Idaho Fish and Game sold 1,825 wolf tags in the first hour. By mid-afternoon the first day, about 4,000 tags had been sold. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:
Transcript
It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:
This is the first time a state has allowed an open hunting season on the wolf since it was protected by federal law.
Jon Rachael is state game manager for Idaho’s Fish and Game. He says there are about 1,000 wolves – far more than the original plan when the wolves were reintroduced.
So, hunters can kill as many as 220 of them.
“The intent of that is to reduce the population slightly. But that would leave us in the neighborhood of about 800 wolves at the end of the year.”
A Montana hunting season would allow another 75 wolves to be killed.
Environmentalists say it’s outrageous to kill so many wolves in the northern Rockies so soon after they were taken off the endangered species list.
The Environmental group Defenders of Wildlife sued to stop the wolf hunting season. A federal judge has not yet ruled on whether to stop the hunt.
Sally Maughan and her assistant John Knight (Photo by Sadie Babits)
The bears' enclosure (Photo by Sadie Babits)
A shy bear cub (Photo by Sadie Babits)
Many state wildlife agencies can’t
or won’t take in injured or abandoned
critters. They rely on a lot of volunteers
to do the job. One woman in Idaho has made
it her life’s work to give orphaned bear
cubs throughout the West a second chance.
Sadie Babits brings us this profile:
Transcript
Many state wildlife agencies can’t
or won’t take in injured or abandoned
critters. They rely on a lot of volunteers
to do the job. One woman in Idaho has made
it her life’s work to give orphaned bear
cubs throughout the West a second chance.
Sadie Babits brings us this profile:
Sally Maughan used to be known as the “squirrel lady.” As a wildlife
rehabilitator, she took in weasels, foxes, raccoons and a lot of
squirrels.
She had no intention of working with bears until one day the
Idaho Fish and Game Department called.
“And they kept calling because nobody else had an enclosure that could hold a bear.”
Maughan named that first bear cub Ruggles. That was twenty
years ago.
So far, she’s helped 189 orphaned bear cubs from around the
West. She runs a non-profit in Boise called the Idaho Black Bear
Rehabilitation Program.
(sound of outdoors and cars passing)
It’s a chilly afternoon but it’s sunny. So Maughan, her helper John Knight
and I sit outside on her front steps. It’s hard to ignore the smell as
we talk. You know that musty smell of animals and straw and well, bears. It’s kind of an
animal barnyard smell out here.
This place used to be surrounded
by pasture. Not any more. On one side there’s an upscale subdivision.
And on the other side, there’s another large subdivision. Maughan says
her neighbors don’t mind the bears and sometimes she’ll let them come
visit.
“We don’t want bears seeing people any more than they need to.
John just comes in and feeds and comes back out. And I do the bottle
feeding which is when they really attach so once they are weaned he
pretty much takes over from there.”
(sound of gate opening)
Sadie: “So who’s that?”
John: “That is one of the Oregon bears.”
The cub makes a bee line for his house the minute he spots us. Maughan’s
assistant John Knight explains this bear and two others are the only
ones here at the center.
The bear pokes his head out then ducks right
back inside as I check out the roomy enclosure. There are logs to play
on and green apples to eat.
John: “That’s their swim tub.”
Sadie: “They have a swim tub.”
John: “Yep. They like to break it often.”
Sadie: “Will they get in there during the winter?”
John: Yeah. Some bears do. It’s odd. One bear last year was in it everyday. It was
snowing – 30 degrees. He was in it.”
These cubs are orphans. We don’t really know what happened to their
mothers. They may have been killed by licensed hunters or even illegally killed.
Each year more orphaned cubs show up at Maughan’s place. She’s one of only
a few bear rehabilitators in the West.
Jon Rachael works for the Idaho Fish and Game as a wildlife manager. He says they have
to turn to people like Maughan.
“We simply don’t have the personnel or resources to handle all
of that.”
Just in the last year, Sally Maughan took in 53 bears. It was a bad
year
for berries and there were a lot of wildfires around
the West.
“What are you going to do? Say, ‘I’m sorry I can’t take you – just die?’ Uh-uh. Can’t do
that. So, hopefully, eventually, there’ll be some more rehab-ers
for bears. It’s a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of energy.”
The World Society for the Protection of Animals covers most of Maughan’s
expenses. She relies heavily though on donations. It’s still not enough.
Anything left from her paycheck as a travel agent goes back to the bears.
She’s even wiped out her retirement just to get these black bears back
into the wild where they belong.
The gray wolf is slated to be removed from the Endangered Species List. Many are worried this will have a negative impact on wolf packs. (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Fish and Wildlife Service)
This year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to officially remove the northern
Rockies gray wolf from the federal Endangered Species List. The agency will hand over
management of the wolves to states in the region. The states will allow hunters and
ranchers to kill wolves during specific seasons, or even year-round. But scientists and
conservationists are concerned about the hunting plans. Kinna Ohman reports some
conservationists think hunting could disrupt the way a wolf pack works, and even lead
members to seek out easier prey such as livestock:
Transcript
This year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to officially remove the northern
Rockies gray wolf from the federal Endangered Species List. The agency will hand over
management of the wolves to states in the region. The states will allow hunters and
ranchers to kill wolves during specific seasons, or even year-round. But scientists and
conservationists are concerned about the hunting plans. Kinna Ohman reports some
conservationists think hunting could disrupt the way a wolf pack works, and even lead
members to seek out easier prey such as livestock:
Biologists in Yellowstone National Park have had an unprecedented opportunity to study
wolves over the last twelve years. They’ve looked at everything from what wolves prefer
to eat, to why wolves kill big prey such as bison. But one topic they haven’t studied
much is how a typical wolf pack works.
Doug Smith is a biologist with Yellowstone’s wolf recovery program. He says they now
understand healthy wolf packs need lots of older, skilled members in order to hunt natural
prey:
“They’re very good at it. They have a lot of teamwork. They switch back and forth
about whose doing what job.”
In fact, studies have shown it takes 3-4 skilled adults to kill an elk. It takes more wolves
to kill a bison. Packs in Yellowstone are naturally filled with large numbers of adults.
But in places where wolves are hunted by humans, skilled adults are in short supply.
Smith says a lack of skilled wolves in a pack could mean they’d be more likely to go after
easier prey including livestock:
“If they don’t have that experienced age structure in the pack, they make do, and so
you will have probably inexperienced killers out there and inexperienced killers are gonna
look for easier prey. The elders of the pack, if there are only 2 or 3 of you,
are much more likely going to go after a sheep or cow than if there’s 7 or 8 of you.”
These concerns could become real when the gray wolf is taken off the Endangered
Species list in the northern Rockies. The states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming will
take over management. Suzanne Stone with the Defenders of Wildlife in Idaho says
hundreds of wolves could be killed as part of state management plans:
“They’re talking about killing now about 500 to 600 wolves after delisting. You
don’t manage any population of wildlife like that. The delisting plan, as it’s written
right now, is just a recipe for failure.”
Stone says the gray wolves were protected to build healthy populations, and how a wolf
pack works should be part of that consideration.
But the government is focused on how sport hunting effects just wolf numbers. Ed Bangs
is the wolf recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He says that
hunting won’t threaten the wolves:
“One thing that does happen everywhere in the world that wolves and people
overlap is that people kill wolves. And the answer is yes, that does have an effect on
wolf pack structure. And it certainly never endangered wolf populations.”
So it’s hard for conservationists to convince officials that the sport hunting of wolves
could change how wolf packs work and even lead to more livestock conflicts. Biologist
Doug Smith says that’s because the decision to delist the wolves is based purely on
numbers:
“Delisting is entirely numbers. Some conservation biologists have made the
argument that delisting should not occur until the endangered species is integrated
back within the ecosystem and functioning as a member as that ecosystem. That is
not how delisting occurs now for the Fish and Wildlife Service. It’s ‘do we have
enough?'”
Many conservationists and activists will soon be arguing that killing 500 to 600 wolves
leave too few. They’ll likely file lawsuits, stressing that the importance of healthy wolf
packs should be considered before hunting is allowed.
Ed Bangs with the Fish and Wildlife Service says he’s confident the agency has followed
the law. He says they’ll meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act by
delisting the wolves and handing management over to the states:
“My deal with the Fish and Wildlife Service is: What is the purpose of the act as it’s
currently written by Congress, have we met those conditions for wolves, and the
answer is clearly yes and therefore we’re supposed to delist them. If people want the
act to say something different, they need to talk to their elected officials, not the Fish
and Wildlife Service.”
But the wolf’s defenders will argue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the
states need to understand how the wolf packs work before declaring open season on the
wolf.
Hog manure being injected into the ground and tilled under. The manure fertilizes the crops, but if too much is applied it can foul up waterways.
(Photo by Mark Brush)
Big livestock operations can raise thousands of cows, chickens or pigs
under one roof. It helps keep the price of food lower. But neighbors
complain the government’s not doing a good enough job of monitoring the
pollution these farms produce. Rebecca Williams reports there’s a
debate heating up in several states over who should be regulating these
big farms:
Transcript
Big livestock operations can raise thousands of cows, chickens or pigs
under one roof. It helps keep the price of food lower. But neighbors
complain the government’s not doing a good enough job of monitoring the
pollution these farms produce. Rebecca Williams reports there’s a
debate heating up in several states over who should be regulating these
big farms:
The days of small farms with different kinds of livestock grazing in
the pasture are fading from the landscape.
They’re being replaced by farms that specialize in one kind of animal –
and raise thousands of them. They’re called concentrated animal
feeding operations, or CAFOs.
There are battles in several states right now over who should be keeping an eye
on the CAFOs. Usually, the state departments of environmental
protection have power under the federal Clean Water Act to enforce laws
and issue permits. But in the Midwest, in states such as Ohio and
Michigan, and in the West, in states such as Oregon and Idaho, they either have transferred or are working to transfer oversight power to the state agriculture departments – and get U.S. EPA approval.
Jerry Van Woerkom is a Republican state senator in Michigan. Right
now, the state Department of Environmental Quality – or DEQ – has the
oversight powers. But Senator Van Woerkom is sponsoring a package of
bills that would put most of the state’s big livestock farms under the
Department of Agriculture:
“Those people tend to be supportive and come with the attitude of we’re
going to try to work together to solve this problem. Whereas when they
work with the DEQ the attitude is more like we’re coming with a
hammer and if we find anything you’ve done that’s out of line, we’re
going to wop you with it.”
The CAFOs are in the spotlight because they can produce tens of
thousands of gallons of urine and manure each day. That liquefied
manure is eventually spread onto farm fields.
The Environmental Protection Agency says that waste can wash from
fields into streams and creeks. That can cause fish kills. Animal
waste has also gotten into drinking water and made people sick.
Lynn Henning runs a small farm. She says there are 13 CAFOs within a
10 mile radius of her Michigan farmhouse. She says the manure odors
are overwhelming:
“We can’t hang laundry when the emissions are in the air. We have
severe fly outbreaks. We’ve had family farmers that have been diagnosed with hydrogen
sulfide poisoning from emissions from the CAFOs.”
Henning says the current oversight system is weak. She says the
Department of Environmental Quality doesn’t have enough funding to
monitor the CAFOs. So that job often falls to residents like her. She
says putting the Department of Agriculture in charge of oversight would
make the problems even worse:
“The MDA has no enforcement authority and they promote agriculture in
Michigan. It’s like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
You can’t give authority to punish to an agency that’s promoting.”
But it could become a wider trend if the states that are proposing the
switch now actually make it happen.
Karla Raettig is an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project.
It’s a group that’s been critical of weakening environmental laws.
She’s been tracking trends in enforcement of livestock farms:
“I think the Farm Bureau and other really large industry advocates are
seeing a chance to get regulation that is perhaps more cooperative,
less regulatory and less on the enforcement side. It isn’t totally
nefarious but I think it could have outcomes that are not anticipated.”
Raettig says you have to wonder what will happen without the threat of
enforcement from an environmental agency.
But Senator Jerry Van Woerkom from Michigan argues that farmers are
more likely to do the right thing if they’re overseen by a friendlier
agency, as he proposes:
“I mean you’re not able to cover up problems that happen, it gets in
the newspaper, people know when problems happen. But I believe that the
agriculture department will work with people, especially if people are
getting a bad reputation. I think they will work with them and if
those people do get out of line, it’s back to the DEQ.”
Environmentalists and small farmers are worried about the idea of
states handing off oversight of CAFOs… from their environmental
watchdog agencies to their agencies in charge of promoting the business
of agriculture.
Idaho Fish and Game sold 1,825 wolf tags in the first hour. By mid-afternoon the first day, about 4,000 tags had been sold. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
