III.                             A CONCEPT

Wolf Management Zoning in Oregon

By Sharon Beck, Wolf Advisory Committee

Representing livestock producers

June 25, 2004

During the Commission’s wolf education process at least two Commissioners requested to have identified where in Oregon wolves might be tolerated and some rational for that.

In the Attorney General’s memorandum to the Fish and Wildlife Commission, council advised: “Depending upon the tools selected, among the planning strategies available to the commission are those that would…zone the state and aim to manage wolves to minimize wolf presence in certain zones and maximize presence in other zones…include

a menu of wolf management prescriptions…”

My long held belief that for wolves to be tolerated in Oregon by the people who will be affected most by their introduction, the keepers of livestock, the state will have to make some hard decisions and take a hard line to support the management decisions they make.  The Commission must clearly acknowledge and direct that there will be identified places

in Oregon where wolves will not be allowed.

We have heard from many different sources that Oregon, because of the nature of our landscapes, land ownerships and land uses, will have unique challenges if wolves begin to colonize anywhere in our state. The purpose of planning is to address those challenges before they occur and develop prescriptions for treatment if/when they occur. I assume that is the WAC’s job to do and I think the best way to do it is by zoning as described in

David Mech’s paper, The Challenge and Opportunity of Recovering Wolf Populations.

I have always believed the planning approach we should take is to do a careful analysis of known facts applied to the map of Oregon and from that decide which areas could be identified as suitable zones or boundaries within which wolves would be protected and outside of which they would not.

We know:

1. This plan is applicable only to state land and the roles of state agencies.

2. The Oregon ESA cannot impose additional requirements or restrictions on the use of private land.

3. This is a wolf conservation management plan not a land or people management plan.

4. Post delisting the management of wolves will be the responsibility of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Therefore it seems reasonable that for purposes of this plan, only state owned or leased lands may be “protected zones”. An exception may be the case where there is agreement with other land owners/managers (i.e. Federal, tribal). Again overlaying the map of state lands with areas of potential conflicts we can extrapolate what lands would be appropriate for wolf habitat. For example grazing allotments on fee lands, wildlife units

that have a combination of high cougar/bear populations and a declining trend of ungulate numbers would be areas of high conflict and thus inappropriate for wolf habitat.

All other land areas left on the map that have an adequate prey base might be identified as a potential “protected zone”.

The necessity for establishing routes connecting Idaho populations to wolf zones in Oregon in order to out-breed isolated packs seems to have been debunked by Mech, et al. (Isle Royale wolves have had no new genetics introduced for decades with no apparent effect.) The EIS for the introduction into Wyoming, Montana and Idaho identified migration routes for the wolves among the three states. They look fine on a map but in

reality it is doubtful they were used because wolves migrate in the early spring and the routes identified are on the ridges of the Rockies which would be buried in snow and devoid of prey. Wolves are believed to migrate through the valleys and lowlands traveling at night thus would only accidentally hit upon a trail marked for them by the state.

The hard decisions that must be addressed in the plan before any wolves get here and before they are federally delisted, is not what it takes to get them off Oregon’s list, but rather how we are going to manage them when wolves in zones identified as acceptable wolf habitat, exceed the carrying capacity of that zone and begin to

disperse.

It is understood by wolf experts that when presented the opportunity the percentage of wolf packs that will eventually turn to killing livestock is 100%. So the trick is to keep wolves in zones where they will not have that opportunity and will not be exposed to the high risks of human-wolf conflict. This needs to be carefully thought out and addressed in the management plan. The zoning approach is an uncomplicated, yet sufficiently

sophisticated way to deal with the practical issues that have repeatedly been raised in the WAC meetings. We cannot simply say X number of wolves is the carrying capacity of zone Y and move on. If wolves choose to occupy areas outside their zone, they must be swiftly dealt with. Since predators do not self-regulate their populations and can increase at very high rates, wolf managers may very early on be required to deal with control 21measures and public reaction to what management tools they use. It will not be a job for the faint of heart, so if the will to eventually have to lethally control half of a wolf population every year is not steadfast then Oregon should decide now to stay out of the wolf management business. It is irresponsible and unfair to buy into a few numbers of wolves now knowing they will increase but also knowing that once they are here we will

not be able to limit them. The USFWS in their EIS did that in the other states after stating that predators are not expected to have any effect on ungulates or anything else. I strongly suggest Oregon find that as unacceptable as the livestock owners and sportsmen will.

One only needs to read L. David Mech’s Managing Minnesota’s Recovered Wolves to realize what a mess wolf management will become…and already has elsewhere.

Remember when Commissioner Rey said, “The wildlife biologists say that wolves are coming to Oregon and not to plan for them before they get here is sticking our heads in the sand”? Well, if we don’t zone in the plan and if we aren’t prescriptive within those zones in order to give the highest degree of certainty possible to the people who will be dealing with wolves on a daily basis and if we don’t stop glossing over and minimizing what wolves are really about then we will have failed the people of Oregon and

effectively “stuck our heads in the sand”.

I urge the WAC to more forward with this proposed zoning concept as a central part of our efforts in determining how to best manage wolves if they arrive in Oregon.