May 15–A sparse attendance at an Idaho Fish and Game Commission public hearing Wednesday in Lewiston allowed for a lively but respectful exchange between a wolf advocate and Commissioner Randy Budge of Pocatello.
Suzanne Stone, the representative of Defenders of Wildlife in Idaho, told commissioners she and her organization object to the department’s effort to kill wolves in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area.
“Removal of wolves in that area is completely unjustified,” she said, noting there are no livestock and few hunters in the 2.4 million-acre wilderness area in central Idaho.
She said the cause of the elk decline there is more likely because of poor habitat and nutrition problems rather than wolves. Stone also took the commission to task for treating wolves differently than other predators like mountain lions and black bears.
“You promised to treat wolves like (you treat) mountain lions and black bears. You have not done that,” she said. “You have treated them like vermin instead.”
Last winter, the department hired a trapper to eliminate two of the several packs there. The Defenders of Wildlife and several other conservation organizations asked a federal judge to stop the wolf control effort. U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge refused to issue an injunction, but the case is still active. The department stopped the project shortly after Lodge’s ruling, but not before the trapper killed nine wolves.
Because so few people attended Wednesday’s meeting and only one other person addressed the commission, Stone was given more time to speak. She said the decline of elk is widespread throughout Western wilderness areas and the presence of wolves has changed elk behavior, which has resulted in benefits to plant communities like aspen groves and streamside willows. She also said the decline of elk may be overstated. She said elk are now using habitat at higher elevations and living in steeper terrain where they are more difficult to count during aerial population surveys.
“You may well be underestimating elk in that area,” she said.
Commissioners infrequently engage in exchanges with people who testify at the public hearings that precede commission meetings. But Budge has broken that protocol in the past. On Wednesday, he asked Stone if she and her organization are opposed to any management of wolves in wilderness areas, while noting the 1964 Wilderness Act reserved the right of states to manage wildlife in the congressionally protected areas.
“Should there be no active management of any species?” he asked.
Stone noted that she is not an attorney and she shied away from making a statement that might affect the ongoing lawsuit. She then reiterated her position that the department and the commission have singled out wolves for extraordinary management and said Defenders of Wildlife is not opposed to wolf hunting in wilderness areas.
Budge countered that the department is seeking to balance predator and prey populations and its predator management plan for the Frank Church wilderness calls for reducing wolf numbers when there is an imbalance.
“From our perspective, we don’t treat wolves differently than any other wildlife,” Budge said.
He then asked again if the environmental group opposes the state managing wolves in wilderness areas.
“We don’t oppose hunting,” she said. “We are talking about killing almost all of the wolves in the wilderness area.”
Budge said it would be helpful if the group would say which aspects of wolf management the group objects to, rather than labeling the department’s effort as a wolf extermination plan. The two continued to talk after the meeting.
Prior to the wolf exchange, Derrick Reeves, a member of the Idaho chapter of the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, asked the commission to clearly state in its regulations that drones can’t be used by hunters to locate game.
Idaho Code forbids hunters from using aircraft to locate game, and drones are covered in the definition of aircraft. But drones are not mentioned in the state’s hunting regulations.
“What we are asking is that they are mentioned specifically in the regulations,” he said.
The formal commission meeting will begin at 8 a.m. today at the department’s Clearwater Regional Headquarters at 3316 16th St. in Lewiston.
Barker may be contacted at [email protected] or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.