I reported that the FWS policy of ignoring most other wolves was first announced by Wolf Project Leader Ed Bangs in an Aug. 12, 1994 letter to FWS official Charles Lobdell. I also published Idaho F&G Biologists' February 2008 written admission that the so-called 2007 "minimum estimates" did not include seven "suspected" packs and many known wolves in smaller groups that were not wearing radio collars.

Wolf Activists Dispute, but Fail to Refute, Facts

On April 18, 2008, part of that article was published on a popular wolf activist blog operated by Idaho State University Political Science Professor Emeritus Ralph Maughan "because it is a good example of what the more sophisticated of the anti-wolf restoration people read." Maughan also wrote, "It is full of incorrect facts, bad assumptions and rests on conspiracy theory" but added, "I don't want to take the time to go through it and point out all the errors."

None of Maughan's readers accepted his invitation to point out the alleged errors either and one volunteered that the statistics were correct but said he disagreed with the conclusions. Stanley wolf activist Lynne Stone and another respondent resorted to name-calling but failed to refute - or even challenge - any specific fact published in the article.

Wolf Recovery Based on Deception

If Maughan and his blog participants had been exposed to the entire article, those with the ability to think and reason might have realized that the article illustrated two things: 1) that FWS wolf recovery in the Northern Rocky Mountains (NRM) has involved deception from day one using misinformation, half truths and deliberate lies to sell the program to Congress and the American public; and 2) since August of 1994, that deception has included deliberately underestimating the total number of wolves in the three states with disastrous consequences.

Human Harvest Does Not Halt Wolf Increases

On page 8 of the Jan-March 2008 article, I reported the Alaska study in Denali National Park where biologists found they had been underestimating total wolf numbers by 50% by documenting primarily packs of wolves instead of also documenting dispersing and transient wolves. Yet Idaho biologists continue to ignore the Alaska research and pretend that pups, yearlings and older wolves that emigrate from packs suddenly disappear from the face of the earth just because they are not wearing a radio-tracking collar.

A six-year study of the impact of hunting and trapping on wolf populations in Alaska's Central Brooks Range by Layne Adams and four other scientists concluded that liberal harvest by hunters and trappers of 29% or less of a wolf population has no impact (yes I said NO impact) on wolf population increases. If you doubt that, I suggest you read more about this study, published in the May 2008 issue of Wildlife Monographs, later in this article.

Simple Math: 1,600 Minus 428 = 1,172

The 29% mortality from hunters and trappers did not include mortality from all other causes yet on May 22, 2008 the Idaho F&G Commission set a new combined death loss goal of 428 wolves "from natural causes, accidents, wolf predation control actions and hunter kills," and said that will result in its new goal of about 518 wolves on Dec. 31, 2008. Sources including Dr. David Mech, indicate there are ~1,600 wolves in Idaho now, counting this year's pups, so 428 wolves dying from all causes would result in ~1,172 wolves remaining in Idaho - twice the number claimed by the Commission.

3,000 Wolves in ID, MT, WY

About 1,172 actual wolves - not paper wolves - would represent the minimum number of wolves in Idaho this coming winter and this should trigger loud alarms in the minds of those who are responsible for perpetuating Idaho's wildlife resource. That is nearly 12 times the number of wolves the public was told would exist in a recovered wolf population and eight times the minimum number agreed to by all parties in the only Idaho Wolf Plan approved by both the Idaho Legislature and the FWS!

Will Wolf Activists Believe Their Idol?

If the wolf preservationists and the doubting Thomases refuse to believe these facts because they didn't appear in the major media, what source will they consider reliable? The obvious answer is Dr. L. David Mech, the undisputed wolf authority in North America and perhaps in the entire world.

Although Mech eventually refuted the "Balance-of Nature" theory he and his mentor, Durward Allen, foisted off on the world during 1958-1962, he has generally remained silent while similarly inexperienced fledgling wolf biologists supply misinformation about wolf populations to the media. But the April 28, 2008 legal challenge to state wolf control by Defenders of Wildlife and eleven other preservationist groups in a Federal Court in Montana forced Mech to make public some of the facts he and other FWS wolf activists have known all along.

As part of the FWS May 9, 2008 Response to Plaintiffs' Motion for a Preliminary Injunction (to halt wolf management by the three states) Mech wrote the following in his 22-page "Declaration under penalty of perjury:"

"Every year, most wolf populations almost double in the spring through the birth of pups [Mech 1970]. For example in May 2008, there will not be 1,500 wolves, but 3,000! (Wolf population estimates are usually made in winter when animals are at their nadir*. This approach serves to provide conservative estimates and further insure that management remains conservative)."

(*lowest point)

"70% Kill Needed to Reduce Wolf Population"

Mech continued, "As indicated above, 28-50% of a wolf population must be killed by humans per year (on top of natural mortality) to even hold a wolf population stationery. Indeed, the agencies outside the NRM which are seeking to reduce wolf populations try to kill 70% per year (Fuller et al. 2003)." (emphasis added)

"Such extreme taking of the kind necessary to effectively reduce wolf populations is done via concerted and expensive government agency (Alaska, Yukon Territories for example) programs using helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. Normal regulated public harvest such as is contemplated in the NRM is usually unable to reduce wolf populations (Mech 2001)." (emphasis added)

In his Declaration, Mech also refuted the 1,500 NRM (three-state) minimum wolf estimate as follows:

"Starting with a base population of 1,545 wolves in late 2007 (Final Rule) and adding the average 24% annual increase shown from 1995 through 2006 yields 1,916 wolves expected to be present in fall 2008. (Here I should note that the estimate of 1,545 wolves is a minimum estimate, i.e. there were supposedly a minimum of 1,545 wolves. As wolf populations increase, it becomes increasingly harder to count them accurately and the minimal counts become increasingly lower than actual. Thus a better estimate of the actual population could be about 1,700, and thus the 2008 estimate would be 2,108.) Assuming the minimum figure and that ID actually takes 328 wolves which is its limit" (was its limit until May 22,).

In other words, Mech is saying that if the three states had a total of 1,700 wolves after hunting season last fall, they will have approximately 2,108 wolves after hunting season this fall regardless of the take by hunters (1,700 wolves multiplied by 1.24 [a 24% increase after all death losses] equals 2,108 wolves this fall). Multiplying the 2,108 wolves by another 1.24 would leave 2,614 remaining wolves at the end of 2009.

Viewed from just the Idaho perspective, the "minimum" wolf estimate reported in Idaho late in 2007 was 732 (47.4% of the 1,545 wolves in the three states). If we correct that 1,545 to 1,700 as Mech suggests, double it to 3,400 to equal the present population with pups as Mech suggests, and then multiply the 3,400 by 47.4% we calculate that Idaho presently has about 1,612 wolves.

Then if we subtract the 438 wolves that will die from all causes according to IDFG biologists, that would leave a total of 1,174 wolves in Idaho in December 2008. If you prefer using Mech's other formula, multiply the 1,700 by 47.4% and multiply the 806 wolves by 1.24 which projects a Dec, 31, 2008 population of 999 wolves.

In either scenario many of the single wolves and groups of 2-3 are still not included in Mech's calculation. In my rural county and throughout much of Idaho, outdoorsmen report encountering far more evidence of single wolves and small groups than they do of packs so the total number of actual wolves remains a mystery.

Hunter Take Replaces Most Natural Mortality

The Declarations filed with the court by other wolf biologists agreed with Mech's and the Alaska scientists' claim that regulated sport hunting and trapping will not impact wolf populations. On page 7 of NRM Wolf Project Leader Ed Bangs' Declaration, he wrote that human-caused mortality accounted for an annual average of 23% of the wolf population (agency kill-"10%, illegal kill-"10% and vehicle and other-3%) yet the wolves still multiplied at a rate of 24% per year despite additional mortality from natural causes.

Bangs added, "Studies indicate that human-caused mortality can compensate for as much as 70% of the natural mortality that might have occurred anyway (Fuller et al. 2003). Hunting would disproportionally remove the boldest wolves in the most accessible open habitats, the very type of wolf in the typical location where most livestock depredations, agency control actions and illegal killing occurred when the NRM gray wolf was listed.

"Wolf populations can maintain themselves despite annual human-caused mortality rates of 30% to 50% (Brainerd et al. 2008; Fuller et al. 2003). Wolf populations below habitat carry-capacity can quickly expand, sometimes nearly doubling within one or two years, following sharp declines caused by temporarily high rates of human-caused mortality or other causes."

Where wolves with adequate habitat are protected from intensive human harvest they ultimately saturate an area, forcing young or transient wolves seeking to form new packs to either leave the area or be killed. In Denali National Park, hunters, trappers and all other human causes account for only 3% of annual wolf deaths (see Bulletin No. 26).

By comparison 60% of the remaining wolf deaths are caused by other wolves and the average wolf pack lasts three or fewer years. When prey becomes scarce as it eventually does, starvation, disease and cannibalism further reduce wolf numbers emphasizing the "feast-or-famine" nature of so-called "natural management."

FWS Knew Sport Harvest Can’t Stop Wolf Increases

The six-year wolf harvest study in Alaska's Brooks Range that was published in Wildlife Monographs this month (see page 1) was actually conducted during 1986-1992. Wolf biologists Mech and Bangs knew then, before any wolves were transplanted into the NRM, that hunting and trapping, even with liberal seasons and bag limits, does not stop continued annual increases in the wolf population.

From this and similar research in several countries, they also realized that sport hunting and trapping creates healthier wolf populations by removing surplus wolves that would otherwise be killed by other wolves or die from starvation or disease. So FWS dangled the carrot of allowing states to "control" wolf populations by making wolves a big game animal to get two of the three states to accept a series of changes to the original delisting criteria.

While the Governors of Idaho and Montana went along with the mythical claim that wolf numbers could be significantly reduced once states were allowed to manage their wolves as "Big Game," Wyoming's Governor and Legislators insisted that wolves be classified as predators outside of federal wilderness areas and parks. In Idaho, the Governor's Office of Species Conservation and the F&G Commission refused to use the alternate "Special Predator" classification approved by FWS in the Idaho Wolf Plan.

Bangs Defends Wyoming Predator Classification

In Bangs' May 9, 2008 Declaration to the Court he wrote, "Montana will manage to maintain current wolf numbers about 400 wolves. Idaho will manage for 500-700 wolves. Wyoming will maintain at least 7 breeding pairs [roughly between 70-98 wolves] in addition to those in National Parks in northwestern Wyoming, currently numbering 171 wolves in 10 breeding pairs."

Bangs pointed out that Wyoming also agreed to maintain at least 150 wolves regardless of how many are in YNP but said, "The Trophy Game Area of northwestern Wyoming-is only 12% of the State but contains-all 25 wolf breeding pairs that were in Wyoming in 2007." Then he justified the fact that wolves are treated just like unprotected coyotes in the remaining 88% of the State.

"In western Wyoming upon delisting there were at least 28 wolves in 8 packs, none of which were classified as a breeding pair, that had all or part of their home range in the predatory animal area. Between delisting and May 7, 2008 16 wolves have been killed in that area. Four were killed by agency control, one was shot as it attacked livestock [which would have been permitted under the previous federal regulations], two were shot by private aerial hunters under pro-active livestock protection permits issued by the Wyoming Department of Agriculture, and nine were shot by private hunters.

"In Wyoming's predatory animal area removal of all wolves would not affect the number or overall distribution of breeding pairs or impact recovery in the NRM."

In 88% of Wyoming, wolves are predators like coyotes and can be killed without regard for fair chase rules, seasons or bag limits.

(NOTE: The citizens of Idaho and Montana are now paying the price for supporting governors who allow agency heads and F&G Commissioners to place FWS and private wolf advocacy agendas above the interests and welfare of the citizens and their wildlife. The disparity between the 70-98 wolf minimum Wyoming agreed to maintain in only 12% of the State and the combined 900-1,100 minimum estimate Idaho and Montana agreed to maintain throughout their two states indicates their refusal to maintain healthy wolf/game populations. - ED)