http://www.capitalpress.com/Washington/20150116/washington-lawmaker-proposes-moving-wolves
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OLYMPIA, Wash. — A northeast Washington legislator has introduced two bills to hasten wolf recovery and the day the predator no longer is protected by the state’s endangered species law.
Rep. Joel Kretz, an Okanogan County Republican, said ranchers can’t wait several more years for wolves to spread out before measures are put in place to control their numbers.
He said “social acceptance” of wolves has eroded in his district because his constituents have suffered the consequences of what’s purported to be a statewide goal.
“I’m really concerned about the disproportionate distribution more than anything,” Kretz said. “I don’t want to kill the last wolf, but we have to have more management tools than we’ve had so far.”
House Bill 1224 would authorize the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to study moving wolves to state or federal lands in regions of the state they have yet to venture.
House Bill 1225 would allow the state to remove wolves from its endangered species list in regions where recovery goals have been met. Regional delisting would open up discussions about whether to regulate wolves as a game animal in some areas.
The state’s recovery plan carves up the state in three districts, with each region needing at least four breeding pairs. The plan does not limit the wolf population.
The state’s wolf recovery plan holds out as an option moving wolves to help the species establish itself throughout the state. WDFW Game Manager Dave Ware said the agency isn’t considering it.
At a work session Thursday, Ware told the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee that moving wolves would require studying the environmental impacts. The studies would take years and by the time they were done, wolf recovery objectives would probably have been met, he said.
WDFW projects recovery could occur as soon as 2021.
“Moving a few wolves out of the northeast probably isn’t going to solve your problem because those wolves would probably be replaced pretty fast,” Ware told Kretz at the work session.
Kretz proposes waiving state environmental review laws in moving wolves. The state would still have to comply with federal laws.
Two years ago, Kretz introduced tongue-in-cheek legislation calling on the Olympic Peninsula and Whidbey Island to “enjoy” the “ecological benefits” of “apex predators.” The bill this year has a serious tone, calling on WDFW to look for “suitable (wolf) habitat that is located the farthest from any known and recognized wolf packs and the most unlikely to be populated through the natural dispersion of the species.”
The bills have been referred to the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. Hearings on the bills have not been scheduled.
“I think there’s more of a recognition we have a real problem in the northeast,” Kretz said.
De-listing wolves by region would erase a lot of the frustration, he said.
Exposing the Big Game 
Always the same rancher hysteria, no matter the state: Wolves do not have a significant impact on stock growers killing around 0.002% of cattle and less than 1% of sheep; yet it is wolves that are reacted to with absolute hysteria when dogs, and other predators kill more. Ranchers invite most of the predation by mismanagement of their stock. Ranchers also encroach on wilderness and wildlife with leases on national forests and BLM land. Their response is visceral, crazy really.
Rancher Nonlethal Wolf Management Cost Effective
If ranchers would do better management of herds with regard to wolves and other predators they could actually make more money per one study referenced below. Killing wolves in general, driving down the population, rather than dealing with chronic, specific offenders, probably does more harm than good. We should also all be aware that many ranchers having wolf problems are grazing on public land and crying wolf. There are 772 permits to graze on national forest lands in MT and 3776 permits to graze on BLM land. Ranchers encroach on wildlife in a huge way but feel entitled to do so as they have a history with the US government of doing so. Also, the number of cattle killed by wolves is greatly exaggerated, 65 out of 5.2 million in 2012 and less (54) in 2013, which is less than 0.002% for which the rancher is reimbursed. Oregon has the most sensible wolf policy: Nonlethal means have to be in place, at least two, and tried, and then only chronic offenders are dealt with in a lethal way. We can live with wolves and true wilderness. Many ranchers who have predator problems, which they usually greatly exaggerate, are in or in very close proximity to national forests, national parks, or on leased public land. They are encroaching on wildlife. But it seems that most ranchers are viscerally anti-wolf in particular and anti-predator in general, and that sportsmen and state wildlife agencies in some states, like MT, want to farm elk in the wilderness and eliminate or marginalize predators and thereby ruin true wilderness of which wolves are a vital part. Older wolves teach the young, most often to stay away from man, and we kill the teachers, leaving juveniles unschooled.
Wolf populations are not increasing in ID, MT, WY or the Midwest. Populations have stabilizeed despite the state wildlife agencies’ management (killing jihad). Wolves will regulate their own populations relative to wolf pack elbow room and game. Most wolf deaths are from other wolves, 65%. Wolves spend a quarter of their lives learning from elders what to hunt and how to hunt their culturally passed on hunting traditions. Left alone they will stabilize and fill up available niches then disperse to other regions, like to WA, OR, eventually CA. A wolf from this region was just discovered in the Grand Canyon. Killing wolves indiscriminately interrupts families, learning, cultures. Wolf populations in the wolf jihad states of MT, WY, ID have evidently about stabilized; in MT at around 600-700. Killing them is asinine in terms management. In fact is is not intelligent management: it is counter productive.
Great comments you know a great deal about the wolf and the rancher, but again I d not know how this changes, only political change can change the idea that the wolf is bad.
The Livestock Industry has dominated politics in The West since the early 1900’s, and even earlier, so these spoiled-rotten folks are used to “predator control agencies” like what used to be Animal Damage Control (now Wildlife Services), killing off anything in the path of their perceived “ownership” of public lands.
Too many “animal/wildlife” groups have capitulated to them, appeasing them, paying them for alleged “loses.” In the Gila Region of South West NM., the Mexican Wolf is barely surviving, with a couple wolves shot every few months, yet these animal groups continue to pay ranchers off, naively believe that there are some “good ranchers to work with.” I have yet to hear of a “good rancher” publicly going against his/her local Livestock Stock Board..
Until ranchers are booted off public lands–their permits cancelled–nothing will change. Whether it be in Eastern Washington or Southern NM, wolves will never be accepted, because the ranching mentality will not accept them. I do not condone animal groups paying off ranchers for their alleged livestock losses. It just encourages their addiction to handouts. The wolves do not have much more time. Most of us know that public lands ranchers will not make it financially without federal handouts (grazing permits and other numerous subsidies).
We know what/who the problem is, don’t we? And it isn’t the wildlife. By the way, I hope no one on this blog really believe that Compound 1080 is no longer being used out there?