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. 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...more