From localnews8.com and the Associated Press:
HELENA, Mont. (AP) – Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill allowing the use of private funds to reimburse wolf hunters or trappers for their expenses – reminiscent of bounties that widely exterminated the species in the last century.
Hunting and livestock groups say there aren’t enough wolves being hunted in Montana to limit their impact on big game outfitters and cattle and sheep producers.
From The Wilton Bulletin in Montana:
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Two Montana men have been cited over illegally poaching two wolves from a helicopter in the Big Hole Valley.
The Billings Gazette reports that Dalton Thomas Tamcke, 30, and Justin Samuel Peterson, 22, told wildlife authorities they were hunting coyotes for predatory control action on March 3 and mistakenly took the wolves for coyotes. The men later recovered the carcasses by snowmobile.
From KIRO7.com:
OLYMPIA, Wash. — (AP) – A new report from state officials says the wolf population in Washington state increased by an estimated 33 animals in 2020.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife released its annual wolf report Friday, saying the estimated wolf population grew to 178 wolves in 29 packs.
From the Argus Observer in Oregon:
State wildlife biologists counted 173 wolves in Oregon this past winter, a 9.5% increase over last year’s count of 158, according to the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management 2020 Annual Report released April 21 at odfw.com/wolves.
This annual count is based on verified wolf evidence (such as visual observations, tracks, and remote camera photographs) and is considered the minimum known wolf count, not an estimate of how many wolves are in Oregon. The actual number of wolves in Oregon is likely higher, as not all individuals present in the state are located during the winter count.
From The Slovak Spectator:
Environment Minister Ján Budaj (OĽaNO) has signed a decree enacting the year-round protection of the grey wolf in Slovakia.
He did so at a press conference marking Earth Day. The grey wolf will thus be put on the list of protected animals and the hunting of these animals will end on June 1. It will be prohibited to capture, injure or kill, breed, sell or exchange wolves and the social value of the wolf will be €3,000.
From OPB.org in Oregon:
The total population of gray wolves in Oregon increased again in 2020, continuing the species’ slow but steady rebound.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Wednesday it counted a total of 173 wolves this past winter — up 9.5% from the previous year. That is likely an undercount of the entire wolf population in the state, but serves as a minimum estimate.
From the Flathead Beacon in Kalispell, Montana:
In 1979, when Diane Boyd arrived on the doorstep of Glacier National Park to study wolves, the species’ erasure from the landscape provided the young researcher with something of an ecological blank slate, as well as a cultural one — wolves represented a mere blip in the biota of Northwest Montana, and hadn’t yet become the easy-to-loathe avatar of government-mandated wildlife management policies.
At the time, the 24-year-old University of Montana researcher had no inkling that the species she was about to dedicate her entire career to studying would eventually become the most successful recovery story of an endangered species in the United States’ history of wildlife management, nor did she realize it would become one of the most reviled, figuring prominently into a political debate that has never been more strained.
From the Associated Press:
BOISE (AP) — A Republican-dominated state Senate committee on Tuesday approved legislation allowing the state to hire private contractors to kill about 90% of the wolves roaming Idaho.
The Senate Resources and Environment Committee voted 6-2 with no Democratic support to approve the agriculture industry-backed bill that includes substantial other changes intended to cut the wolf population from about 1,500 to 150.
From the Jackson Hole News & Guide in Wyoming:
Colleen Marzluff whistled to her ornithologist husband, John, as he was looking for a raven nest in a string of trees on the low southern flank of Yellowstone’s Bison Peak.
Since Colleen had taken on the “sentinel” role, John knew that something furry and large was probably entering the area.
From HakaiMagazine.com:
Wolves generally prefer to eat deer, moose, and mountain goats—ungulates are their food of choice. But when those prey are scarce or unavailable, new research shows that wolves in southeast Alaska switch to eating a wide buffet of alternate animals. Some have even switched to sea otters as their favorite fare, preferring them over deer.
The research, conducted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) and Oregon State University from 2010 to 2018, is the first large-scale, region-wide study of wolf diets in southeast Alaska, covering both its archipelago of islands and the mainland, across landscapes from estuaries to alpine tundra.
The International Wolf Center advances the survival of wolf populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wildlands and the human role in their future.