Conservation Northwest protects and connects old-growth forests and other wild areas from the Washington Coast to the British Columbia Rockies, vital to a healthy future for us, our children, and wildlife. Since 1989, Conservation Northwest has worke
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Gaining ground Jay Kehne Okanogan outreach associate, jay@conservationnw.org wolf recovery in Washington What you might not know Since 2009, I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with amazing people who promote wolf recovery since 2009. Their dedication and effort makes a difference in the social acceptance of the return of wolves to our state. But what often doesn't get talked about is the equally important work done by state and federal employees responsible for wolf management in Washington. In early November this year, I travelled to Missoula, Montana, with Phil Anderson, director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, three of his key staff working on wolf recovery, and a US Forest Service employee responsible for grazing allotments on the Colville National Forest. We came to learn from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks wolf specialists and leaders from a local non-governmental group called the Blackfoot Challenge. These folks had good advice to lend, having dealt with livestock, rancher, and predator issues for more than a decade. During a field tour of the Blackfoot Valley, we talked with ranchers who have successfully adopted non-lethal techniques, such as seven-strand high tensile electric fencing around calving areas, to avoid depredation by grizzlies and wolves. And yet they gave a clear message that if non-lethal doesn't work the best way to keep an entire pack from learning depredation patterns may involve incremental lethal actions aimed at offending wolves. "Living with wolves" turns out to be a complicated balance of social tolerance, recovery goals, and management of wolf populations. We talked with range riders hired by the Blackfoot Challenge to monitor pastures and grazing allotments. Range riders help keep depredations to a minimum in an area where up to seven wolf packs roam over a million acres of territory. Using collared wolf location data, their days (and nights) consisted of moving from herd to herd, hazing wolves away from cows, dealing with sick or injured animals, and generally disrupting wolf depredation patterns. A human presence on a non-predictable regular basis at least five to six times per week made a difference. One rancher showed us the carcass pick-up and composting program the Blackfoot Challenge had initiated with the Montana Department of Transportation. The program had made a believer out of him. Two ranchers from the Yellowstone area I talked with have been applying stockmanship techniques to increase herding and mothering instincts in livestock. These methods can avoid initial "testing" of the cattle and depredation patterns from developing in wolf packs. The need to provide immediate and consistent forensic determinations by highly trained people at possible depredation sites was continually stressed by Conservation Northwest's Jasmine Minbashian met with ranchers successfully living with wolves in Alberta, Canada. © BBC/Discovery Channel all participants on the tour. We learned that a good recovery program involves compensation, prevention, and lethal components and that you should have as many non-lethal tools and strategies as possible because not every tool will work for every rancher, every landscape, or every pack of wolves. Their story was encouraging but not without a realization that even with the best of efforts, some cows would die and some wolves would die. Livestock losses within the Blackfoot Challenge project have averaged only three livestock per year for the last five years. Montana removes about 10% of the countable wolf population each year, either through hunting or lethal control, and even with that, wolf numbers are still increasing. While the cooperation, partnerships, and efforts we saw in Montana between ranchers, organizations, and agencies greatly impressed me, most impressive was the director and staff of our WDFW taking the time to learn from the experiences and bring that knowledge back for wolf recovery in Washington. It's a story that needs to be told. Staff from Washington's Department of Fish and Wildlife and others, in the field this fall with Montana's Blackfoot Challenge. "Living with wolves" turns out to be a complicated balance of social tolerance, recovery goals, and management of wolf populations. Jay Kehne www.conservationnw.org