Don Jenkins/Capital Press Washington House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen, listened to testimony Jan. 31 in Olympia on a bill to redistribute wolves within the state. Blake opposes translocating wolves to unoccupied regions, but let the bill through his committee, saying current state policy was unfair to northeast Washington.
OLYMPIA — Washington lawmakers took two tentative steps earlier this month to hasten the day wolves are off the state’s protected-species list.
The spending plan passed on the session’s last day appropriates $183,000 to study moving wolves from northeast Washington to unoccupied territories to the west.
It also allocates $172,000 to the University of Washington to search for wolves in the South Cascades.
If wolves are moved or confirmed in the South Cascades, they would be big steps toward delisting.
Lawmakers are realizing the burden that wolf recolonization has put on four northeast counties, House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen, said March 9.
“I think some of the barriers are starting to break down,” Blake said.
Wolves have surpassed recovery goals in the northeast corner, but are too few or non-existent elsewhere to meet the state’s objectives. A decade after the Department of Fish and Wildlife identified Washington’s first pack, the South Cascades doesn’t have a confirmed wolf,
Already on the west side?
Blake said hunters tell him that wolves are in the region.
“We know there are wolves down there, but Fish and Wildlife has been so busy putting fires out in (northeast) Washington that they haven’t had the time or resources to put into the South Cascades,” he said.
The money is for a three-year study. Besides looking for wolves, researchers will study the region’s prey base.
Blake said he’s mostly interesting in sniffing out wolves. “If we’re ever going to get wolves delisted, we have to find out how many of them are in the South Cascades,” he said. “I firmly believe wolves are there. It is diverse, rugged country.”
Fish and Wildlife wolf policy coordinator Donny Martorello said the department has followed up on credible reports of wolves in the South Cascades. “It’s kind of like finding a needle in a haystack,” he said. “We expect there are at least a few dispersers.”
The state’s 2011 wolf plan holds out the possibility of moving wolves to energize recovery. The Department of Fish and Wildlife says it’s not necessary. The department maintains wolves will spread out on their own. For several years the department has said recovery goals could be met as soon as 2021.
“I don’t wish wolves on anybody else, but they are not dispersing naturally, like they told us they would,” said Scott Nielsen, president of the Cattle Producers of Washington, many of whose members ranch in northeast Washington. “The wolves are putting an incredible burden on a small portion of the state.”
No state involvement for now
The state won’t start moving wolves soon, if at all. The budget directs Fish and Wildlife to follow the State Environmental Protection Act and report back to the Legislature by the end of 2019. The act requires a study of the environmental consequences of state actions.
The House passed a bill directing Fish and Wildlife to do the study. The bill went nowhere in the Senate, but the House policy survived budget negotiations.
The budget also allocates $80,000 to be split equally between sheriff’s offices in Ferry and Stevens counties for wolf management. Most attacks by wolves on cattle and sheep occur in those two counties.
The counties are dispatching deputies to depredations, even though Fish and Wildlife does the investigations.
Ranchers welcome the involvement of local law officers, Nielsen said.
“I think it will be a tremendously good thing,” he said. “We have confidence in our local sheriffs.”
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting Blog.
I don’t wish wolves on anybody else, but they are not dispersing naturally, like they told us they would,” said Scott Nielsen, president of the Cattle Producers of Washington.
So the wolves promised they would disperse and they didn’t. Just like a bunch of wolves. No wonder people hate them.
Yeah, the Indian-givers!
Reminds me of something the great Lakota chief, Spotted Tail, once said in exasperation. He wondered why the Great Father didn’t put the Indians on wheels so they could just be rolled out of the way when the whites wanted more land for cattle.
No matter where the wolves are, we want them out of the way and gone.
Just *eyerolling*. Maybe he should have a talk with them.
He probably doesn’t believe anyone could reason with a bunch of bloodthirsty and treacherous creatures from the pit of hell. (That must be somewhere in the Bible.)
Maybe it’s because ranchers like him shoot them first? You know, that knee-jerk’s reaction.
Now what happens if they don’t like the results of the study? I truly cannot believe that a Democrat would state so blatantly that the goal is to delist. Wolves are always, always the bargaining chip for votes for these unscrupulous people.
I’d bet that if the numbers were checked, you’d find that the ranchers are not hurting at all.
You know, this Democratic legislator doesn’t even make sense – he opposes relocation and moving wolves to the South Cascades. So what’s the alternative then? He wants to find wolves there, that’s all he cares about. I hope they don’t make up information so that wolves can be delisted, which is his goal, without (very) credible proof.
It doesn’t matter if the “wolf problem” is in the Southwest, with humans playing God with Mexican Wolves in the Gila–where public lands ranchers kill any wolf they can–or in Washington State:
It is still all about the Dirty Politics of Ranching. Until people stop whining about what ranchers are doing to wolves (and coyotes, and prairie dogs, and bears, and mountain lion, and bobcat, etc,.), and get serious about getting rid of ranching permits where wolves and other wild animals are trying to survive–nothing at all is going to change. The only Good Rancher is an Ex Rancher.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/with-their-cattle-grazing-in-washingtons-wolf-country-ranchers-work-and-worry/
http://www.foranimals.org
All true.
There is so much background to this story. NE WA legislators don’t mind wasting taxpayers money on wolf-related projects, because NE WA ranchers pay hardly any taxes at all–statewide, the entire ranching industry pays less than $150,000 per year. The four NE counties get $1.83 in tax benefits for each $1 they pay in to the state, but their legislators tell their constituents that Seattle ($0.64 benefit per $1 paid) sucks up all the tax money. The wolf-relocation bill was left to die in committee, when a WA-based conservation group secretly convinced an influential legislator to fund a translocation study by putting the study into a (different) budget bill–against the wishes of, and unknown to, most conservation groups–and costing political capital for those that worked to kill the bill in the Senate.
Thanks for the info.
It’s always interesting to see just how irrational and uncooperative these people can be. This politician champions the ranchers of the Northeast who are supposedly ‘burdened’ by having a natural animal on the landscape and their complaints about wolves not dispersing (enough for them), but yet he (and most likely others) oppose the translocation or relocation of the wolves to the South Cascades! I don’t eat beef so I consider the ranchers’ complaints to be a pain in the a** to have to listen to. It might be good to have wolves in the South Cascades?
I hope the U of WA can be trusted to be objective and impartial. They did not treat Dr. Rob Weilgus very well.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/wolf-researcher-gets-300000-to-settle-wsu-lawsuit/
Thanks for the link!