July 2, 2003
Brent Manning, Director
Wyoming Game and Fish Department
5400 Bishop Blvd.
Cheyenne, WY 82006-0001Dear Director Manning:
As you requested, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is providing comments on the June 2003 Draft Final Wyoming Gray Wolf Management Plan [Plan]. These comments have been reviewed by Service Regional Office's Upper Level Managers, and they concur with them. The Service has previously provided similar comments. We will address each major issue in detail in this letter, but will briefly summarize them first.
1. Wyoming must have a state law that is clearly consistent with and complements its state wolf plan. This plan, with some modifications may be adequate for the Service to proceed with the delisting process. However, we must be sure it is consistent with Wyoming state law. Currently Wyoming state law may not provide Wyoming Game and Fish the authority to implement this plan.
1. As your plan states, there must be a minimum of 15 packs in Wyoming and, for purposes of adequate distribution, at least 7 of those wolf packs must be maintained outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in Wyoming, regardless of how many packs are in those Parks.
1. As your plan states, the Gros Ventre Wilderness is adjacent to Teton National Park, it should be part of the initial wolf trophy game area.
2. As your plan states, measuring wolf packs for post-delisting monitoring could be slightly different than "5 wolves traveling together in winter" as inferred by state law. The plan recognizes the state law definition is different from the current recovery definition and that inconsistency must be resolved. The Service is committed to work with the states to mutually resolve that scientific issue.
3. As your plan states, the switch from predatory animal to trophy game status should happen once. Flipping back and forth is confusing to all interested parties.
6. As your plan states, Wyoming Game and Fish should have flexibility to use its professional scientific judgment to trigger trophy status prior to an "emergency" and hitting the threshold of at least 7 wolf packs outside the Parks. The Service's preference is to not have a 7 pack trigger but instead to immediately designate all wolves in the proposed [Data Analysis Unit [DAU] as trophy game and manage them so that at least 7 packs are maintained in that area.
1. We urge Wyoming to re-consider having wolves listed as predatory animals anywhere in Wyoming. That designation may spoil our mutual desire to successfully delist the wolf population and maintain a recovered population. Interior Secretary Gale Norton has commented that she is also concerned about the use of the designation "predator".
2. We are submitting some additional edits and comments on a hard copy of the plan for your consideration. A major component of the state plan that needs to also be clear is how the plan's management policies would be enforced. Without adequate and timely professional investigations of law enforcement issues and clear guidelines for what is a violation or isn't, promises of adequate regulation by the plan, may not be able to be fulfilled.
We appreciate the difficulty in trying to balance the strong emotions, symbolism, and competing interests involved with wolf management. We commend your agency's and your Commission's professional efforts to develop a biologically sound plan that addresses the concerns of the Wyoming public, the National public's interest in wildlife management on public lands, and the Service's legal mandates under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). We assure you that the Service is absolutely committed to the principle that management of a recovered wolf population is best conducted by the state game and fish commissions and agencies and that regulated public harvest can be a critical component of state management for wolves, just as it is for other native wildlife species. We fully recognize that without the historic efforts of sportsmen, the state game and fish commissions, and state game and fish agencies to restore healthy native ungulate populations, restoration of any large carnivore population, particularly wolves, would be impossible. The wolf population in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming has met its numeric recovery goals and the Service will do everything it can to delist the wolf population so the states can manage and conserve it for the foreseeable future.
The ESA requires that the Service be assured that the wolf population would not become threatened or endangered within the foreseeable future, if ESA protections were removed. Wolves became extirpated almost solely because of unregulated excessive human-caused mortality. The wolf population would only become threatened again because human-caused mortality was too high for the wolf population to sustain itself. Therefore, the Service has requested the states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming [and the Midwest states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan] to develop wolf management plans to demonstrate how the states would manage wolves, and regulate human-caused mortality, should ESA protections be removed. The Service is required by the ESA to be assured that state regulations manage human-caused mortality so that the wolf population will remain safely above recovery levels. Since wolf issues are emotional and controversial, an emotional public debate and litigation is certain. The ESA mandates that delisting of a recovered wolf population be based on the Service's use of the best science to reach its decisions. I expect that ultimately the legal system will evaluate whether the Service acted within the law. The Service will not propose delisting if it believes its decisions aren't clearly supported by sound science or do not satisfy its legal responsibilities under the ESA.
Following is a more detailed rationale for our recommendations:
1. The plan appears to contain enough area and adequate wolf management policies for Wyoming Game and Fish Department to reasonably conserve a recovered wolf population in Wyoming. However, the current state wolf law appears to differ from the draft state wolf management plan. Therefore there is a concern with the Service proceeding with the delisting process unless State law unambiguously authorizes implementation of a state wolf management plan that will conserve wolves above recovery levels. Any final plan must be at least as conservation-orientated toward wolves as the management framework that is outlined in the current draft plan.
The wolf management strategy outlined in this plan generally appears adequate. Given the level of controversy in Wyoming and the buffer that wolves in Yellowstone National Park provide for overall wolf management in Wyoming, we believe the plan walks that fine line between local tolerance and national interest. The Department and Commission are to be commended for crafting a skillful compromise. However, relying on unguided future Commission action, does not provide the legal assurances the ESA requires for the Service to proceed with the delisting process. The Service asked that state plans clearly articulate to the public how Wyoming would manage wolves if ESA protections were removed. Wyoming's intent needs to be consistent and crystal clear at both the law and plan level and the two need to be complimentary. We are concerned that your plan can not be implemented under the current state law.
2. As the Service has recommended, and the plan recognizes and provides for, Wyoming should commit to maintaining a minimum of at least 7 wolf packs in Wyoming outside of the National Parks, regardless how many packs are inside the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Wyoming should commit to maintaining 15 or more packs in Wyoming, so if wolf numbers in the Parks drop below 8 packs, Wyoming will have more than 7 packs outside the Parks. The plan currently recognizes and provides for this. Adequate wolf distribution as well as numbers must be a component of any Wyoming wolf management strategy. The wolves that are in Wyoming currently represent the southern tip of the northern Rocky Mountain wolf population. The Greater Yellowstone Area is also the most isolated recovery area. For the population of wolves in that segment of the northern Rocky Mountains to remain secure, pack distribution must permanently extend into Wyoming beyond the borders of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.
3. The Service supports the flexibility in the definition of a wolf pack as recommended in the plan. The Service must develop a post-delisting wolf monitoring plan as part of the delisting package and identify the level at which wolves would be considered for re-listing under the ESA. That effort will hopefully result in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming being able to use another less expensive yet equally accurate measure of a "wolf pack" post-delisting other than the one that was used to measure recovery [a male and a female that raise at least 2 pups until December 31]. The Service has invited and funded the states to help provide input into developing the delisting package, including any new post-delisting monitoring requirements. At this time, it does not appear that the state definition of a pack under state law [assumed to mean 5 wolves traveling together in winter] is going to be in major conflict with any new potentially new definition for a recovered wolf population. As the plan recognized, the Service could not accept a state definition of a pack [as an example- one adult and 4 pups in summer] that was not biologically significant in describing a recovered wolf population. State law may be inconsistent with the final determination of the post delisting monitoring criteria but at this time it does not appear any differences are biologically significant enough to jeopardize delisting. Wyoming Game and Fish should have the flexibility it needs to adapt to new information, analysis, and possibly any special conditions in Wyoming. The Service intends to work out this issue with professional state biologists and representatives in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming so that everyone has input into the scientific ground rules that will create the standard we all will have to live by when wolves are delisted. The definition of a recovered wolf population and a wolf pack is a scientific issue.
4. All Wilderness areas adjacent to the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks must be included in any initial wolf trophy game area designation,. The Service supports an area, as least as large as the one described in the state wolf plan, that would include Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, the Parkway, and the North Absaroka, Washakie, Teton, Jedediah Smith, Winegar Hole, and Gros Ventre Wilderness areas.
5. Any switch from "predatory animal" to "trophy game" status should be a long term commitment as recognized by the state wolf plan. If human-caused mortality caused the recovered wolf population to decline to the point that the trophy status was triggered, it would be obvious that the wolf population could not sustain the level of unregulated human-caused mortality that resulted from predatory animal status. Switching back and forth would be a regulatory, management, and enforcement nightmare, would result in endless flip-flopping, and widespread public confusion. More seriously, it creates an environment whereby the wolf population is much more likely to slip below acceptable levels and trigger re-listing. The wolf population status is determined on an annual basis and the pack estimates are only derived in winter prior to the February breeding season. The state should not rely on those yearly estimates alone, since multi-year trends will be critical to successful long-term management.
We support the concept that Wyoming should retain some wolf management flexibility but believe the flexibility for take under trophy game status could be liberalized enough to easily control the wolf population. It is almost unimaginable that a scenario could develop whereby the wolf population exceeded management objectives and subsequent liberal harvest under trophy game regulations could not control both the number and distribution of wolves to the extent desired. If the wolf population had difficultly maintaining itself above management objectives, the trophy game area that was managed to support wolf packs would need to be expanded.
6. As the state wolf plan recommends, Wyoming Game and Fish should have the flexibility to trigger trophy game status when, in its best professional judgment, such an action is needed to prevent the wolf population from going below the minimum 7 pack "emergency" level. However, that needs to be accomplished under a state law that authorizes Wyoming Game and Fish to take this actions. It should be clarified that if the wolf population drops to 7 packs outside of the National Parks that some type of mandatory and automatic authority will immediately address that "emergency" situation. The proper agency management response can not be dependent on the next Commission meeting or some undefined future optional event. The opportunity for an immediate and appropriate agency regulatory response needs to be assured.
A Service-preferred alternative strategy would be for the Wyoming Game and Fish, upon delisting, to immediately begin managing wolves in the plan's Wolf Data Units and Wolf Management Units as "trophy game" in the manner the plan suggests. This would avoid the controversy on all sides that will be involved with the perception of plunging down to 7 packs and then jumping into "crisis" management. Trophy status would also allow the Department to regulate harvest of those "world famous" wolf packs from Yellowstone National Park that occasionally wander outside the Park boundary into Wyoming, prior to the minimum 7 pack threshold and "crisis" being reached. The Service recommends that a much cleaner solution to this "trigger" issue is, at a minimum, to immediately designate all wolves in the proposed Data Analysis Unit as "trophy game."
The biggest causes of adult wolf mortality in the northern Rocky Mountains have been; 1. Service removal of problem wolves; and 2. Illegal killing. Even under the Act's protections, the endangered wolf population in northwestern Montana was decreased and then stabilized for four years because of a severe-winter driven prey decline, fewer pups because of disease and nutritional stress, agency wolf control, and illegal killing. These factors often act in concert with each other. After severe winters or drought prey populations may be reduced and more vulnerable prey like elk calves and deer fawns and very old adults are less available. Wolves must then hunt and travel more, increasing territory trespass and wolf-to-wolf conflicts. Their exposure to people increases as well. Livestock depredations may increase. Reduced wolf condition makes them more susceptible to disease and pup mortality may go up significantly. Reduced prey and more livestock depredations may lead some people to over-react, and illegal killing can increase. In combination these factors can quickly reduce pup production and a wolf population.
Wolves are extremely susceptible to being killed by people in the open and often fragmented habitats in the western United States. It will be much more difficult to keep wolves around than remove them. Even under trophy game status, the majority of wolves will still die because of illegal actions, disease, nutritional stress, accidents, and private and agency control of problem wolves. It is important to remember that even if legal hunting is suspended, trophy game status does nothing to reduce the major causes of adult wolf mortality. The population may decline even under trophy game status. Likewise, under ideal conditions wolf populations may be able to withstand more mortality and sustain themselves, and maintaining the minimum of 7 or more packs will be less difficult. This will allow for more liberal regulated hunting seasons. Wide fluctuations in the wolf population will occur and Wyoming Game and Fish will need some management flexibility to respond pro-actively, rather than being forced to lurch from crisis to crisis.
7. Lastly, we feel compelled to once again discuss the issue of dual status of wolves as "predatory animals" and "trophy game" in Wyoming. The Service, states of Idaho and Montana, and Wyoming Game and Fish initially recommended state-wide trophy game status for wolves for many good social, biological, and professional wildlife management reasons.
We know how symbolic wolf issues can become and understand how the dual status compromise evolved. While we understand that some people in Wyoming feel very strongly that this was necessary, we believe it was a very serious mistake that will continue to haunt our efforts to successfully delist wolves. Predatory animal status for wolves will make the whole delisting process much more contentious, emotional, expensive, and filled with hurtful rhetoric than necessary. The "predator" issue alone could derail and will certainly prolong efforts to successfully delist wolves in the northwestern U.S., including Wyoming. No other state with wolves in the Midwest, southwest, or northwest has taken this position as it infers wolves should be eliminated and not maintained as a recovered population.Wolf restoration in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, particularly in and near Yellowstone National Park, is widely perceived as one of the most successful wildlife conservation efforts of this century. We believe that the image that under predatory animal status in Wyoming, wolves could be killed without a clear regulatory safety-net, at any time, without limit, and particularly- by any means- is unacceptable to most Americans. We believe those perceptions will cause unimaginable rhetoric, conflict, emotion, and mistrust. It could raise millions of dollars and provide a unifying justification for those groups who have most strongly supported wolf restoration, share animal fairness and humane concerns, but mistrust any type of state management- i.e.. the very organizations that are most likely to litigate over wolf delisting. While the Service is mandated to focus on science and biology, public attitudes and comments will influence subsequent litigation. We urge you to reconsider the wisdom of "predatory animal" status for wolves anywhere in Wyoming. The Wyoming legislature could help avoid a huge and very public brawl that will be damaging, if not fatal, to the Service's efforts to delist a recovered wolf population and would greatly improve the National public's attitude and trust of Wyoming's abilities to manage wolves, by authorizing wolf trophy game status statewide. If wolves were listed as trophy game statewide, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's authority would be clear and their flexibility to utilize regulated public hunting to minimize conflicts would be greatly increased. The controversial "trigger" issue would be resolved. Hunters could help manage wolves outside of the area identified in the plan under a year-round, fair-chase, hunting season that would have the same biological effect as "predatory animal" status. That type of liberal hunting would result in very few wolves, and probably no packs, in areas of Wyoming where conflicts with people or agriculture needed to be minimized. We recognize that some additional compensation might be required should livestock producers lose livestock, but we suspect the payments would be minor given there would be so few wolves in those types of areas. However, all wolf take in Wyoming would occur under "fair chase" methods and management flexibility would be maximized. Packs that weren't causing conflicts could be maintained and would replace problem packs that needed to be removed without jeopardizing recovery criteria. State-wide trophy game status would remove a major negative public relations perception that will cloud the real issues that are being discussed during the delisting process.
8. We are submitting a marked-up copy of the management plan with some additional edits and corrections. We believe that "predatory animal" status would quickly result in the "trigger" being flipped. The plan's Wolf Data Analysis Units and Wolf Management Units appear just large enough to provide the Wyoming Game and Fish with enough regulatory flexibility under trophy game status to achieve the plan's objectives and assure maintenance of Wyoming's share of the northern Rocky Mountain wolf population. Currently the Service directs USDA Wildlife Services wolf control efforts and we suggest that the plan clarify that all agency wolf control will be directed by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Wolf control near the lower threshold of wolf numbers and distribution can not be as aggressive than when wolves numbers are safely well above thresholds. As you are aware, managing for wolves at minimum levels will greatly limit future options and result in a very intensive and costly monitoring program. Appropriately, the type of wolf sex and age data that plan mandates collecting [mandatory skull inspections] will be required for all wolves that are killed in Wyoming if the Game and Fish Department is to adequately monitor wolf population status. The plan must stress and clearly define how its provisions will be enforced. Without a solid commitment to professional enforcement of the state law and a reasonably prompt and thorough investigation of all wolf take, promises made under the plan to adequately regulate take are suspect, because they might be easily abused.
Good luck in your efforts to help move the wolf delisting process forward. Please feel free to contact the Service for further clarification and cooperation. The biological recovery of wolves under the ESA has been completed and it will take our combined commitment and efforts to successfully delist them and make this a success story.
Sincerely,Ed Bangs
Wolf Coordinator
cc: FWS R.O.
MT FW&P, ID F&G