Rocky Mountain states' plans for an open-season wolf hunt in September criticised by environmentalists
Suzanne Goldenberg, guardian.co.uk 9 Jul 09;
It is a clash of civilisations as old as the colonisation of the American west – wolves v humans – and it has entered into a new and more violent phase as two Rocky Mountain states moved to allow the first open hunt in years of an animal that was once driven to extinction.
The states of Montana and Idaho are going ahead with plans for an open-season hunt against wolves in September, in which licensed members of the public can take part.
The decisions follow a ruling earlier this year by the Obama administration, widely criticised by environmentalists, to remove wolves from the list of endangered species in the Rocky Mountain states. The interior secretary, Ken Salazar, was endorsing a decision by the Bush adminstration.
Montana wildlife commissioners voted yesterday to allow hunters to kill about 75 wolves, which is about 15% of the state's population. Officials in Idaho will meet later this month to decide on their quota. But earlier plans called for hunting of up to 250 wolves.
Federal and state government biologists claim the wolf population in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho has grown so rapidly since the species was re-introduced to the region in the mid-1990s that it has become a choice between ranchers' family pets and livestock, and wolves.
"The population has been growing 22% a year. We have more wolves in more places than we ever hoped for," said Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery co-ordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. "The issue is what is the best way to manage wolves into the future now that the population is fully recovered."
He said there are about 1,650 wolves in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, and their existing habitat cannot sustain a much larger population without bringing the animals further into conflict with ranching operations.
"If you live in an urban area where your only exposure to wolves is watching them on TV and seeing them running in a national park, it is very easy to be supportive of wolves," he said. "The debate right now isn't about the biology. People think it is morally wrong to kill wolves because it reminds them of pet dogs or people because wolves live in packs like families."
But critics say the administration based its decision on science that is decades out of date, and does not take into account a growing body of evidence for the importance of protecting genetic diversity. If the wolf population dwindles too much – or if wolves survive only in isolated pockets – inbreeding would endanger their future.
"The recovery plan for wolves in the Rocky Mountains dates from the 1980s and has no reference to modern genetics," said Michael Robinson, a conservationist for the Center for Biological Diversity.
The government recovery plan for wolves in the three Rocky Mountain states envisaged a much smaller population than the current population – perhaps 300 wolves overall, Robinson said. That translates into perhaps 10 breeding pairs in each state, he said. "That is completely inadequate to avoid inbreeding and fatal genetic defects."
He argued that the government already had in place measures to protect humans from expanding wolf populations.
The administration already allows selective hunting of wolves – but only if ranchers claim their flocks are at risk. Government wildlife officials killed 265 wolves in the Rockies last year, including 21 entire wolf packs, Bangs said. In the midwest, where there are about 4,000 wolves spread across Minnesota and other states, government biologists conduct aerial culls of wolves.
