At least one high-ranking wildlife official in Idaho believes a wolf hunt will happen in the state later this fall regardless of whether the species remains under the state's control.
Speaking in Sun Valley on Monday, Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner Randy Budge said many of the state's hunters are so upset by Idaho's growing wolf population they might take matters into their own hands if conservationists successfully derail the federal government's latest delisting of wolves in the northern Rockies. Budge made his prediction while speaking about the challenges of managing natural resource issues at the annual Conference of Western Attorneys General, at Sun Valley Resort from Aug. 2-5.
Whatever happens, Budge predicted, a wolf hunt will take place in Idaho's backcountry this fall.
"It will either be a state-authorized one or it will be an illegal one," he said.
Whether strong remarks like that play into conservationists' hands remains to be seen. In early June, conservation groups filed suit against the federal government in an effort to reverse a decision that removed Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains.
According to the 13 groups that filed the lawsuit, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar failed to fully consider both scientific and legal inadequacies underlying the delisting rule—released in the waning days of the Bush administration—before adopting it on April 2. The groups claim the rule will allow more than two-thirds of the region's wolves to be killed before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would even consider stepping back in and restoring protections.
The federal government's April delisting did not include the state of Wyoming, whose wolf management plan the Fish and Wildlife Service has deemed inadequate. Wyoming officials have also filed suit against the federal government challenging their absence from the delisting.
Both lawsuits are still pending.
Budge's comments were prefaced by his discussion of the federal government's role in the ongoing wolf delisting drama. He said the time has long since passed when the delisting should have been completed.
He said the original point wolves were to be delisted from the ESA was when the northern Rockies population reached 30 breeding pairs and 300 wolves spread across the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Current estimates state that about 1,650 wolves are in the region, more than five times the delisting numbers Budge said the federal government originally agreed on.
But conservationists have consistently claimed those numbers were set too low and do not constitute a biologically viable population of wolves in the tri-state region.
Not following through on the wolf delisting would further erode an already shaky trust between the northern Rockies states and the federal government, Budge claimed.
"We have a saturation of wolves in these three states and yet we have no (state) management," he said.
Except for several spots in the state—including the Sawtooth Valley, where the hunt would run from September through March—Idaho's wolf hunt will generally run from October through December. In areas inside the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, the wolf hunt is set to run from Sept. 15 through Dec. 31.
In Idaho Falls on Monday, Aug. 17, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission will set the quota for the wolf hunt state officials hope will occur this fall. Tags to hunt wolves would go on sale after the quotas are set, a news release from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game states. A resident wolf tag would cost $11.75, and a nonresident tag would be $186.
Jason Kauffman: jkauffman@mtexpress.com
Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner Randy Budge speaks about the challenges of managing wolves in the state to a gathering of Western attorneys general in Sun Valley on Monday. Photo by Willy Cook
