Wolf News Roundup 12/27/2019
by Cat Urbigkit, Pinedale Online!
December 27, 2019
Wyoming Wolf Hunt
Of the total quota of 35 wolves available for legal harvest in the state’s wolf trophy zone this hunting season, 26 wolves have been killed by hunters as of Dec. 27.
The Wyoming Game & Fish Department reports on its website that an additional 22 wolves have been killed so far this year in the remainder of Wyoming (where wolves are classified as predators), but that number is set to increase after the recent killing of five more wolves in response to repeated livestock depredations in Sublette County.
With the Sept. 1 opening of the wolf hunting season in many of western Wyoming’s trophy wolf hunt areas, quotas have been reached in six hunt areas, so those areas are now closed. All wolf hunting areas in the trophy zone close at the end of the year.
Wolf cull to save caribou
British Columbia officials plan to kill at least 80 percent of wolves in the central area of the province. The wolf cull is planned to protect the Tweedsmuir-Entiako caribou herd, which has decline by more than 10% annually for the last three years. Predation by wolves has been determined to be a key cause of caribou mortality.
Red Wolves
The Associated Press reports that there are only 14 known red wolves living in the wild, and North Carolina’s governor has sent a letter to federal wildlife officials urging immediate efforts to assist the critically endangered species, which was reintroduced to the state in 1987. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officials plan to release two more wolves into eastern North Carolina in hopes to boost pup production, since the population failed to produce any pups this year.
WA wolves disperse
The Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife reports that three radio-collared wolves have left the state, with one dispersing into eastern Montana, one going to British Columbia, and another dispersing into Idaho.
Check out the links below for details on these stories.
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