Public review of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and Draft Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, as required under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), will begin on October 5, 2009.
A series of public meetings will be held in October and November, (see schedule at the WDFW website), with the public comment period continuing through January 8, 2010.
This is the public’s opportunity to meet with WDFW staff and give input to the draft plan prior to the release of the final version.
The content of the plan is published on the WDFW website for review prior to the meetings. A minimum goal of 15 breeding pairs of wolves would be neccessary to remove the wolf from the Washington endangered species list.
The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is the most widely distributed of all land mammals and one of the most adaptable. The wolf’s ability to survive in a variety of habitats, including forests, tundra, mountains, swamps and deserts, mimics our own ability to adapt, leading to our long complex history.
Tens of thousands of years ago, humans began the domestication of the gray wolf. As we migrated around the globe, a variety of dog types developed, each type exhibiting certain traits of the wolf while suppressing other wolf behaviors. While domesticated dogs provided early humans with guard animals, sources of food and fur and beasts of burden, wolves themselves provided a more complicated relationship.
Many Native American tribes consider wolves to be spiritually important, even including them in their creation stories. These tribes respect wolves for their close-knit pack relationships, intelligence and hunting skills.
Wolves were generally revered by the tribes who survived by hunting but were feared by those who survived through agriculture. Some tribes such as the Numamiut of northern Alaska respected the wolf’s skill as a hunter and attempted to emulate the wolf’s ways in order to successfully hunt down prey. The Tanaina of Alaska believed that wolves were once men and viewed them as brothers.
However, wolves were not always portrayed positively in Native American cultures. The Naskapis believed that a caribou’s afterlife was guarded by giant wolves, which killed careless hunters venturing too near. Wolves were feared by the Tsilhqot’in, who believed that contact with wolves would result in nervous illness or death. Early settlers in America, also learned to fear the wolf from folklore and myth and carried it with them to the Pacific Northwest. The gray wolf, once widespread throughout Washington State, was eliminated by the 1930’s by trapping, poisoning and shooting.
Wolf recovery and Management in Washington State
After more than seventy-year absence, the gray wolf is returning to Washington. Reports of wolves have been steadily increasing in north-eastern and north-central Washington and in the Blue Mountains in the south east. In 2008 and 2009, breeding packs of wolves were confirmed in two locations in Washington: the “Lookout Pack” in Okanogan County, and the “Diamond Pack” in Pend Oreille County.
In 1973, gray wolf populations in the 48 U.S. states were listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, which made it illegal to kill, harm, or harass the species In Washington state, wolves were listed as endangered under state law in 1980.
Wolf Policy Update
Congress passed legislation on April 14th to delist Rocky Mountain gray wolves in Idaho and Montana, and in Washington. While all Idaho and Montana wolves will be managed by their state agencies, Washington wolves will be split into two management zones: wolves in the eastern third of Washington no longer have federal protection; wolves in the western portion of the state, namely the Lookout Pack, are not affected by the new law and will remain a federal listed species.
The Salmo and Diamond Packs, will continue to be listed as state endangered. Washington State law “protects endangered species from hunting, possession, malicious harassment, and killing, with penalties described ….” It also specifies state listing and delisting procedures for endangered, threatened, and sensitive species in Washington.
Photo by William Cambell USFWS
In 2007, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife began developing a conservation and management plan to address wolf conservation in Washington, in cooperation with a governor appointed Wolf Working Group. The Washington Wolf Working Group includes stakeholders from livestock, timber, sportsmen, local government, recreation, and conservation interests. The plan will be presented to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission for consideration (see new timeline). Since January of 2010, the WDFW has received over 60,000 comments and can be reviewed at WDFW’s website.
Transplanting wolves is not part of the recovery plan as wolves are likely to come in on their own from Canada and neighboring states like Idaho.
To assist in wolf conservation and management efforts in Washington State, please report all suspected wolf and wolf track sightings to the Wolf Reporting Hotline at 888-584-9038.
Photo courtesy of USFWS, a Kenai Alaska wolf
To report a suspected livestock conflict, notify the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for eastern Washington or for western Washington contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 360-753-9440. Both sides of the state can also call the USDA Wildlife Services at 360-753-9884 or your local State Patrol office.
Since his “birth” on August 9, 1944, Smokey Bear has been a recognized symbol of conservation and protection of America’s forests. This is a vintage Smokey Bear shoulder patch, photo courtesy of Dennis Ryan.
His message about wildfire prevention has helped to reduce the number of acres burned annually by wildfires, from about 22 million (1944) to an average of 7 million today. Many Americans believe that lightning starts most wildfires. In fact, on average, 9 out of 10 wildfires nationwide are caused by people.
The principle causes are campfires left unattended, trash burning on windy days, arson, careless discarding of smoking materials or BBQ coals, and operating equipment without spark arrestors.
Smokey Bear is the center of the longest-running public service advertising (PSA) campaign in U.S. history. Since 1944, he has been communicating his well-known message, “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires.”
This is the debut 1944 Smokey poster.
In 2001, the term ‘Wildfires’ was introduced to include all unwanted, unplanned fires in natural areas such as grass fires or brush fires. The Smokey Bear campaign is a critical tool specially designed to ask for every citizen’s conscientious commitment to be responsible with fire.
A new ad campaign encourages young adults to “Get Your Smokey On” – that is, to become like Smokey and speak up when others are acting carelessly.
Primary source: USFS News, Gary C. Chancey, Wayne National Forest
A conservation officer in Prince George, B.C., used his CPR training to save a bear’s life after it was tranquillized. This photo was captured by cell phone camera.
Gary Van Spengen’s conservation team was called to a residential neighbourhood Monday after a female bear was spotted in a tree. A biologist tranquillized the bear while it was up the tree, and after what Van Spengen described as a “soft landing,” the bear stopped breathing after it hit the ground, but still had a heartbeat.
Van Spengen said he has never seen a bear stop breathing after being tranquillized in his 20 years as a conservation officer. “We could tell the heart was still beating … but the chest wasn’t moving at all. I didn’t want to lose this bear because I wanted to get a radio collar on it, so I started doing chest compressions on the bear to try to get air in and out of the lungs,” Van Spengen told CBC Radio’s B.C. Almanac on Tuesday .
While he said he did consider mouth-to-mouth breathing, another component of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), Van Spengen jokingly said, “[Bears] usually don’t carry breath mints.” Van Spengen said it was similar to doing chest compressions on a person, where the diaphragm is pushed up and down, to move air in and out of the chest cavity.
“I’ve gotten a bit of razzing from it, but it’s all in good fun,” he said. After 10 to 15 minutes, the bear started breathing on her own. After being fitted with a radio collar, the bear was released south of Prince George.
Conservation officers plan to track the bear’s movements as part of a study on the interaction between humans and bears in the area. Van Spengen said this particular bear was a good candidate because it hadn’t started eating garbage, so would not be considered a nuisance bear. “She’s wandering around doing bear things right now, eating and trying to fatten up for the winter,” he said.
Michael Liu hosted an open house for the public at the Winthrop ranger station. He is the new district manager and has 27 years experience with the USFS. Previous postings included Idaho, Montana, California, Colorado and New York. He has seen it all and been exposed to many of the same issues that will require attention in the Okanogan area.
Local stakeholders stopped by to say hello, chat and ask questions. Folks representing the town of Winthrop, logging, snowmobiling, back country horsemen and conservationists were in the mix.
Mike took all questions and responded thoughtfully. For someone who has been on board for only a short time he has taken in a lot about the local issues and the resources that are available to the district. Impressions were he will attempt to strike a balance with issues that tend to be polarizing such as the local wolf pack and controlled burning policies.
Want to learn about grizzlies in the North Cascades? Want to get involved with the recovery of grizzly bears in the North Cascades Ecosystem (NCE)?
If so, you will want to attend the next Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC) meeting. Periodically a committee of inter-agency personnel meets to address issues and progress relative to the recovery of the NCE grizzly bear population. These meetings are open to the public.
Spring Meeting 2009 North Cascades Ecosystem Meeting Date: May 6, 2009 Time: 10 am – 3 pm. No lunch break is scheduled. Location: Chelan County Fire District #3 Community Center 228 Chumstick Hwy Leavenworth, Washington
OLYMPIA- After a decade of leadership in fostering scientific and collaborative management of state natural resources, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) Director Jeff Koenings, Ph.D., has announced his resignation, effective Dec. 11.
“In collaboration with many other resource managers and Washington citizens, I’ve accomplished much of what I said I would do when I became director 10 years ago,” Koenings said. “I’m proud of the progress we’ve made in creating a comprehensive, gravel-to-gravel system of stewardship for wild salmon, re-building relationships based on mutual trust with tribal resource co-managers, bringing a scientific focus to state fish and wildlife management and improving the department’s business practices.”
Over the past decade, WDFW has acquired more than 109,000 acres of land for the protection of fish and wildlife habitats, ensuring their place in the public lands portfolio for future generations of Washingtonians.
Koenings’ 10-year career as WDFW director was the longest in the department’s history.
“Jeff has admirably served the department and successfully navigated it through some challenging times in the last ten years,” stated Gov. Chris Gregoire. “His service is appreciated.”
As director, Koenings brought stability to the 1,500-plus employee agency, fostered partnerships with stakeholders, promoted a good-neighbor policy in managing state wildlife lands and secured millions of dollars in federal funding for state fish and wildlife management.
“The past 10 years have been extraordinary in terms of the diversity of challenges presented to WDFW and its leadership,” Koenings said. “But through it all, conservation of the resource through science-based decision-making has been our standard. I’ve been fortunate to lead an incredible group of talented professionals and they will always have my respect and admiration.”
The Wind River Bear Institute (WRBI), together with its Partners-In-Life Program®, is an innovative program that is saving the lives of bears by changing the way they are managed and viewed by wildlife agencies and the public. The goal of this program is to reduce conflicts between humans and bears so the two can coexist in an ever shrinking world.
The WRBI uses knowledge of bear ecology and behavior to find solutions to human-bear conflicts and develop ways to prevent problems in the future. Most conflicts arise from bears getting human foods as well as pet food, livestock feed, bird seed and fruits from orchards. Bears that are habituated to people or are food conditioned are bears that have in most cases lost their fear of people; most attacks on humans have involved bears that were habituated or food conditioned.
Many people feel that “problem” bears should either be relocated or destroyed, but neither of these is a long term solution and both can be expensive and time consuming. Many “problem” bears that have been relocated return to where they were causing problems and end up being killed because the true problem, habituation and/or food conditioning, is not resolved.
Carrie Hunt, Director of the Wind River Bear Institute, developed and implemented what she calls Bear Shepherding®. This bear management technique uses Karelian Bear Dogs to teach bears how to recognize and avoid human boundaries.
Karelian Bear Dogs (KBD) originated in Finland where they were used mainly for hunting. They are extremely intelligent, fearless and have enormous energy making them a perfect match for the Partner’s In Life Program and for bear shepherding. KBD’s are a medium sized black and white dog that is very strong and muscular. They range in weight from 40-70 pounds and are 19-24 inches tall.
“The key components of the WRBI’s “Partners In Life Program” are that it emphasizes concurrent work on-site to teach people correct behaviors to reduce conflicts when living or recreating in bear country AND to rehabilitate and teach ”problem” bears correct behaviors on-site as well, through a non-lethal technique called Bear Shepherding®. This technique utilizes a strict protocol developed by WRBI to condition bears in the wild to modify undesirable behaviors that will lead to the eventual need to euthanize the bear, and as such, is the first of its kind. Bear Shepherding utilizes operant conditioning techniques where the bear learns to associate a human voice yelling “Get Out of Here Bear” with a painful or scary aversive stimulus causing it to leave or fade into cover as a wild bear should…. which teaches bears with problem behaviors to recognize and avoid human boundaries and developed sites. The Shepherding techniques teach the bears to control what happens by making correct choices. For example, when the KBDs “shepherd” a bear into appropriate cover or the bear otherwise leaves an area where it should not be, the Partners-In-Life team removes the “pressure” on the bear by recalling the KBDs. Bears may experience this training at the site of conflict or within areas they naturally inhabit, called their “home range.” This positive approach builds on the way bears operate and learn in the wild and uses their natural recognition of personal space and dominance hierarchies.
Since the Program began in 1996, several hundred bears and other wildlife conflicts have been handled annually by the Programs teams and extended Program “Family” of KBD/Handler teams. There have been no injuries to dogs, bears or handlers; a true testament to the commitment and training of both the WRBI teams and the dogs they work with.
The WRBI placed 2 of their KBD pups for use as Wildlife Service Dogs in Washington State. All dogs and owners are cared for, trained and handled, according to strict WRBI Program protocols to ensure safety and effectiveness for the Service Dog/Handler teams. The two Karelian Bear Dogs working in Washington State are both with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife employees. “Mishka” works with Bruce Richards, Wildlife Law Enforcement Officer, and “Cash” works with Rich Beausoleil, Cougar and Bear Specialist.
Wind River Bear Institute is a 501(c) (3) non-profit corporation that relies on the generous support of private donors who believe in the value of their work.
Posted by Wendy Gardner; GBOP Bear Specialist, Woodland Park Zoo keeper
The next meeting of the North Cascades Grizzly Bear Recovery Subcommittee will be held at the US Forest Service Ranger Station in North Bend, Washington from 10 AM to 2:30 PM on April 22, 2008.
An agenda for the meeting will be posted on the North Cascades Recovery Ecosystem webpage of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC) website at www.IGBCONLINE.org as soon as it is finalized.
North Cascades Subcommittee meetings occur several times per year on both the east and west sides of the North Cascades. The public is always invited to attend and, for interested persons, there is time allotted for providing public comment during the meeting.
Even if you are not able to make the meeting, the IGBC website is a great place to learn more about grizzly bears, the IGBC and what’s happening in the 6 recovery ecosystems in the lower 48 states.
Submitted by: Nan Laney Skagit, Whatcom and Northern Snohomish Coordinator Grizzly Bear Outreach Project Sedro-Woolley, WA
On December 4th, the Washington Biodiversity Council presented a thirty year plan to promote biodiversity within Washington State. Washington’s plan recognized six eco-regions which would be managed separately.
Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. The term “natural heritage” pre-dates “biodiversity”, though it is a less scientific term and more easily comprehended in some ways by the wider audience interested in conservation. The most straightforward definition is “variation of life at all levels of biological organization”. Another definition that is often used by ecologists is the “totality of genes, species, and ecosystems of a region.
Ecosystems benefit greatly when the level of biodiversity is high. There is a greater resistance to catastrophe. A wide range of crop varieties are available for human consumption. A variety of plant and animal species contribute to the search for new medicines and industrial materials. Intellectual value, leisure, cultural and aesthetic value increases. An ecosystem is able to react to changes in the local environment as the effects of global warming become apparent.
The WASHINGTON BIODIVERSITY PROJECT is an effort of the Washington Biodiversity Council to address one of the most pressing environmental issues of our time: How to conserve our state’s native plants, animals, and ecosystems for current and future generations. After three years of work, the Washington Biodiversity Council has delivered the Washington Biodiversity Conservation Strategy: “Sustaining Our Natural Heritage For Future Generations”. The strategy is designed to conserve Washington’s unique plant and animal communities. It was released in front of a large crowd attending the Biodiversity Conservation Conference in Seattle: “What Works, What’s Next”.
The council, a diverse group representing landowners, environmentalists, government agencies, tribes, and others, has developed the strategy to lay out a path forward to enhance biodiversity in Washington. It also supports other priorities, such as the Puget Sound Partnership and efforts to address climate change. Three broad initiatives form the heart of the strategy—a new approach to defining priorities, fostering widespread landowner engagement, and measuring progress: • Guiding investments on the land, through the use of a new tool which maps biodiversity value and threats at a landscape, regional scale; • Improving incentives and advancing markets for landowners to provide tangible benefits for conservation on working lands and open spaces; • Engaging citizens to work with scientists to inventory and monitor Washington’s biodiversity.
The Council sponsored two conservation pilot projects. The two projects, one on the east side of the state and one on the west side each received $20,000 from the Council, and ran for 18 months, January 2006 through June 2007. The general goals of the pilots were to demonstrate new models for promoting incentive-based biodiversity conservation tools, and to engage citizens in biodiversity conservation. The two projects have taken different approaches to these goals. The findings from the projects formed key components of the Washington Biodiversity Conservation Strategy. The pilot projects may also serve as models for other communities.
Citizen Stewardship of the Pierce County Biodiversity Network: Lower White River The Council’s western Washington pilot project focused on the lower White River between Buckley and Sumner. This area retains significant functional riparian habitat that supports a variety of fish and wildlife species despite rapid urbanization. The lower White River corridor is a Biodiversity Management Area (BMA) in Pierce County. Landowners in Pierce County BMAs are eligible for reduced property taxes.
The Healthy Lands Initiative The Healthy Lands Initiative worked to develop a shared community vision for how biodiversity conservation can be integrated with the economic and social needs of the North Central Washington region, including Okanogan, Douglas, and Chelan Counties, and the Colville Indian Reservation. This area is very rich in biodiversity and ecological function, and it provides a major migration corridor between Canada and the Columbia Plateau.
