Action Alerts

Quick link to Idaho wolf hunt summary: http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/cms/hunt/wolf/quota.cfm

Northern Rockies wolves were delisted by the Obama Administration in May. In August a coalition of environmental groups including Friends of the Clearwater requested the fall hunts be blocked until wolf numbers are stronger, the states develop an adequate legal safety net, and connectivity between recovery areas is assured.

On September 9, U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy found there would be no irreparable harm if the hunt goes forward, though he warned that a coalition of conservation groups represented by Earthjustice have a good chance of prevailing later on their argument that it was wrong to remove endangered species protections for wolves in Idaho and Montana, but not in Wyoming.

Idaho's hunting season on wolves began September 1 in two units, including the Clearwater's Lolo Zone. The rest of the state opened to hunting by the end of the month. Montana's hunting season began September 15.

In mid-November daho Fish & Game extended the wolf hunt in the Panhandle, Palouse-Hells Canyon, Selway, Middle Fork, Salmon, Southern, and South Idaho zones to March 31, well into the denning season. These zones were set to close December 31.

Wolf seasons already have closed in the Dworshak-Elk City wolf zone in north Idaho, the McCall-Weiser zone in west central Idaho, and the Upper Snake zone in eastern Idaho because the each zone reached its harvest limit.

Three other zones are nearing their harvest limits. The Palouse-Hells Canyon zone is two short of its limit of five wolves; the Southern Mountains has three of 10-wolf limit remaining; and the Middle Fork zone has four of its 17-wolf limit remaining.

This page serves as Friends of the Clearwater's Wolf Update Page. Look here timely updates about the ongoing struggle to fully restore a native predator to his rightful ecosystem. You will find news stories, FOC news releases and more information below. Please note that several news stories show pictures of dead wolves. Providing news stories to our membership in no way endorses the story, the author, or the publisher of the source.

------------------------------

Wolf Updates

Basin Butte pack exterminated from helicopter

http://newsblaze.com/story/20091210082547zzzz.nb/topstory.html

Idaho extends length of wolf hunting season

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2009/11/idaho-wolf-hunting.html

Twenty-nine wolves legally killed in Idaho thus far, including one of the Phantoms

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005128163

Wolf Supporters to Hold Vigil

Idaho Mountain Express, September, 15, 2009

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005127888

------------------------------

Wolves Aren’t Making It Easy for Idaho Hunters
September 10, 2009

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

BOISE NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho — Hunting and killing are not the same thing. Even as Idaho has sold more than 14,000 wolf-hunting permits, the first 10 days of the first legal wolf hunt here in decades have yielded only three reported legal kills.

Read full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/us/11wolves.html?

---------------------------

Judge Clears way for wolf hunt in Idaho and Montana

September 9, Los Angeles Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/09/judge-clears-way-for-...

----------------------------

Friends of the Clearwater Injunction Request News Release

August 20, 2009

Earthjustice • Friends of the Clearwater • Defenders of Wildlife • Natural Resources Defense Council • Sierra Club•Center for Biological Diversity •The Humane Society of the United States• Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance •Alliance for the Wild Rockies• Oregon Wild• Cascadia Wildlands • Western Watersheds Project•Wildlands Network• Hells Canyon Preservation Council

CONTACT: Jenny Harbine, Earthjustice, (406) 586-9699
Will Boyd, Gary Macfarlane, Friends of the Clearwater, (208) 882-9755

Conservation Groups Challenge Wolf Hunting

Missoula, MT— Conservation groups today asked a federal district court to block fall wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana. The request came in an ongoing lawsuit seeking to restore federal Endangered Species Act protections to wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains until wolf numbers are stronger, the states develop an adequate legal safety net, and connectivity between recovery areas is assured.

Idaho has authorized the intentional killing of 255 wolves in a wolf hunt, scheduled to begin September 1. The authorized wolf killing via hunting in Idaho represents 30 percent of the last reported Idaho wolf population estimate, which was 846 wolves at the end of December 2008. Montana has authorized the intentional killing of 75 wolves in a wolf hunt, scheduled to begin September 15. Montana has authorized the killing of 15 percent of its last official wolf population estimate, which was 497 wolves at the end of December 2008. There were only 39 breeding pairs in Idaho last year, and just 34 in Montana.

The wolf hunting is in addition to wolf killing due to livestock conflicts, defense-of-property wolf killing, and natural mortality. The hunting would occur throughout the states, including in core wilderness regions where wolves have virtually no conflicts with human activities. Idaho and Montana currently have no cap on wolf killing. For example, under Idaho law, there is no limit on wolf killing in defense of livestock. The combined loss of all these wolves threatens the recovery of the still-vulnerable regional wolf population in the northern Rockies.

Under the challenged U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf delisting rule, Idaho and Montana are free to reduce the wolf population down to 150 per state – a potential loss of roughly two-thirds of the region’s wolves. The scheduled wolf hunts would cripple the regional wolf population by isolating wolves into disconnected subgroups incapable of genetic or ecological sustainability. The wolf hunts would also allow the killing of the breeding “alpha” male and female wolves, thereby disrupting the social group, leaving pups more vulnerable.

No other endangered species has ever been delisted at such a low population level and then immediately hunted to even lower unsustainable levels.

The decision to hunt wolves comes as Yellowstone National Park wolves declined by 27 percent last year – one of the largest declines reported since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995. The northern Rockies wolf population also has not achieved a level of connectivity between the greater Yellowstone, central Idaho, and northwest Montana areas that is essential to wolves’ long-term survival.

Wolves are still under federal protection in Wyoming because a federal court previously ruled that Wyoming’s hostile wolf management scheme leaves wolves in “serious jeopardy.” The Fish and Wildlife Service in the recent past held that a state-by-state approach to delisting wolves was not permitted under the Endangered Species Act, but the federal government flip flopped on its earlier position and this year took wolves in Idaho and Montana off the endangered species list while leaving those in Wyoming on the list.
In addition to Wyoming, the states of Idaho and Montana have refused to make enforceable commitments to maintain viable wolf populations within their borders.

Earthjustice represents Friends of the Clearwater, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, , Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands, Western Watersheds Project, Wildlands Network, and Hells Canyon Preservation Council.
########


"The state of Idaho's eagerness to substantially reduce the wolf population in the backcountry bleeds through in its 2009 hunting regulations. The infamous Lolo Unit wolf killing proposal again rears its ugly head in these regulations as a seven month (Sept. 1- Mar 31) long season, allowing hunting pressure when the gray wolf is most sensitive." Will Boyd, Education Director, Friends of the Clearwater


“Wolf hunting is premature,” said Doug Honnold of Earthjustice, who represents the conservation groups in the wolf delisting lawsuit. “The states haven’t demonstrated that they are ready to achieve and maintain legitimate wolf recovery. We will work to stop this indiscriminate wolf killing.”