Wolf de-listing: A look at both sides of the issue

Wolf de-listing: A look at both sides of the issue. West Yellowstone News.

Wolves remain protected in Washington

Wolves remain protected in Washington. The Omak Chronicle.

Despite delisting, wolves remain protected by state law in Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington. In Western Oregon and Washington, they remain protected by federal law too. The drawing up the boundaries for delisting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went out of their way to move them far from where almost all of the Northern Rockies wolves lives.

The most reasonable explanation for this is they wanted to make wolf recolonization of Utah,* Oregon and Washington by natural dispersion to be as difficult as possible. Actions by Oregon and Washington hopefully will defeat their anti-wolf objectives.

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*They moved the delisting boundaries from the Utah/Idaho line way down to central Utah.

Wolves back in Washington

Officials are reporting the presence of a wolf in Washington. This from the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

SPOKANE, Wash. — A calf in northeastern Washington was killed by a wolf, proving the endangered species is once again within the borders of Washington after being killed off decades ago, wildlife officials said Friday.

Public meetings, comment period scheduled on Washington State’s wolf plan

Here is a news release from the Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildife

Citizens can comment on gray wolf management in Washington state, during public meetings Aug. 14-23, and in writing through Aug. 31. 

The series of public “scoping” meetings is being held by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and an 18-member citizen working group that is advising WDFW on development of a draft wolf-management plan.

“This public comment opportunity is intended to ensure that we receive a full range of citizen views as we develop a conservation and management plan for the gray wolf,” said Rocky Beach, WDFW wildlife diversity manager. 

While the state will not re-introduce wolves, the species is expected to re-establish in Washington on its own as wolf numbers increase in neighboring states and Canada. 

Wolves may return to Eastern Washington state

This article in the Olympian says Wolf population growing in Eastern Washington. By Chester Allen. The Olympian. That is an exaggeration, but wolves could show up at any time and Washington state is developing a wolf management plan.

Report on the Spokane wolf hearing

Wolf delisting draws a large crowd at public hearing. By N. K. Geranios. Magic Valley Times News

” ‘Many in the crowd wore buttons saying “More Wolves Less Politics,’ provided by Defenders of Wildlife.”

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More on the hearing. . .  Bristling kept under control at wolf talks. About 200 attend meeting about taking animals off endangered list. James Hagengruber. Spokesman Review

Extra security planned for Spokane meeting on wolves

This story is from the Spokane Spokesman Review.  Was there extra security at the other delisting meetings.

Link to “Extra Security Planned.”  By James Hagengruber.

Note: the Spokesman Review  is a link unfriendly newspaper. Hope the link above continues to work, at least for a while.

Utah wolves are in line to lose protection in the delisting

Technically there aren’t any wolves in Utah, although there really are probably a few in northern Utah. Nevertheless, Northern Utah was included in the Northern Rockies wolf delisting.

So was Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington. All these places would highly likely to see wolf in-migration.

I can see only one reason for this — it’s to prevent the recolonization of any adjacent Western States by wolves.

Article in the Salt Lake Tribune. Utah wolves are in line to lose protection. But technically there aren’t any. By Joe Baird