Mike Blankenship runs his Mouth WAY to much!
County checks report of third Washington wolf shooting
WDFW has Violated and disregarded our request to Cease and desist.
WDFW reported the shooting to the county, which dispatched a deputy to confirm the report, Blankenship said.
Efforts to reach WDFW were unsuccessful. WDFW has limited its release of information to weekly statements.
In what would be a first for the state, WDFW said Friday it plans to kill the entire pack.
The day before, WDFW halted an operation to “partially remove” the pack 13 days after shooting two wolves from a helicopter, leaving four adults and five pups surviving.
Ferry County commissioners, who have asked for the pack’s elimination since 2014, responded by authorizing the sheriff Friday to remove the rest of the pack. Later that day, WDFW determined a calf had been injured by wolves and two others had probably been killed. WDFW then resumed the hunt, this time with the intent to eliminate the pack.
Since July 8, the pack has killed or injured at least six cattle and probably killed at least five more, according to WDFW.
Blankenship said the county will formulate a plan to kill the wolves, though it will wait to see the outcome of WDFW’s operation.
“We won’t put anybody on the ground until we feel we absolutely have to,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes.”
Wolves are a state-protected species. If the county moves to shoot wolves, it will test the state’s jurisdiction over wildlife.
“I would prefer to avoid that,” Blankenship said.
WDFW said in a press release Friday that removing the rest of the pack will be hard because the wolves have retreated to rugged timberlands in the Kettle Range Mountains.
Two wolves in the pack are wearing radio-transmitting collars.
When suspending the hunt last week, WDFW said the pack had become increasingly hard to find and that there was no evidence of more attacks on livestock since the two wolves were shot Aug. 5.
County officials and others in contact with ranchers said calves are being attacked regularly and that WDFW’s official count understates the number of depredations.
State policy calls for WDFW to consider lethal removal after four depredations in a year.
County officials say the pack threatens public safety, as well as the health of an important county industry.
Blankenship said area residents report a decline in deer populations. He said the wolves have naturally turned to cattle. If the cattle are driven from the range, the wolves may roam toward populated areas in search of food, he said.
The state has 19 known wolf packs, with 15 of them concentrated in the northeastern corner of the state.
The state’s policy calls for wolves to be widely distributed throughout Washington. While wolves have become an increasing problem for ranchers in northeastern Washington, progress toward meeting statewide recovery goals has been slow.
WDFW counted 90 wolves statewide at the end 2015.