One of three wolf packs living in the region has come under scrutiny for attacking livestock three times in the last four months, officials said.
The Grouse Flats wolf pack, with its territory somewhere east of Walla Walla in the Blue Mountains, is now close to its “allowed” number of depredations. According to the Department of Fish & Wildlife, a livestock producer found an injured cow on a U.S. Forest Service grazing area in the pack’s territory on Oct. 28.
“Under the WDFW’s wolf-livestock interaction protocol, the department’s director can authorize lethal removal of wolves from a pack if department staff documents three predations by wolves on livestock within 30 days, or four within 10 months,” Craig Bartlett, with Fish & Wildlife’s Public Affair’s Office, said in an email to the Union-Bulletin.
Source: Nearby wolves near their livestock attack limit | News | union-bulletin.com
Comments
We need to get cows off of public land to start. Then we need to support ranchers who follow protocols on their private property. Wolves belong in the wooded mountains, not cows. They damage the land and chase away the wolves normal prey, deer. There should be no lethal removal of wolves, ever. Science tells us that this “wildlife management” is flawed. A splintered pack causes disarray in the pack and more predations. No more killing OUR wolves. The Public Trust Doctrine dictates that you nurture the environment and provide habitat for it’s natural species. Cows are not conducive to this environment and wolves are at the bottom of the list as far as predator attacks to cattle. They mostly die from disease and the environment. Putting a calf into rocky wooded terrain is a horrible idea. One man has started a war on our wolves, McIrvin and the WDFW seems to go along with whatever he says. Put it to the voters and you will see that Washingtonians want our wolves and all our wildlife protected. If you choose to live near bear or wolf habitat due to urban encroachment then you should expect that you might encounter these predators. But wolves, left alone will not go after humans and that should be the only exception to lethal removal.
The Wolves need to stay protected forever. Don’t even think about slaughtering them and if you want to protect your livestock, stay out of their habitat and find a spot where there are no wolves so they won’t kill your livestock.