The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services, with authorization from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, took a control action against wolves in the Stanley area last week, shooting seven members of the Basin Butte pack.
Todd Grimm, Wildlife Services' Western District supervisor, said the wolves were shot from a helicopter and plane on Nov. 23 and 24. The pack's home range is around Stanley, about 60 miles north of Ketchum.
"Since July 2008, these wolves have been implicated in 14 incidents of depredation, all but four taking place on private land," Grimm said.
Grimm said that in August the pack killed 36 sheep in two nights, and have also killed seven adult cows and five calves in the past year, most recently killing cows in October and November.
"After the Nov. 3 depredation, [Wildlife Services] got together with Fish and Game and decided to significantly reduce the pack," Grimm said.
Grimm said the agencies were able to implicate the Basin Butte pack in the sheep and cattle kills largely because two of the wolves had been fitted with radio collars and their movements were tracked around the depredation sites.
He said Fish and Game approved the removal of 10 wolves from the pack, with Wildlife Services choosing to kill seven.
Grimm said Fish and Game estimated that the Basin Butte pack had at least 12 members before the control action took place. However, Grimm said the agency has yet to confirm that the remaining members of the pack are still in the area. He suggested that by not eradicating the entire pack, it would decrease the number of depredations while keeping another pack from moving into the area and creating a similar situation.
Jon Marvel, executive director of the Hailey-based environment and wildlife conservation group Western Watersheds Project, contended that blame for the cattle and sheep depredations shouldn't land fully on the wolf pack.
"The state doesn't require ranchers to take any safety precautions from wildlife," Marvel said.
Grimm noted that the control action has indeed stirred the emotions of conservationists.
"People don't like that we're removing wolves, but this was always part of the plan when it came to depredations, even before wolves were delisted," he said.
Suzanne Stone, Northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife, criticized the action as both ill-conceived and ill-timed. Some pups 7 to 8 months old were killed, she said, animals that were too young to be involved in any hunting of livestock or other animals.
Stone said the killing of so many members of the pack will likely "open the door" for wolves from other packs to move in, potentially starting a new cycle of livestock deaths. The solution, she said, lies in using conflict management techniques to keep wolves away from livestock, actions that can be less costly than using airplanes and helicopters to shoot wolves.
"It's a lose-lose situation all around," she said.
Jon Duval: jduval@mtexpress.com
Wolf hunt quota nearly reached
To date, eight wolves have been killed in the Southern Mountains zone, which includes the Wood River Valley and is one of 12 wolf hunting zones throughout Idaho. This leaves two more wolves to be killed before the quota set by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is reached and the hunt is closed in the zone.
The Southern Mountains zone covers the Smoky Mountains, the Wood River Valley and the Pioneer and Boulder mountains and runs northeast across several more mountain ranges to the Idaho-Montana line.
So far, three other zones have been closed due to full quotas and another, the Palouse-Hells Canyon, has one wolf kill remaining before it reaches its harvest limit of five. All of the zones will be closed to wolf hunting on March 31, regardless if the limits have been reached.
As of Thursday, 117 wolves have been killed in the state, with 103 remaining before the overall limit, set by Fish and Game, is reached.
A gray wolf feeds on an elk near Stanley. Photo by Lynne Stone
