WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Sen. Max Baucus Proposes to Use Drones to "Manage" Wolves, Native Carnivores

Appeal to Restore Protections to Wolves Pending
Contact: Wendy Keefover (303) 573-4898 x 1162

Denver, CO  - Just as conservation groups are headed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals seeking to reinstate Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has proposed to use unmanned drones on public and private lands to “manage” native wildlife, including wolves and coyotes. 

Baucus, commenting on the potential economic benefits of manufacturing drones in Montana, told the Great Falls Tribune:  “Our troops rely on this type of technology every day and there is enormous future potential in border security, agriculture, and wildlife and predator management.”  He noted that the drones can distinguish between coyotes and wolves.

“What exactly is Senator Baucus suggesting—that we should monitor, count, and even bomb wolves using drones?” asked Wendy Keefover of WildEarth Guardians.  “The Senator has some explaining to do. We need to figure out how to co-exist with native carnivores not take more steps to escalate the government’s war on wildlife.”

“Predator management” is a common euphemism for lethal controls such as poisons, traps, and aerial gunning.

“Priceless, wolves’ beauty and majesty is only exceeded by their value as ecosystem engineers. Wolves make ecosystems robust and ecologically diverse, but they can’t do this work if they’re constantly harassed or killed from above,” remarked Keefover.

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Background Information

Last April, Senator Max Baucus and others authored a legislative rider that eliminated federal protection for wolves in the Northern Rockies. The rider contravened a judicial decision and ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the gray wolf in Montana, Idaho, and portions of Utah, Washington, and Oregon. The U.S. District Court in Montana upheld the rider in August, although Judge Donald Malloy wrote that, if not constrained by other caselaw, he would have ruled it unconstitutional.

Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater, and WildEarth Guardians appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit to preserve wolves and protect the public’s interest in wolf conservation and the enormous investment in the 16-year wolf recovery program. The Ninth Circuit will consider the case this month. In the meantime, the states of Idaho and Montana offered new wolf hunting seasons this autumn.

Wolf Hunting in Idaho

The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that Idaho has 705 wolves (although the state claims it has 1,000 wolves). Idaho has neither set limits on the number of licenses it intends to issue to hunters and trappers, nor restricted the number of wolves that may be killed. Idaho’s stated goal is reduce the state’s population to the federally-mandated minimum of 150 wolves. Hunting seasons began August 30 and will extend well into spring, making pups vulnerable to starvation and death if adult pack members, particularly the alpha pair, are killed. Residents pay just $11.50 for a wolf-hunting license, while non-residents pay $31.75. To date, Idaho has sold 25,500 wolf tags.

Wolf Hunting in Montana

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that Montana has 566 wolves (although the state estimates the total at 645). Montana has issued over 11,400 hunting licenses and set a kill quota of 220 wolves for 2011. The hunting season, which commenced on September 3, will last until the end of the year. Residents pay $19 for a wolf tag, while non-residents pay $350.

Hunting Harms Wolves

Biologists, in peer-reviewed literature, have written that wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains are not yet recovered and that hunting could put populations at risk. Other researchers warn that hunting can reduce wolves beyond their ability to recover. Killing wolves causes social disruption in wolf packs, which can cause packs to disband. Killing the alpha pair can also lead to the loss of pups from starvation. Humans wiped out wolves in the lower 48 states by the 1940s because of misunderstanding and intolerance. Yet Aldo Leopold and others began to signal a warning in that same time period that wolves are critical ecosystem engineers on the landscapes where they occur. The loss of these apex native carnivores can negatively affect entire biological systems.

Myths about Wolf-Livestock Conflicts in the West

Idaho claims that one purpose for wolf hunting in that state is to reduce wolf conflicts with domestic livestock, but the number of cattle and sheep depredated by wolves as reported by ranchers in the Northern Rockies is highly exaggerated. Two different federal agencies track livestock losses attributed to wolves—the Fish and Wildlife Service and the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). While the FWS uses verified reports from agents, NASS relies on hearsay from the livestock industry. The difference between their annual counts is astounding.

Idaho

• Cattle: The FWS verified 75 dead cattle, while NASS reported 2,561 unverified cattle losses, which represents a 3,415-percent difference.

• Sheep: FWS verified 148 sheep losses, compared to NASS's unverified 900 losses, which represents a 508% difference.

Montana

• Cattle: FWS verified 87 losses, while NASS reported 1,293 unverified cattle losses, which represents a 1,486% difference.
• Sheep: FWS verified 64 losses, while NASS reported 600 unverified sheep losses, which represents a 938% difference.

Effects of Wolf Predation on Big Game

With the possible exception of a few geographically isolated elk herds, prey populations also experience relatively minor effects from wolf predation. Elk, deer, pronghorn, and moose are affected by a suite of factors, including weather, environmental conditions (i.e., prolonged drought or too much snow), numerous native carnivores, disease, and especially, overhunting by humans. In several elk population studies conducted in and around Yellowstone National Park, biologists consistently found that human hunters had the greatest negative effect on elk. Furthermore, while wolves select for vulnerable age classes and diseased elk, humans select for prime age, breeding animals. Human hunters in the Yellowstone area typically killed female elk in the age range of 6.5 years, whereas wolves killed much older, non-breeding elk that were an average of 14 years old.

The elk population that lives on the northern range of Yellowstone Park are more likely to die from human hunters than wolves. Wolves modulate their prey populations. The long-term effect of wolves on elk is most likely to hold the population at lower levels that mediate other losses from starvation, weather, and other stochastic events.

American Values, Federal Expenditures and Wolf Recovery in the Northern Rocky Mountains

The majority of Americans surveyed want to see wolves conserved. Moreover, wolf-watching tourism by 94,000 visitors to the northern Rockies in 2005 generated $35.5 million in one year. By comparison, Montana reported that its total license revenue for wolf-hunting tags generated $325,916 in 2009 (although hunters likely also spent several million dollars on travel, lodging and provisions).

Taxpayers and private donors have funded the wolf recovery program in the Northern Rocky Mountains since 1995. Taxpayers have also funded research, including the Yellowstone National Park’s wolf project in the amount of $480,000 over a 5-year period. In 2009, hunters shot six members the Cottonwood Pack on the northern border of the park. Two wolves had radio collars that cost $1,500 per wolf.  The pack was destroyed and so the long-term research project abruptly ended (95% of the Cottonwood Pack’s territory was in the Park).