Bill Description:
This bill would require the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to manage wolf-related wildlife interactions using lethal methods under certain circumstances.[teaserbreak]
Those circumstances are:
• When the wildlife interactions were not associated with intentional feeding or other activities that resulted in an unnatural attraction of wolves.
• When at least one of the wildlife interactions resulted in the death of a livestock animal.
• When the owner of the affected livestock appropriately employed at least one nonlethal prevention method.
• When, in the opinion of the Department, future wildlife interactions involving livestock and the same wolf pack are likely to continue.
Background:
Much of the opposition to gray wolf recovery has come from farmers and ranchers, who express concern that growing wolf populations will result in increased predation on their livestock. However, this is simply not the case, because wolf attacks account for a minuscule number of livestock deaths each year. A report from the USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service, which uses self-reported data from cattle producers, found that wolves were responsible for the death of 8,100 head of cattle in 2010, or about 0.2 percent of all reported cattle deaths. For comparison, dogs killed 21,800 cattle that year.
Furthermore, a statistical study of 25 years of records across several states by researchers at Washington State University concluded that traditional wolf management — killing some wolves to reduce their impact on livestock like sheep — mostly does not work. Killing wolves, the analysis suggested, may in fact make things worse as packs adapt, move around and increase their reproduction rates — and then kill even more livestock the year after their numbers have been reduced.
We can’t play games like this with such a vulnerable species. As long as gray wolves are listed as threatened or endangered state-wide, then they must enjoy the full extent of those protections until they meet the criteria to be considered recovered.
Take Action:
Washington residents, contact your state representative and urge him or her to oppose this legislation.
Read the full text and follow its progress here for the House bill and here for the Senate bill.