Here is part of an article entitled “Tough on Wolves” in Spokane’s Inlander: http://www.inlander.com/spokane/tough-on-wolves/Content?oid=2256023
If the education budget is in JFAC’s custody and Medicaid expansion is off the table, what hot topics will the legislators address? My prediction: Guns and wolves will attract a fair amount of attention.
According to the Fish and Game Department, Idaho now has around 680 wolves throughout the state. In 2009, wolf hunting became legal, and the governor announced he wanted to shoot the first one.
Idaho and its predators caught the attention of the New York Times this past December, when a planned coyote and wolf shoot-to-kill derby was scheduled in Salmon. Organizers offered $2,000 to the participants who killed the most animals. The event fell flat when no wolves and only 21 coyotes were bagged by the 230 registered contestants.
Not everyone is happy with Governor Otter’s $2 million budget request to establish a special wolf control board, separate from the Department of Fish and Game. “Control” is another word for “kill.” I, for one, would rather put the $2 million in the public school pot.
The Fish and Game Commission is already actively “controlling” wolves by hiring a lone gunman to eliminate wolves in the 2,367-acre Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. The Idaho Conservation League has been remarkably tolerant on the wolf issue. But recently its Executive Director Rick Johnson asked, ” If they can’t live in the backcountry, where can they live?”
When 35 gray wolves were released in central Idaho in 1995, schoolchildren gave them names and followed their radio-relayed paths through the wilderness. As they thrived, their names disappeared and the wolves became numbers. As they multiplied, they became pests. Wolves, like coyotes, have always been pests to Idaho ranchers — and to the Idaho legislature.
It’s refreshing to learn about Oregon’s approach to a burgeoning wolf population. Oregon has developed a policy that calls for sheep and cattle outfits to use nonlethal methods to prevent wolves from snatching baby animals, especially lambs. These include simple measures such as keeping herds away from known wolf dens, employing loud noise alarms and scare devices, enlisting protective dogs and human herders, constructing barriers and building fences. Such items add costs but also avoid conflicts.
Consumers could be wooed to pay a little bit more for lambs raised in a certified, nonlethal-to-wolves environment.
The questions the reintroduction of wolves into Idaho has presented are worth pondering. Do we believe game hunting should include animals that we don’t plan to eat? Is there room in our hearts, minds and geographical space for predators other than our own species?
Exposing the Big Game 
With all the problems Idaho has, as in most states, they continue to froth at the mouth over guns and wolves? Utah has a magic account too that was devoted to wolf control (they have none) to the tune of $300,000/yr and yet nobody can account for where the funds went ($600,000)! Now Idaho wants $2 million from the budget for wolf control.
I don’t know why the citizens of these states don’t throw these jackasses out of office! Fool me once, shame on them – fool me twice…..
We can be mad at Idaho for what they are doing to wolves but the ones we need to blame for making this horror possible is none other than Barack Obama and our Senators!
“Wolves, like coyotes, have always been pests to Idaho ranchers” quote from the above article. Why are people still so shocked by what is going on in these rancher/hunter dominated states? They control the political agenda, which makes the laws–or lack thereof.The native animals always lose–it was set up that way decades ago, and continues today.
Until people who want to stop this slaughter in The West, quit compromising with these industries, this slaughter will only get worse. Even in Oregon, the so-called “non-lethal methods” put the burden upon the native wildlife, and the methods are not healthy for wildlife, causing them great distress. It is still an arrogant form of human “control” and manipulation. That is what “management” is all about. Why are we still allowing the ranching industry to dominate our public lands? The native wildlife need these lands, free of livestock, in order to help them survive, if possible, as climate change worsens. Why can’t we understand this??
http://www.foranimals.org
I am not surprised when outfitters, hunters, ranchers behavior is driven by myth, folklore, lies, especially when it comes to wolves; and I am not really surprised when state wildlife and even federal wildlife management agencies go along with their nonsense (lies, folklore and myths); and I am not surprised when red state governments go along with the nonsense of the same. It is an American tradition: the killing of wildlife, the disruption of wilderness ecologies, the hate and bias against predators and wanting to eliminate and/or marginalize predators based on lies, myth and folklore. Our forbears marched across the country killing everything in sight and that tradition continues checked somewhat by seasonal licensed hunting, quotas, and “fair chase” ethics. One of the myths, lies and folklore with regard to the wolf is that they have a significant impact on game herds, especially elk. Elk numbers are way up in every state wherein there are wolves. There are too few wolves and too many elk for any such impact. Besides, nature has worked out a balancing act with predators and wolves millenniums before our forbears and nature does it right making the game herds healthier and the ecologies. Man does not have a healthy effect on the wilderness. Another myth is wolf negative impact on livestock. Wolves kill way less than 1%. In the case of wilderness areas such as the Frank Church-River of No Return and the Bob Marshall and national forest and the wildlife therein, such areas should be maintained for the interests of healthy wildlife ecology and the general public, not a handful of misguided, misinformed, ignorant, bigoted few. When states, such as ID, engage in wolf jihad in wilderness areas, it is gross neglect of responsibility to protect and keep intact such areas for wildlife, posterity, and the current larger public interests and preference. It clearly shows why such “management” should not be in the hands of the states, especially some states, such as ID, WY, MT, and WI.
Thanks, Roger, for your very excellent comments. Until we understand who the enemies are, and take them on as such, there will be no peace or justice for wild animals. http://www.foranimals.org
Yes, elk and other ungulates are migratory, and wolves evolved to follow them. They were not designed to and cannot be contained only in areas designated by humans, or in areas where they aren’t suited and never naturally evolved to begin with. We are setting them on a (relatively) slow course to extinction. Once protection of these animals is in states’ hands. We’ll have no way of knowing just how many of these animals actually do exist. We’ll keep growing and encroaching.