[Good news for those who believe that wolves should be responsibly “managed”…]
Zack Strong
Last week, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) announced that it would be proposing a “Wolf Conservation Stamp” at its May 22 meeting that, if approved, would be available for purchase by the public later this year. This is a truly groundbreaking proposal because it creates, for the first time, an opportunity for anyone to contribute funding to FWP that would only be spent on efforts to promote the conservation and responsible management of wolves and other wildlife in the state.
FWP, and wildlife management agencies around the country, are struggling to find ways to increase and diversify their revenue bases. The Wolf Conservation Stamp presents the perfect opportunity for non-hunters, non-trappers, “non-consumptive” wildlife watchers and recreationists to help support FWP while contributing to wolf and wildlife conservation in Montana – and by doing so, to add their voices and perspectives to the development of wildlife policies in our state.
Here’s how it would work. After covering the costs of administering the program, revenue generated by the purchase of wolf stamps would be equally allocated and spent in three ways:
- One third would be made available to Montana livestock owners to help pay for nonlethal ways to protect their animals from predators like wolves, bears and mountain lions. By keeping both livestock and large carnivores alive, this would be a good deal for ranchers and wolves alike.
- Another third would be used to pay for studying wolves, educating the public about wolves, and improving or purchasing suitable wolf habitat. This would benefit everyone, by increasing our knowledge about wolves, ensuring the public has access to accurate information about wolves, and securing habitat in which wolves and other wildlife can thrive.
- The final third would be used to hire additional FWP wardens—essentially, wildlife police—in occupied wolf habitat. This would enhance enforcement of our wildlife management laws as they pertain to wolves and other species, and reduce incidents of poaching, trespassing, wasting animals, unlawful use of or failure to check traps, and other violations. This is something every Montanan and every American—hunters, non-hunters, property owners, public land users, agency officials, recreationists, and wildlife enthusiasts alike—should encourage and support.
And what’s more, the wolf stamp would be available to everyone. Just as FWP allows non-residents to purchase and use hunting and trapping licenses in the state, the wolf stamp would be available to any wildlife or conservation supporter, anywhere in the country.
If you care about wildlife in the northern Rocky Mountains, including wolves, we believe this is truly a chance to make a difference. Please spread the word about this proposal. And please thank FWP for its leadership and willingness to create this unique opportunity to directly support and contribute to conservation and sound wildlife management in Montana.
Exposing the Big Game 
Great idea. I’m all for saving wolves, but why should ranchers get 1/3 of stamp sales when wolves kill less than 1% of herds? Yes, if a rancher loses a cow/calf/sheep to a wolve, then helping them is in order. More cows are lost to respiratory ailments, birthing and wild dogs than wolves. This is a start, of course, but ranchers are again getting more than they deserve for their loses. Why can’t they keep their herds fenced in and get a few guard dogs?
Sorry for the typos, wish there was an edit button.
Montana (FWP) is proposing a Wolf Stamp that would reportedly aid in rancher reimbursement for predation and aid education and nonlethal management and available to conservationists and hunters; a stamp that could defuse the perceived wolf problem. That would be wonderful if a Wolf Stamp really would mean wolf conservation efforts in a wolf massacre state such as Montana and the state wildlife agency (MT FWP) would move toward nonlethal management: I’ll buy a stamp! But so far MT FWP has shown no conservation mentality or real understanding of wolves and continues to buy into sportsmen and rancher and yokel mythology about wolves. Wolves killed 55 cattle last year (2013) in Montana and 65 the year before and 67 the year before that. It is pretty constant predation rate of 0.002% of 2.6 million head for which the ran rancher is already reimbursed; and many ranchers are encroaching on wilderness with public land leases (772 on national forests and 3776 on BLM land. Elk numbers are at or above target levels per MT FWP (March-April Issue Montana Outdoors) in all parts of the state, even wolf country. Elk numbers are actually up 37% in MT since the reintroduction of wolves (1995-1996) and comeback on their own. Wyoming has had 11 years in a row of record elk harvests. Elk numbers are up in all states tracked by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in western states. Wolves hardly need management at all. They will regulate their own numbers per a recent study by The Wolf Project, Oxford University and other. They will regulate their own numbers even if they have plenty of prey because they regulate for elbow room among themselves. They do not like other packs too close to their families. The primary killers of wolves is other wolves; they are a lot like us humans. This is all common sense obervation, if you have any, in observation of Yellowstone wolves which reached at peak in 2004-2005 when they were around 174-175 and now are at plus or minus 85 without “management”. So far MT FWP has shown a mentality of a “need to drive down the wolf numbers” which falls in line with sportsmen-rancher-yokel mentalities. So far, Oregon is the wolf management state model insisting on nonlethal management as a priority and killing only chronic offending wolves or packs. Washington has generally shown more tolerance and has not bought in so much to the wolf hysteria of MT and WY and some mid western states dominated by conservative (wing nut conservative) legislatures. CA will likely show good tolerance. Could MT FWP educate the public and the rancher-sportsmen-yokel, wing nut conservative anti-predator legislature?! when they have shown that they are not educated themselves? I doubt it; but maybe they are moving in the right direction with a wolf stamp. Maybe a stamp idea could catch on with stamps for grizzlies, lions, coyotes, wolverines and other species including the sports killing targeted game species. It would be a way for conservationists to buy into the wildlife and offset the sportsmen entitlement thinking engendered by the Pittman-Robertson Act wherein excise taxes paid by hunters and fishermen are sent back to the states. Actually wildlife viewing brings in far, far more money to the states than wildlife killing. Maybe a Wolf Stamp should be called a Wolf Conservation Stamp if FWP really means conservation and not wolf bounty stamp, the latter their mentality so far. Maybe a Wolf Stamp bought by the general public within and outside the wolf massacre states would show the degree of support for wolves. There is general support that exceeds the general hostility. Maybe a Wolf “Conservation” Stamp would show ranchers the degree they are going against public opinion not that public opinion seems to matter much to them, i.e their treatment of bison and wild horses and wolves and lions and coyotes. The idea of a Wolf Stamp may feed into the idea they need to be driven down in numbers because of the myths of elk and other ungulate predation and livestock predation and it is expensive to do this “necessary” lethal “management”. Governor Butch Otter of ID has sold this BS idea of the need for a $400,000.00 “wolf management” (read killing) fund to that wing nut state legislature. There would not be som much costs if the wolf massacre states would stop the unnecessary “management” pushed by ranchers and sportsmen and yokels and so far bought into by the wolf massacre states wildlife agencies and state legislatures. So, is a Wolf Stamp movement toward conservation and tolerance and nonlethal management or is really a wolf bounty stamp in disguise. I’ll buy one if it is really about conservation. We’ll see as the debate unfolds.
I’d buy one right off if 100% went toward protecting wolves around Yellowstone National Park and ending wolf trophy hunting and trapping there. Might buy one later if time proves the $ is not abused, i.e., channeled into pro-wolf hunting propaganda, etc.
https://www.facebook.com/WolfYellowstone
https://www.causes.com/campaigns/76500-protect-the-wolves-of-yellowstone-national-park
Let’s do it!
I have wondered the same thing, Roger. I can’t trust ’em. I’d buy them in a flash if I thought they were a good thing but I am not feeling the love yet.
Trust the Montana wildlife killing agency? Are you high?