Elk to star in wolf plan
A draft Wyoming Game and Fish plan would give officials broad authority to kill wolves that upset elk feeding, prey on livestock, damage property or cause economic damage.
The plan also would require state officials to maintain a “recovered, stable and sustainable” population of the predators that numbers at least 100 in 10 packs. Wyoming would commit to monitoring wolf genetics and would allow migration of at least one wolf into the greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population each generation — about four years.
Officials will present the draft Wyoming Gray Wolf Management Plan at a meeting at 7 p.m. Aug. 24 at the Center for the Arts. It seeks to accomplish management goals through public hunting.
The plan, a precursor to hunting regulations, anticipates the federal government removing the wolf from Endangered Species Act protection as agreed to with the state.
Wolves were transplanted to Yellowstone in 1995 under the act and have flourished to the point there are an estimated 19 packs and 230 wolves in Wyoming outside Yellowstone.
The plan creates the Wyoming Trophy Game Management Area — about 12 percent of the state’s total area — in the northwest corner of Wyoming. Wolves would be hunted there by license during a hunting season. Elsewhere they would be classified as predators and could be killed by any means at any time.
The plan gives managers tools to kill or hunt wolves to preserve elk and other ungulate numbers.
For example, hunting seasons may be extended to “realize hunting quotas that are not significantly filled during the proposed hunting season, reduce wolf populations in areas where they are causing unacceptable impacts to ungulate herds, alleviate predation and/or conflicts at state-operated elk feedgrounds, or reduce wolf populations in areas that experience persistent livestock depredation,” the document states.
An unacceptable impact is defined as “any decline in a wild ungulate population or herd that results in the population or herd not meeting the state population management goals or recruitment levels established for the population or herd,” the document states.
Wyoming Game And Fish License Results - News
A draft Wyoming Game and Fish plan would give officials broad authority to kill wolves that upset elk feeding, prey on livestock, damage property or cause economic damage. The plan also would require state officials to
"The Wyoming Game and Fish Department and Arizona Department of Health Services are accommodating us and understand the urgency of processing the samples." The bear is being tested by Health Services for rabies. Those results are expected to be
It also allows Wyoming Game and Fish to use aerial gunning to: control livestock depredations; achieve ungulate management objectives if wolves are determined to be a significant cause for not meeting those objectives; or address human safety issues.
Under the so-called dual-status plan, wolves in the northwest part of the state would be protected as trophy game, meaning they could only be hunted with a license. In addition, a flex area will be created in Sublette and Lincoln counties,