Wyoming filed an emergency rule Wednesday with the Secretary of State’s Office, hoping to still begin its wolf hunting season Oct. 1.
The move came a day after a Washington, D.C., judge placed wolves back on the endangered species list, which immediately stopped all wolf hunting in Wyoming.
The emergency regulation would place a Wyoming Game and Fish Commission wolf management plan into effect in an attempt to address the judge’s concerns.
There are no guarantees it will work, said Brian Nesvik, head of the wildlife division of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
A coalition of conservation groups argued three points in a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2012. They said Wyoming’s plan did not ensure a viable population of wolves, that there was not enough genetic exchange with other populations and that the gray wolf is still endangered in some of its range.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote in her ruling that while wolves had recovered with sufficient genetic exchange, Wyoming’s plan to have a viable population was not binding.
“It’s just another page in the saga of this whole issue,” said Budd Betts, owner of Absaroka Ranch, a guest ranch and outfitting business near Dubois. “I thought this very well could have happened. This is going to be a recipe for an exploding population.”
At issue in the judge’s ruling is Wyoming’s promise to maintain more than the required 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs outside the national parks, said Nesvik.
Wyoming put an addendum in its management plan that it would maintain a buffer of wolves above the required number. It did not specify how many or make the buffer binding by law.
The emergency rule the state filed Wednesday changes that addendum and turns it into a regulation, Nesvik said.
“This is a formality is all it is,” he said. “Two-thirds of this decision affirmed the merits of Wyoming’s wolf management plan.”
Gov. Matt Mead signed the emergency rule Wednesday, he said.
Wyoming needs to do more than add a regulation to its plan resolving the buffer to assure wolves’ continued survival in the state, said Mike Senatore, vice president of conservation law and general counsel for Defenders of Wildlife, one of the groups involved in the lawsuit.
“What we hope Wyoming does is they go back and put in place a plan that will actually ensure the long-term recovery and survival of wolves in the state,” he said. “We continue to have major problems with the two-tiered status of wolves in the state.”
Wyoming has a hunting season on wolves in the northwest corner, but outside the area they can be shot on sight in what is called the predator zone. Senatore would like to see the predator zone eliminated or greatly restricted, he said.
Nesvik believes the plan Wyoming implemented is adequate to maintain the required number of wolves. Wyoming had at least 178 wolves and 15 breeding pairs in its trophy management area at the end of hunting season in 2013.
That number does not include wolves living in Yellowstone National Park, the Wind River Indian Reservation or the predator zone.
About 85 percent of the state’s wolf population is in the trophy management area. Nesvik did not have an estimate for the number of wolves in the rest of the state.
In 2012, 42 wolves were killed in the trophy area, and 25 were hunted in the rest of the state, according to Game and Fish. In 2013, 24 wolves were killed in the trophy area and 39 in the rest of the state. Hunters did not kill the quota of wolves allowed during either hunting season.
Wyoming’s attorney general will work with attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice to bring the case before the judge again.
In the meantime, no more wolf licenses will be sold. The department is working on a system to refund money to the hundreds of hunters who already purchased a 2014 license.
Exposing the Big Game 
Wyoming put an addendum in its management plan that it would maintain a buffer of wolves above the required number. It did not specify how many or make the buffer binding by law.
I guess they could promise 101.
How much proof does USFWS need to prove that wolves should not be delisted? Wyoming had them classified as varmints in 80% of the state. Montana’s new rules allow ranchers to shoot any wolf they see as “threatening”, which means any wolf they see year around, on top of extended trapping and hunting seasons. Idaho was having wolf and coyote contests for cash and hired a hunter to kill a couple of packs arguing that it is in defense of elk herds, and proposes wolf baiting to kill more wolves for sportsmen and elk farming in the wilderness. Wisconsin was using dogs. MT-WY-ID-WI are obviously marginalizing this apex predator which is not good ecology for trophic cascade effects; while hunters (sports killing) and ranchers and these state wildlife agencies have unhealthy effects on ecology. We are rapidly getting back to the 1800’s with wolf massacring states. Wolf management–they do not need general management, should not be by states. The states mentioned are too hostile, biased. colloquial in attitudes and controlled by historic hostile elements. They are promoting two myths despite contrary evidence: Wolves do not kill too many elk and their impact on cattle is less than 0.002%. These states are run by rancher and hunter folklore, myths and lies and their ilk in the state wildlife agencies and legislatures, with so far the only exception being OR and somewhat WA. OR is the model wolf management state, allowing the killing of only chronic offenders, not general wolf killing, and requiring that nonlethal management be in place and tried. The throwback (1800’s) wolf massacre states are mismanaging wolves.
References:
Landers,Rich, “Court reinstates endangered status for Wyoming wolves,” The Spokesman-Review. 23 September 2014.
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/montana-fwp-approves-killing-of-100-wolves-per-year-by-landowners/
http://missoulian.com/news/local/updated-idaho-proposes-wolf-baiting-to-protect-elk-herds/article_748230ce-94cc-11e3-8053-001a4bcf887a.html
Click to access infographic-wolves_earthjustice.pdf
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/one-million-protest-stripping-wolves-of-endangered-listing/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/idaho-wolf-and-coyote-derby-hunters-shoot-themselves-in-the-collective-foot-have-to-have-it-amputated/
http://missoulian.com/news/local/idaho-group-sponsors-youth-wolf-coyote-derby/article_de89fb6e-6781-11e3-9a45-0019bb2963f4.html
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/oregon-panel-oks-last-resort-wolf-killing-rule/
A federal judge just ruled, September 23, 2014, that Wyoming wolves have to be re-listed and Wyoming must come up with a conservation plan which is not a wolf killing plan and that hunting is ceased immediately. He stated that Wyoming is too hostile toward wolves to manage them. The same can be said of Montana and Idaho and Wisconsin and elsewhere. These wolf jihad states should be relieved of wolf management indefinitely because they are run by traditional wolf hating elements. Wyoming had wolves classified as varmints and eligible for shoot on sight and allowed only a narrow corridor outside Yellowstone where they could exist and even there hunted in season. In Montana last year (2013) “sportsmen” got 5 wolves for one $19.00 ticket. Since then landowners have been given permission to kill up to 100 “threatening” wolves, which really amounts to an open season year around for landowners and their designated “agents”. This year there are no quotas for any areas except outside Yellowstone and Glacier. Idaho intends to get their wolf numbers down to as little as 150. Who was it, Ed Bangs (?), that pulled that out of their arse for number of wolves as target numbers for delisting, 150, 30 breeding pairs. ID, MT, WY can easily support 700 wolves. Actually, the wolf numbers seem stabilized in in the 600’s in MT and ID, but both states want much more killing. But these states, sportsmen and yokels have latched onto those numbers as a rationale for liberal kill policies. Wolves will manage their own populations relative to wolf pack elbow room and prey. General killing called “management” is asinine. The hunting, trapping season starts in Montana in September and goes to February 2015. Matters for wolves seem to be getting worse each year with the traditional enemies of ranchers, sportsmen, and yokels with their folklore, lies and myths and parochial ignorance, mostly about elk predation and stock predation, wolves as threatening, wanton killing of wolves, wolf size (giant, alien, Canadian wolf), and degree of wolf predation, numbers of wolves. State management of wolves is wolf jihad, not science, a hunter-rancher-wildlife agency led war on wildlife.
Wolf Myths, Lies and Folklore:
My gym is a rich source of rancher and hunter folklore, lies and myth. It riles me but it is rich in BS. I live in Great Falls Montana, need I say almost pure colloquial myth, lies and folklore? It is very, very “red” here. Anytime I bring up the subject of wolves or over hear ambient colloquial conversations, I run up against one or more of the following myths, lies, folklore:
-Political Management of the Wolf
Congress did not debate delisting the wolf. A rider was attached to a defense appropriation bill (April 2011) put there by Mike Simpson of ID and Jon Tester of MT and sneaked by congress, the American people, the press, and conservationists. It was terrible precedent of over riding the ESA by politics and of wildlife management by politics. Newspapers, the media often reports that congress delisted wolves, in the northwest and midwest, leaving the false impression that there was an at large congressional review and discussion. A rider is a sleazy way for a minority group to get a questionable piece of legislation past congressional debate and discussion and from American public and news awareness that something is passing. The rider should not be allowed for any piece of legislation. This tactic may have opened the door to parochial and often republican political management of wildlife.
-Wolves are killing herds of cattle. No, wolves kill about 0.002 % of cattle in MT, 65 of 2.6 million in 2012, 55 in 2013. Many ranchers of cattle and sheep are encroaching on wolf populated public land and in general wilderness with 772 permits to graze in national forests in MT alone.
-Wolves have to be managed, killed in large numbers, their populations driven down to marginal existence or they will rampage over the landscape, and be everywhere and decimate game and stock. No, wolves will fill up wilderness niches in some of their old territory, across the states then regulate their own populations relative to game and wilderness availability and wolf family elbow room, which may be most salient factor (wolf pack elbow room). The alpha male and female are mother and father of the pack. They and older wolves teach young wolves which takes 25% of their young lives, learning from elders how to hunt and what do hunt and most to avoid conflict with man. Wolf management by hunting is asinine. It disrupts families and social learning, accomplishes little to nothing and more likely than not creates problems.
-Wolves are dangerous. Wolves are scary. They attack people. No, there are only two documented cases in North America in history, in the last 400 years, weakly substantiated. One was in Alaska and one in Saskatchewan (doubtful, more likely a bear, at a dump, per a wildlife biologist). The rest is old world folklore, hollywood BS, visceral reactionary, irrational nonsense perpetrated by fairytales, movies (i.e., The Gray, Canyon, Frozen, werewolf and vampire tales TV). Wolves, bears and lions deserve an annual humanitarian award for tolerating man.
-Wolves are decimating or wiping out elk herds. Elk numbers are up in the states wherein there are wolves. Elk numbers in MT have gone from 89,000 before wolf reintroduction to 145,000 now. Wyoming has had 11 years in a row of record elk harvests. Per MT FWP (March-April issue Montana Outdoors, 2014) elk are at or above target levels even in wolf territories, 100-150% target levels. Colloquials, hunters often confuse local fluctuations in elk numbers with normal elk movement for forage, over hunting, forage availability, encroachment, climate change effects with normal and healthful predator predation, and blame wolves (scapegoating), forgetting and not understanding that all was well before man, and normal, and balanced, not so since man, especially european man and bloodsport traditions. Where do colloquials get the absurd idea that predators are the culprits in game sport game declines and not man?!
-Wolves are wiping out the Yellowstone elk herds.There were only a few wolves in the beginning years. They reached a peak in 2006-2007 with 175 wolves, and are now around 85. There has not been enough wolves to decimate elk numbers. No, there are not and there never has been enough wolves in YNP to wipe out or significantly affect the herds. At most, they may have a 5% impact, which has been good for the herds and the ecological system, flora and fauna. Before wolf reintroduction (1995-1996-1997)) elk numbers in and around YNP were at an all time unsustainable high. The herds had exploded in the 1980’s because of rich forage within the Park due to some wet years and new forage opening up north of the Park, and probably because of insufficient predation.After wolf reintroduction there were two rough winters in a row (1995-1996, 1996-1997) followed by drought years. Even though elk numbers were declining, FWP MT allowed hunting, spring and fall, outside the Park for years, until 2005, spring and fall. Man is the main elk killer outside the Park. Currently there is drought affecting forage, and a current rich predator environment of bear, lions, and wolves. Elk will range in search of new or available forage and not hang in the Park so much. Man (sportsmen), sports killing impact is additive, not natural and often harmful. Predator-prey relationships are natural, millennium old, and healthy. Sports’ killing of animals is not healthy for man or the animals they kill. Wolves are healthy for the elk herds and else as they are apex animals who belong there, making the herds healthier and having a positive trophic cascading effect on flora and fauna (plant and animal). Wolves tend to kill the weak, diseased, vulnerable and to move the herds. Man, sportsmen, go for the trophy animals and kill healthy animals weakening the bloodlines of the herds. It is man that needs to be managed, not wolves, bears on lions. Man is the disease on wildlife, flora and fauna. The YNP elk herds are now at historical levels, and the cow/calf ratio is normal, and the herds are closer to sustainable levels.
-Yellowstone Park is a zoo and not natural. Of course it is natural and it is not a zoo. It was and is being preserved as a balanced wildlife ecology. The Park Service has made a successful effort to bring back wolves as part of that natural balanced ecology. It has been successful with wolves having trophic cascading effects on flora and fauna. Why is this such a mystery to colloquials, such a hard concept to grasp:: that wolves and other predators are a healthful and natural part of wildlife ecology, worked out of millennia, while sports killing is neither, rationalizations for sports killing I guess. Before hunter regulation, hunters (our forefathers) and ranchers, in cahoots with the federal government, wiped out wildlife across the land. The main benefit of hunting regulation has been the recovery of wildlife and now conservation efforts are attempts to bolster and round out that recovery to include the predator
-Predators have to be managed. Yes, they do in the sense of individual problems with particular problems, but that does not extend to driving down the populations for sports killing of game animals. Predators, such as the wolf and grizzly will fill up the niches and regulate their own populations for the most part, leaving enough sportsmen blood sport killing.
-Wolves kill in a horrendous and tortuous way, tearing their prey apart in a slow manner. No, wolves go for quick kills by severing major arteries and limiting risk to themselves and it no more “tortuous” the sport killing which often wounds, not killing right away; especially archery which wounds about 50% of the time, not killing, leaving an animal to wonder off with an arrow embedded. Shooting also often just wounds. So, sports killing is kind and saves the animals from a less kind death?! This is an amazing rationalization.
These same minds do not accept that wolves belong in a healthy ecological wilderness and could care less. They also do not buy the argument that wolves bring in $35.5 million in added tourism to YNP making each wolf worth over $400,000.00 (based on population estimate of 85).
Then there is the myth of the alien, giant, Canadian wolf being introduced into the states and YNP in the initial recovery efforts. The wolf introduced was the same that was here before they were eradicated, Canis Lupus or Gray Wolf. It was the Canadian Plains Wolf that was re-introduced. Wolves do not recognize the Canada/US border and have wondered back and forth across the imaginary line for millennium. The Gray Wolf is more often named for different locations such as the Minnesota Timber Wolf, still Gray Wolf and not any larger, or the MacKenzie River wolf or the American Northwest wolf, or Canadian plains wolf. They are all Gray Wolves. Gray Wolves range in size from 85-105 lbs. with very few in the world ever found larger. A 135 lbs. wolf was found in Montana, but must fall within the normal range. A 175 lbs. wolf was found in Alaska and a 174 lbs. wolf in Canada, but fewer than 10 in all the world found over 130 lbs., ever, including Russia and Europe. The Mexican Wolf (Lobo), subspecies of Canis Lupus, on the road to recovery, hopefully, around 90 now, is smaller, about coyote size. The Eastern Wolf, Canis Rufus, is also on the road to recovery, hopefully, is also coyote size roughly. Wolves had probably not been totally wiped out in the USA with small numbers remaining in the northwest, southwest and east. Wolves had started reintroducing themselves via Glacier Park during the wolf recovery era of 1975 to 1995-1996-1997.
-Wolves chase for fun. No, wolves will test a herd for weakness or probe for opportunity, but do not chase for fun. They cannot afford the risk of injury or death on a frivolous chase. Wolves do not kill for fun. Wolves are sometimes blamed for dog kills and coyote kills.
-Wolves only eat live kills, not carrion. No, at times the majority of wolf diet is winter kill. Wolves are only successful in 5-15% of caribou and elk hunts.
-Wolf haters (ranchers, sportsmen, yokels) discount any argument they hear for wolves, pro-wolf facts and science, the logic of ecology, the boon to tourism; get angry, shut their minds, walk away. And/or they could care less about anything beyond their own noses, like many/most
Americans. Wolf haters and phobics (loupophobes) are steeped in folklore, myth, lies, false legends, anecdotal bull between themselves. There is an irrational gut, visceral, mindless, irrational, knee jerk, primitive reaction going on here. TV shows and theatre fare reinforces the nonsense, superstitions, folklore.
-Then there is the media. Is there any investigative reporting anymore? The media repeats the myth, lies, folklore of the anti-wolf minds giving them some credibility, a false balance reporting policy by echoing their lies, folklore and myths as, “Sportsmen say…. or ranchers say…..” There are facts out there and logic, which largely escapes the media.
-There is a huge implied question, alarm here: Are the state wildlife agencies, especiallhy the one in the wolf jihad states of WY,MT, ID, WI as ignorant as the hunter-rancher gorups or are they completely co-opted by license fess and political coercion? Where is the education and corrections from them on foldlore, lies and myth? Where is the emphasis on nonlethal management? “Wolves do not purchase hunting licenses, and most state wildlife managers draw their pay from revenue derived from sale of hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses. That, in brief, is what is wrong with wildlife management in America….” Ted Williams, 1986
As a result of the myths, lies, folklore mindsets, and repetitions of it all, and general ignorance, the public also repeats the myths, lies and folklore, especially wolf hating parochial(s) and ranchers and hunters until they become ingrained and stubbornly resistant to change. Conservationists are not going to have any or much impact on the rigid and reactive mindsets, so they must not only continue to counter the ignorance with valid information, but also appeal to a larger audience and find wolf friendly legislators at the state and federal levels. Also, the dollar appeal of wildlife viewing, by far more profitable than wildlife killing, needs to get out there more. All of this must come out over and over.
Quotes:
“Wolves do not purchase hunting licenses, and most state wildlife managers draw their pay from revenue derived from sale of hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses. That, in brief, is what is wrong with wildlife management in America….” Ted Williams, 1986
“To look into the eyes of a wolf is to see your own soul.” Aldo Leopold
“Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destroy; and the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign for vilification.”
― Farley Mowat, naturalist, conservationist and author of Never Cry Wolf
References:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kIYwLMessrc
http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2014/victory-for-wolves-in-wyoming
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kIYwLMessrc
http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/how-wolves-change-rivers/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/top-10-retorts-to-hunters-fallacies/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/managing-wolves-by-the-numbers-makes-no-sense/
http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/need-to-drive-wolf-numbers-down-to-save-elk-livestock/article_c51e59d4-44ab-11e3-b101-001a4bcf887a.html
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/3127/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/animal-planet-remove-wolf-hating-episode/
Books References:
Among Wolves by Gordon Haber and Marybeth Holleman
In The Temple of Wolves by Rick Lamplugh
The Wolf Almanac by Robert Busch
The Hidden Life of Wolves by Jamie and Jim Dutcher
Exposing the Big Game by Jim Robertson
Romeo: The Story of an Alaskan Wolf by John Hyde
The Lives of Red Wolves by T. Delene Beeland
The Carnivore Way by Cristina Eisenberg
Of Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez
Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
The Animal Manifesto by Marc Bekoff
“To look into the eyes of a wolf is to see your own soul.” Aldo Leopold
“Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destroy; and the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign for vilification.”
― Farley Mowat, naturalist, conservationist and author of Never Cry Wolf
I don’t belive this! Why can’t people just leave these wolves alone? I am so sick of the trapping, torturing, hunting and killing of animals! Man is destroying everything, pretty soon nothing will be left. All hunting should be banned for good!! SAVE THE WOLVES.