington’s wolves, and of the 11 remaining members of the Huckleberry pack, currently rests with the governor.

Footnote

1. http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/SheeGoat//2010s/2014/SheeGoat-01-31-2014.txt. Sheep and Goats, ISSN: 1949-1611, Released January 31, 2014, by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Agricultural Statistics Board, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).