Less than a week after the Federal Government handed over wolf management to Idaho, the state announced plans to kill 75% of wolves within the Clearwater area. They are blaming wolves for decades of serious habitat problems, which lowers huntable elk numbers.
The science is flawed. These wolves do not need to die.
This issue is far from resolved. Even though IDFG has apparently decided to kill the wolves, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must approve and act upon the plan. There's already talk of the use of litigation to save wolves! Information will soon be posted here as to how and who to contact at USFWS to oppose this needless cull.
Watch this site for more news and information! THANK YOU to everyone who has sent comments to the IDFG in defense of the Clearwater wolves.
Idaho Fish and Game provide no evidence that wolves are a primary factor in elk population decline; any factor could result in the failure of this elk herd to rebound from its low population.
Poor habitat conditions make it impossible for the state to currently meet their unrealistic elk population goals.
Eliminating 75% of the wolves will not result in restoring elk to pre-1980 population numbers, when the elk decline began.
The great forest fires of 1910 created tremendous elk habitat once good regrowth began, but since the period 1940 - 1980, the forest has regrown, closed in, and is incapable of generating elk like the famous elk herd of days gone by. The habitat now supports fewer elk.
The decline in elk came before wolves were reintroduced.
Eight radio collared cow elk killed by wolves out of a total sample of 25 dead elk is too small a sample to draw any statistical conclusions.
The study fails to consider the effects on elk nutrition of the massive spread of alien, spotted knapweed into the elk winter range.
The elk radio collar study is a good idea and should continue so eventually there is enough data to draw conclusions as to how elk die.
