After getting final sign-off from the Fish & Wildlife Commission early last month, WDFW's completed wolf management plan has now been posted to the Web.
Download a copy of the 301-page document here for your reading enjoyment.
It's taken over four years to come up with the plan. The agency held dozens of meetings with its Wolf Working Group and the public, was deluged with 65,000 comments, and still there is not unanimous agreement on it.
Several bills were introduced in the Legislature, including one discussed in a recent Capital Press article. Another, 2214, would require tweaks to the management plan if wolves are delisted federally across the state. And our January 2012 issue outlines hunter concerns in Northeast Washington, home to the state's most moose and a viable elk herd.
(WDFW)
Controversy aside, the plan's goal is fourfold, according to its executive summary:
• Restore the wolf population in Washington to a self-sustaining size and geographic distribution that will result in wolves having a high probability of persisting in the state through the foreseeable future (>50-100 years).
• Manage wolf-livestock conflicts in a way that minimizes livestock losses, while at the same time not negatively impacting the recovery or long-term perpetuation of a sustainable wolf population.
• Maintain healthy and robust ungulate populations in the state that provide abundant prey for wolves and other predators as well as ample harvest opportunities for hunters.
• Develop public understanding of the conservation and management needs of wolves in Washington, thereby promoting the public’s coexistence with the species.
It lays out population benchmarks for recovery and outlines potential protections afforded livestock and game herds at varying state listing statuses, and how much ranchers will be paid for losses, but also acknowledges that funding for that, monitoring, etc., must be identified. The plan says that implementing its "high priority" tasks will cost into the low $400,000s a year by 2016, 176 percent more than was spent in 2011 for the same things.
Indeed, counting wolves will be very important in the years ahead. As of the end of 2011, WDFW says there are a minimum of 27 wolves in five packs in Washington. That's eight and two more, respectively, than the previous year and 15 and three more than at the end of 2009.
It's highly likely that more are here -- it's suspected there are packs in the North Cascades and Blue Mountains, and wolves like Oregon's now California's OR7 are probably wandering the state.
How many wolves will Washington eventually have? Damn good question, but predictions for meeting the plan's minimum statewide delisting goal runs anywhere from 97 to 361 individuals.
Stay tuned, and keep the wolf reports coming. WDFW's hotline is 1 (877) 933-9847.
