Hunter Hired by Washington State Kills 1 Wolf
One wolf has been killed by a hunter hired by Washington, a state where the animals have been regaining a foothold in recent years after being hunted to extinction in the early 1900s.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife said hunters were back out Monday, targeting three more wolves in the Huckleberry Pack to protect sheep in rural southern Stevens County.
Wolves from the Huckleberry Pack this month have killed 22 sheep and injured three more, despite preventive measures, the agency said.
Environmental groups oppose the hunt.
Wolves began moving back into the state in the early 2000s from Idaho and Canada, and they are protected under state and federal law. The state exterminated an entire pack of wolves to protect a herd of cattle in mountainous Stevens County in 2012.
The most recent hunt is designed to protect a herd of 1,800 sheep owned by Dave Dashiell of the town of Hunters, located about 50 miles northwest of Spokane.
“Unfortunately, lethal action is clearly warranted in this case,” said Nate Pamplin, the agency’s wildlife program director, on Monday. “Before we considered reducing the size of the pack, our staff and Mr. Dashiell used a wide range of preventive measures to keep the wolves from preying on the pack.”
Non-lethal activities are continuing, he said.
Amaroq Weiss of the Center for Biological Diversity said the hunt proves the state prefers to kill the wolves.
“The department has never been interested in making sure sufficient non-lethal conflict measures are in place,” Weiss said. “They have wanted to gun for these wolves from the start.”
The state could have used rubber bullets or paintball rounds to harass the wolves, but instead resorted immediately to airborne snipers, she said.
On Saturday, crews found five dead and three injured sheep that were attacked Friday night or early Saturday morning, the agency said. Investigators confirmed that wolves were responsible for all of the attacks.
On Saturday evening, a marksman contracted by the Department of Fish and Wildlife killed one member of the pack from a helicopter. The agency has authorized killing three more wolves from the pack, which contains about a dozen wolves.
Wolves were driven to extinction in Washington in the early 1900s by a government-sponsored eradication program on behalf of the livestock industry. Their population has grown to at least 52 wolves today.
Some ranchers and hunters vehemently oppose the return of the wolves, saying the animals prey on livestock and deer populations.
[Deer populations? Excuse me, but yes, wolves do prey on deer–always have–long before humans started claiming them all as a “game” species. Hunters claim to be keeping the deer from overpopulating and starving, but at the same time they get upset if a natural predator returns to its historic place and does part of the job for them.]
The current situation in Stevens County meets all of the agency’s conditions for lethal removal, Pamplin said. That includes repeated wolf kills; the failure of non-lethal methods to stop the predation; the attacks are likely to continue; and the livestock owner has not done anything to attract the wolves.
[It seems to me, 1,800 sheep in one place should be considered doing something to attract wolves (not to mention cougars and coyotes). The obvious non-lethal answer: phase out the sheep.]
more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hunter-hired-washington-state-kills-wolf-25118910
Exposing the Big Game 
Please check out “Eastern Washington Wolves” on Facebook for up to date coverage on this slaughter…..(Very wolf savvy person behind this page)
https://www.facebook.com/easternwashingtonwolves/timeline
Thanks for the link.
Am I not correct that these sheep are on leased public land?! We are nlt going to have balanced ecology with wolves or grizzlies if we do not halt this continuing encroachment. Ranchers, maybe the most entitled thinkers on earth continue eating up pubic land for a pittance and have the gull to complain about wildlife. Lethal management on public land should be prohibited.
Reblogged this on GarryRogers Nature Conservation and commented:
This is embarassing. We need wolves much more than we need cattle.
Exactly. Throw the ranchers off of OUR public lands
well said.
Throw those ranchers OFF of the public land. IT’S OUR LAND TOO. Wolves are better on the land then they are. Get them off!
Reblogged this on SAVE Americas Wolves.
Encroachment Situations: Re: The Huckleberry Wolf Pack in WA and their management (WDFW), and 1800 sheep on rugged mountainous land, sheep depredation and decision for lethal management action on public land: This situation amounts to wolf baiting and gross encroachment. There is very low likelihood that these sheep, this many on rugged, mountainous public land can be managed without essentially baiting wolves by their very presence. We are not going to have balanced ecology with wolves or grizzlies if we do not halt this continuing encroachment. Ranchers, maybe the most entitled thinkers on earth continue eating up public land for a pittance and have the gall to complain about wildlife. Lethal management on public land should be prohibited. There is an unholy alliance of the traditional anti-wolf crowd of hunters and ranchers and state wildlife agencies, groups parochial and irrationally biased and actually ignorant, their heads full of folklore and myth and lies about ungulate predation and stock predation, and when it comes to balanced ecology, wolf and other predator management. There are 23,000 leases on public land in 16 western states for grazing on national forests lands and BLM land. Even when the public opinion is taken and it is overwhelmingly in the favor of wolf presence, nonlethal management, wildlife agencies and politicians let a minority crowd of ranchers-hunters-parochials have their anti-wolf way, which shows that they are of the same ilk and the need to do something about major reformation of state and federal wildlife agencies.
Thank you, Roger for your comments. This is why no wolves or other native animals will be safe until all livestock is removed from Public Lands. If “wildlife” groups (and individuals who purport to care about wolves & other wildlife) spent as much time working to rid public lands of ranchers, as they do trying to appease them, wildlife might have a chance.
http://www.foranimals.org
Excellent point.
Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt for a minute that a small group of thoughtful, dedicated people can change the world. Perhaps those of us who care on this blog, should start our own campaign with No Compromise, No Colloration: dedicating ourselves to Abolishing All Public Lands Ranching. Shall We? Can We? Should We? Ask the wolves, ask the coyotes, ask the mountain lions, ask the bobcat and the lynx. The fight will be difficult, but not impossible–if we have the guts to take this cruel, destructive industry on with endless pressure and persistence. No ranching on Public Lands–period. Well, Folks?
I did contract work for the U.S. Forest Service taking tree growth and survival surveys. I recorded a lot of livestock damage to seedlings, (since it’s forest land and not a pasture the cows have to eat and trample whatever’s out there) but the Forest Service always wanted me to mark it as deer damage instead, so as not to make the ranchers (and their cows) look bad. And the FS employees who inspected my surveys were mainstream environmentalists.
Private land, not public.
Thanks for clearing that up. (The wolves of course belong to the public.) Now that a wolf has been killed and helicopter hazing and your non-lethal methods seem to be keeping the wolves of the Huckleberry pack at bay, any chance you are satisfied enough to call trappers?
What is happening on private lands, is happening even more so on National Forests, BLM, wilderness, wildlife refuges and state lands. Native wild animals have been displaced by cattle and sheep, at taxpayer expense. It is time to rid our public lands of these moochers. If they cannot make it on private lands, too bad. As Climate Change worsens, the public lands will be the last refuge, sanctuary for native animals. There is no room for compromise with the destructive livestock enterprises–they want it all. Let’s get serious about this scourge on the land–there will be no peace or justice for wolves, coyotes or any other native animals, until this industry is abolished from All Public Lands.
http://www.foranimals.org