From the Capital Press:
TUMWATER, Wash. — Washington Fish and Wildlife may add a section on “chronic conflict zones” to its policy on killing wolves, calling on ranchers in hot spots to agree to pre-grazing plans to prevent depredations that trigger lethal control.
Wolf advocates, upset by the culling and eventual elimination of a pack over several years in the Kettle River Range in northeast Washington, are pushing for the addition. The department’s Wolf Advisory Group discussed the section Thursday, but didn’t conclude its review. The group plans to meet again in March or April.
Click here for the full story.
Fetching With Wolves: What It Means That A Wolf Puppy Will Retrieve A Ball
From NPR.org:
Some wolf puppies are unexpectedly willing to play fetch, according to scientists who saw young wolves retrieve a ball thrown by a stranger and bring it back at that person’s urging.
This behavior wouldn’t be surprising in a dog. But wolves are thought to be less responsive to human cues because they haven’t gone through thousands of years of domestication.
Click here for the full story.
The wolves aren’t waiting for Colorado voters
From the PostIndependent.com in Glenwood Springs, Colorado:
Over the past few years, several wolves have wandered into Colorado from farther north.
According to state wildlife officials, recent activity in Moffat County indicates that a pack of six wolves has chosen to make Colorado their home.
“It is inevitable, based on known wolf behavior, that they would travel here from states where their populations are well established,” said JT Romatzke, manager of Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s northwest region.
Click here for the full story.
Protecting wolves in Finland
From TheEcologist.org:
Wolves and other large carnivores were near extinction or extinct in several countries in Europe by the early 1900s.
In Finland, wolves continued to be freely hunted until 1973 and only few individuals were roaming in boreal forests. When Finland became a member state of the European Union in 1995, wolves became a protected species in Finland.
Click here for the full story.
Hunting banned in Belgian military domain to protect pair of wolves
From The Brussels Times:
A hunting ban has been implemented in a military zone in Limburg in order to protect a pair of wolves who nature organisations say chose the area to settle and nest in.
Officials managing the military domain located in the north of Limburg have withdrawn a hunting authorisation in order to protect wolves August and Noëlla, recently seen in the area, a nature association said.
Click here for the full story.
Who killed the wolf? The mysterious death of OR-59 in California
From The Mercury News:
More than a year after a young wolf was shot and killed on a cold winter day in a wild and windswept corner of California, its death remains unsolved.
Evidence has gone stale. No witnesses have stepped forward. And the culprit behind the crime – the first killing since wolves’ historic return to ancestral habitat — has long since fled the scene on Modoc County’s long and lonely County Road 91, according to new details released by the government last week.
Click here for the full story.
Colorado voters will decide whether to bring back endangered wolves
From the Washington Post:
When voters in Colorado head to the polls in November, they could be the first in any state to decide to bring back an endangered species.
State officials announced last week that an effort to reintroduce gray wolves in Colorado qualified for the 2020 ballot. If passed, the ballot initiative would direct the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to develop a plan to reintroduce the wolves to public land in the western part of the state by the end of 2023.
Click here for the full story.
WDFW looks at adding to cattle-wolf policy
From the Capital Press:
TUMWATER, Wash. — Washington Fish and Wildlife may add a section on “chronic conflict zones” to its policy on killing wolves, calling on ranchers in hot spots to agree to pre-grazing plans to prevent depredations that trigger lethal control.
Wolf advocates, upset by the culling and eventual elimination of a pack over several years in the Kettle River Range in northeast Washington, are pushing for the addition. The department’s Wolf Advisory Group discussed the section Thursday, but didn’t conclude its review. The group plans to meet again in March or April.
Click here for the full story.
Claim by advocates seeking to stop wolf shooting dismissed
From the Union-Bulletin in Walla Walla, Washington:
SEATTLE (AP) — Wolf advocates seeking to halt the Washington Department Fish and Wildlife from shooting wolves to protect livestock have suffered another legal setback.
The Capital Press reports King County Superior Court Judge John McHale on Friday dismissed claims that Fish and Wildlife’s lethal-control policy violates the State Environmental Policy Act.
Click here for the full story.
Carrying history: 25 years later, the wolves of Yellowstone and the man who told their story
From bozemandailychronicle.com
The day the wolves arrived in Yellowstone National Park was busy. At least that’s how Norm Bishop remembers it.
The wolves came in aluminum crates on horse trailers Jan. 12, 1995. Passing through the gates, the Canadian-born carnivores were the first of their kind in the park in decades, other than the occasional rumor or random sighting.
Click here for the full story.
Wolves in Red Lake Wildlife Management Area to be collared as part of annual population study
From the Grand Forks Herald:
The Department of Natural Resources has contracted with a federal trapper to capture and radio-collar gray wolves in Red Lake Wildlife Management Area and adjacent lands in northwest Minnesota this winter as part of a routine wolf population estimate the DNR conducts every year.
The goal of the effort now underway is to collar four to six wolves in separate packs, said John Erb, wildlife research scientist for the DNR’s Forest Wildlife Populations and Research Group in Grand Rapids, Minn. The DNR uses data from the collared wolves to compile information on average pack size and average territory size, Erb said.
Click here for the full story.