Last week Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, met with Idaho state legislators in a joint meeting of the Senate Resources and Environment Committee and the House Resources and Conservation Committee. This is the first time the Idaho legislature has addressed the wolves since it prohibited Idaho Department of Fish and Game from participating in any way with the wolf recovery back in 1995.
The headline in most Idaho newspapers was something like "Wolf chief predicts more close encounters with wolves in Idaho." Duh. . . well, of course. There have been almost no encounters with wolves in central Idaho except for four dead tracking hounds, a couple calves, and 50 or 60 sheep since the wolves were restored three years ago.
I thought the real story was that the strongly anti-wolf legislature was not about to declare the Farm Bureau lawsuit to be a victory for the anti-wolfers.
Bangs told the legislators that if the Idaho wolves were "removed" as Judge Downes ordered, it would be many years before the "native" wolf population built up enough for the wolf to be removed from the endangered species list in Idaho.
The legislators also heard from Rick Krause, the Chicago attorney who represented the Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming Farm Bureaus in the suit for which the Bureau is claiming success.
Krause was reported as saying, ''Despite the fact it [the wolf reintroduction] is a biological success, the program itself is illegal." ''The fact that the program is wrong means they have to start over."
The Senate Committee chair, Laird Noh, R-Kimberly, a woolgrower, and highly respected legislator (although no friend of the wolf) said at an environmental forum later, ''We have both sides claiming they won on the same points and both breaking out the champagne bottles, celebrating victory." Noh had introduced Bangs with high praise. According to a report I received, Bangs gave a "folksy summary of the program to date and offered his own analysis of the legal ramifications, which he characterized as -- 'win now/ lose overall' -- for both plaintiffs." The views of Bangs and the Farm Bureau attorney were not challenged or commented on by any of the groups supporting the wolf because they were not invited to testify at the meeting.
The chair of the House committee, Rep. Golden Linford from Rexburg in Eastern Idaho, has tried to get the legislature to give the Dept. of Fish and Game some joint oversight authority over wolves. Linford too is no friend of the wolf, but he is frustrated with the legislatures' refusal to authorize state participation. Most legislators seem to argue that participating in the program would be seen as meaning they approved of the program.
Bangs defended healthy, wild wolves against a legislator's claim about the terror of bloodthirsty wolves eating people. Bangs generally defended the program for being cost effective, fast, meeting locals' needs and for being biologically effective.
As a final note, I have noticed that the Western Livestock Journal on-line seems to take a skeptical view of the Farm Bureau's "victory."
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