Take Action to Protect Idaho's Wolves

Earlier this month, Wildlife Services, a misleadingly named agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (its primary “service” when it comes to wildlife is “lethal removal”), issued a Draft Environmental Assessment (“Draft EA”) regarding its involvement in the management of gray wolves in Idaho.

Ultimately, Wildlife Services is proposing to help the State of Idaho reduce its wolf population by roughly 40% -- from around 843 wolves to about 500.  This high level of killing is predicated upon, among other things, an alleged need to protect livestock, increase elk and deer numbers, protect human safety, and prevent the transmission of disease.

When you dig into the meat of the Draft EA, however, many of the bases for preemptively killing over 300 wolves melt away.

Wolf conflicts with livestock make up a miniscule percentage of livestock losses, and several nonlethal methods to prevent conflicts exist.  In the Draft EA, Wildlife Services fails to consider the full range of nonlethal practices available, draws hasty conclusions about the effectiveness of many techniques, and neglects to mention others altogether.

Regarding elk, the premier big-game species in the West, an Idaho Fish & Game Newsletter released just a few weeks ago discusses the effect of predators on elk in Idaho.  Contrary to the popular myth that wolves are singlehandedly devastating elk herds across the Northern Rockies, Idaho Fish & Game reports that only a minority of elk populations in Idaho are declining -- and wolves are only the primary cause of elk deaths in a few of them.  In fact, 23 of Idaho’s 29 elk zones are above or within management population objectives.  And the report explains that other factors -- habitat conditions, weather, and hunter harvest -- also play a huge role in elk numbers.

As for human safety, the Draft EA expressly states, “There are no verified instances of wolves having attacked and seriously injured people in the lower 48 United States.”  The threat posed to humans by wild wolves is basically nonexistent.  If, on the other hand, a wild wolf, in an extremely rare case, becomes habituated in some way and begins to exhibit threatening or unusual behavior, such an animal can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.  Yellowstone National Park, for example, receives over 3 million visitors annually, many of them camping, backpacking, fishing, hiking, etc.  In May 2009, Yellowstone, for the first time since it reintroduced wolves in 1995, euthanized a wolf that had become habituated (likely food-conditioned) and was exhibiting abnormal behavior.  Removing the odd wolf in Idaho that becomes habituated, should it occur, makes sense; justifying reducing wolf numbers based on a threat to human health does not.

With disease transmission, reducing Idaho’s wolf population would do nothing to reduce the spread of disease to livestock, domestic dogs, other wildlife, or humans.  In fact, conspicuously absent from Wildlife Services’s discussion of disease transmission in the Draft EA is any mention of chronic wasting disease (“CWD”), a horrible wildlife disease moving west.  Had Wildlife Services analyzed the potential effect of wolves on CWD, it would have found that multiple wildlife experts think wolves will help stop the spread of CWD as it moves farther west.  According to Doug Smith, the legendary Yellowstone wolf biologist, “Wolves are probably the single best way to stop the spread of CWD.”

The Draft EA is flawed in other ways as well (see here for NRDC’s full comment letter), and because the widespread reduction of wolves in Idaho will have a significant effect on the environment, Wildlife Services, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, must withdraw the Draft EA and prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement.

Wildlife Services is seeking public comments on the Draft EA through today, August 31st.

Please stand up for Idaho’s wolves and send a message to Wildlife Services to go back to the drawing board and prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement.

(Gray wolf photo credit: Tracy Brooks / Mission Wolf / USFWS)

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