Relocating and delisting wolves is under consideration

DAYTON—Region 1 Director of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (DWFW) Steve Pozzanghera, came before the Board of County Commissioners last week to present a Periodic Status Review for gray wolves and to share information about the state’s Wolf Conservation Management Plan. He also discussed the process for delisting wolves from the state’s Endangered Species Act.

Pozzanghera said wolves are moving in from the Northern Rocky Mountain ecosystem, as well as from Canada, and across the state’s shared border with Oregon.

“We are not moving wolves,” Pozzanghera said. “This is based on natural dispersal.”

He said the DWFW is able to conduct minimum population counts of the wolves through a process of trapping and radio collaring, through online reporting and through the use of webcams.

“Since the establishment of our first pack in 2008 the wolf population has grown, on average, about 30% per year. And while we had a lower growth rate between 2017, and 2018, we still saw growth,” Pozzanghera said.

In 2017, there were 22 confirmed packs with a statewide minimum count of 122 individuals, rising to 27 packs, and 126 individuals, in 2018.

In 2017, there were fourteen successful breeding pairs, which is characterized as those who have pups surviving until the first of the year, he said.

Pozzanghera said that number increased to fifteen in 2018, with most breeding pairs in only one region, the Eastern Washington region.

While recovery objectives have been met for the Eastern Washington region, there are only three successful breeding pairs in the Northern Cascades region. There are none in the Southern/Northwest Coast Regions, he said.

There would need to be successful breeding pairs in all three recovery regions of the state in order to reach recovery objectives for wolves, and have them delisted from the state’s Endangered Species Act.

“The plan indicates you need four successful breeding pairs in each of the three recovery zones and then three could be anywhere,” he explained.

“So right now, of the packs of the successful breeding pairs, we see the majority of those all stockpiled in just the Eastern recovery region.”

He said twenty-two of the twenty-seven packs, statewide, range within the Eastern region.

“Closest to home, here in the Blue Mountains, we did document a new pack for 2018. So that puts us at four packs in the Blue Mountains,” said Pozzanghera.

Pozzanghera said the 2017 Washington State Legislature has directed the WDFW to look at translocating wolves from one region to another for the purpose of speeding up their recovery.

“Wolves are currently state listed as endangered,” said Pozzanghera. “In the eastern third of the state they are no longer federally listed, but they do remain federally listed in the western two-thirds of Washington. So the purpose of looking at translocation would be to speed up recovery and then look at our ability to get to recovery objectives where we could delist the species.”

“Currently the Wolf Conservation and Management Plan brings us up to reaching recovery and delisting the species, but it doesn’t direct what management would look like in the future, after the species was delisted,” he said.

He said periodic status reviews are conducted every five years, since 2011, when the state’s Wolf Conservation and Management Plan was adopted by the Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Pozzanghera told the commissioners the data gathered from WDFW stakeholders and its partners will be used to make a recommendation to the Fish and Wildlife Commission, and the Commission will evaluate whether the wolf population has met recovery plan objectives and whether delisting wolves is warranted.

If the Commission requests a change in status for wolves, the DFW would initiate (SEPA) the State Environmental Policy Act process, which could take a year to complete, he said.

Pozzanghera said he will keep the commissioners informed about a series of public meetings that are planned for September or early in October.

According to the WDFW website Federal law supersedes the state’s plan until wolves are delisted under the Federal Endangered Species Act.

In April, Kelly Susewind, director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, submitted a letter of support for a U.S. Fish and Wildlife (USFW) proposal to remove the gray wolf from its List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife, declaring the rule to be “appropriate and timely”.

He wrote, “Not only are wolves thriving within our state borders and demonstrating capacity for growth and westward distribution, but the population is also connected to robust, recovered wolf populations in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Canada.”

Wolves have already been delisted by USFW in the eastern one-third of Washington and Oregon as well as in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.

Federal delisting of the gray wolf would return management authority in the western two-thirds of the state to the WDFW.