Wolf News Roundup 12/10/2017
by Cat Urbigkit, Pinedale Online!
Original post December 10, 2017 | Updated December 11, 2017
Wyoming hunt
The Wyoming Game & Fish Department reports that by Friday afternoon, Dec. 8, there have been 40 wolves taken in the fall wolf trophy hunting season (of a total quota of 44 - note correction), and a total of 30 wolves taken in Wyoming’s predator zone so far this year. The predator zone count includes wolves taken by hunters, wolves removed for livestock depredations, and other legal and illegal human-caused mortality.
Montana monitoring
The days of capturing and placing radio collars on wolves in Montana may soon be coming to an end, as the state moves toward a new monitoring system. Using exiting monitoring data, the state may adopt patch occupancy modeling, dividing the state into grids the size of wolf pack territories, and using hunter surveys to learn if those grid cells are occupied by wolf packs.
Idaho data
Idaho wildlife officials are fighting a court order to destroy data obtained from tracking data on elk and wolves. The court determined that the helicopter crew placing those collars had illegally landed in a wilderness area, and ordered the destruction of all data that had been collected from the resulted tracking. Read the Associated Press report linked below for details.
Great Lakes
Wisconsin wildlife officials trapped and killed a wolf in the Superior region this fall after the animal repeatedly approached a group of workers. The wolf was part of a local wolf pack, and the individual wolf The wolf population on Isle Royale has declined to just one wolf. The last wolf appears to be a female, the last of a severely inbred population. The National Park Service is moving forward with plans to reintroduce wolves back onto the island. It demonstrated no fear of humans. Wisconsin’s wolf population now numbers nearly 1,000 animals.
Mexican Wolves
Environmental groups filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service over its just-released wolf recovery plan for Mexican wolves. They take issue with the plan’s recovery goal of 320 wolves in the wild, and maintain that number needs to be at least 750 wolves.
Ontario caribou
Endangered caribou on an island in Lake Superior will be live-translocated off the island in attempt to save the population from wolves. The caribou herd dropped from 680 after a small group of wolves crossed an ice bridge from the mainland to the island in 2013. The endangered caribou population now numbers only 120 animals.
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