SEQUIM — The state Department of Fish and Wildlife will present details of a proposed wolf management plan — which could result in gray wolves being brought to the North Olympic Peninsula a decade or more from now — during a public meeting this week.
The meeting on the proposed plan and findings of a draft EIS will be from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday in the Guy Cole Convention Center at Carrie Blake Park, 212 Blake Ave., Sequim.
It will be the only meeting on the proposal on the Peninsula.
The proposal is in response to the migration of wolves into Eastern Washington state from Idaho and Wyoming, where — along with Montana — they were reintroduced several years ago, using wolves from British Columbia.
It could end in wolves eventually being brought from one area of the state to the Peninsula.
It’s not likely. If it happened, it would be many years from now, after wolf populations grew sufficiently large in another area of the state to prompt the idea of moving some of them, and after an environmental impact study and public meetings.
But it’s a possibility.
It would not happen through reintroduction, which is moving wolves into the state from outside of it.
Reintroduction “is not going to happen. It’s not in our plan. It never has been and never will be,” said Madonna Luers, a public information officer for the state Fish and Wildlife Department who is based in Spokane.
The idea of moving wolves from British Columbia to Olympic National Park — where they had become extinct by the 1920s — was blocked in 1999 by Washington state’s former Republican senator, Slade Gorton, who said that some 65 percent of people on the Peninsula who came to public meetings on the proposal were opposed to it.
Translocation
But the proposed plan does suggest the use of “translocation,” which is defined as moving wolves from one part of the state to another.
The idea, Luers said, was developed by a citizens advisory group that has been working on a wolf management plan since 2007.
It would allow wolves from areas of the state where they are prevalent to be moved to areas of the state where they are scarce enough to qualify for federal and state protected status.
“One of the main things we want to do with this plan is to get wolves off the state endangered list,” Luers said.
“That means that the state wants to encourage the growth of the wolf population in the state, and ensure that the population is distributed throughout the state.”
Location of wolves
The department’s preferred alternative, and another alternative among four proposed in the plan, both include the Peninsula as part of a broader region that could host wolves.
The preferred alternative, Alternative 2, would include Clallam and Jefferson counties in a region of 15 counties, plus parts of six others, called the Southern Cascades and Northwest Coast region.
Alternative 3 includes the Peninsula in a region made up of seven counties, plus parts of three others, called the Pacific Coast.
Although reintroduction “is not an option,” Luers said, it is also true that having “no wolves is not an option.”
Two successful breeding pairs have been documented in Washington state. One is in Okanogan County, in the north-central part of eastern Washington state, and another in Pend Oreille County, on the northeastern border.
A successful breeding pair is a pack — two adults, mated for life, with cubs. The number of wolves in a pack can range from five to 10.
Okanogan County’s pack is thought to have six wolves, while Pend Oreille County’s has five, Luers said.
Those packs are likely to grow, with individual wolves dispersing to find mates or a new territory, Dispersing wolves have been known to travel as much as 600 miles from their home, Luers said.
Nothing in the plan proposes artificially increasing the number of wolves in the state. Instead, it supposes that the wolf population will grow naturally, lays out alternatives for re-distribution of wolves and creates rules for the degree of control, lethal or otherwise, that would be permitted.
Get wolves off protected lists
One benefit of encouraging the growth of the state’s wolf population to the point that the species is off protected lists, Luers said, would be that livestock owners would have greater flexibility in killing wolves that attacked livestock.
“A livestock owner is excited about being able to get to the point that if he has livestock attacked by a wolf, he can shoot it,” she said.
Government protection of species has three levels. Species listed as “endangered” have the highest level of protection. Those listed as “threatened” are protected but to a lesser degree, and those under the “sensitive” listing have the least stringent amount of protection of the three categories.
The aim of the state’s wolf management plan is to see wolves grow in numbers to the point that, eventually, the species is off the protected list entirely.
Alternatives in the state agency’s proposal include outlines of action that could be taken against wolves at each level of protection, and also outlines various levels of compensation by the state for livestock killed by wolves.
Fifteen breeding pairs, confirmed for at least three years, would be needed for the state to delist wolves.
The preferred alternative would have those wolves distributed with two pairs in the Eastern Washington region, two in the Northern Cascade region, five in the Southern Cascades and Northwest Coast, and six in any combination of recovery regions.
Wolves would be proposed to be moved from one region to another — or translocated — when they exceed this standard, Luers said.
“It’s nothing that would happen quickly, or without a lot of public discussion,” she said.
“Since this is strictly wolves naturally returning to the state, it may take a decade or more” for translocation to become an issue, Luers said.
Without translocation, wolves would find it hard to get to the Peninsula, since they would have to survive many encounters with people while moving from the eastern part of the state to the northwestern area.
“It would take a long time,” Luers said. “It’s not impossible.”
“That’s why I’m saying it expedites the process. Once you get a bunch of wolves in the state, you capture a pack and translocate them to another part of the state.”
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Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
