Wolves thrive after reintroduction

[TransitJohn]

By BECKY BOHRER
Associated Press writer Saturday, January 08, 2005




BILLINGS, Mont. -- It was a frigid January day when the doors to the small crates finally opened, and the first gray wolf bolted into the wilds of Idaho. The event was cheered by environmentalists, who had wondered if they would ever see wolves reintroduced in the Northern Rockies, and decried by ranchers and others who had hoped to keep it from ever happening.

Ten years after gray wolves were first reintroduced to the region, passions still run deep. The wolves' incredible recovery and expansion in the states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming have ensured that.

Ranchers worry about livestock being attacked. Outfitters, like Edwin Johnson in Gardiner, worry the wolves are decimating elk herds and threatening their livelihood.

"You haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg yet, because wolves are going to be all over the place," he said.

Conservationists acknowledge some problems but say wolves haven't been the scourge some predicted they would be or claim that they are. In fact, they say wolves have had positive effects on both the ecology of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem and economies of communities around Yellowstone National Park, where wolves also were reintroduced beginning in 1995. The park has become a wolf-watching hotspot.

Some conservationists say the true measure of success will come when the wolves are taken off the list of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act, a move that, despite the wolves' having already achieved recovery goals, could still be years away because of litigation.

"The book needs to be closed in order for us to say that the Endangered Species Act is doing its job and that wolf restoration is a complete success," said Jon Schwedler, a spokesman for the Predator Conservation Alliance in Bozeman.

The story spans decades, with wolves in the region gaining protection under the act in 1974. The animals were essentially gone from Idaho, Wyoming and Montana until the 1980s, when a small number migrated naturally into Glacier National Park from Canada.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in a 1987 plan, proposed reintroduction of an "experimental" population in Yellowstone. After several years of study, public comment and controversy, a decision was made in the early 1990s to reintroduce wolves to the park and wilder parts of central Idaho.

Ranchers were among those firmly against it, worried about how the predators would affect their livelihoods. State Farm Bureau groups and others sued to stop the release of the gray wolves from Canada.

"You have wolf advocates from New York to L.A. They love these animals and have no sense of what they're capable of," said Jake Cummins, executive vice president of the Montana Farm Bureau Federation. "When they're killing a calf, they're not as warm and fuzzy as they're portrayed."

When the release finally came, some wolf advocates present, including Suzanne Stone, were worried not only about the wolves' well-being, but their own.

"There was a lot of hostility toward the people bringing them in, and the wolves themselves," said Stone, who is now the Rocky Mountain field representative with the Defenders of Wildlife.

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http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/01/08/news/wyoming/285c4040420eface87256f840003348d.txt

[NNadir]

1. I often wish we had wolves in New Jersey. The main predator around

here for deer is the automobile.