Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Idaho elk hunters form co-op to pay wolf trappers for kills

The hunters behind the little-known Foundation For Wildlife Management know three things about trapping wolves. First, it is a much more effective wolf-management tool than hunting. Wolf hunters have a success rate of less than 1 percent, while trappers enjoy a success rate near 25 percent. Second, wolf trapping is time consuming and expensive. Traps need to be checked at least once every three days, and that can involve driving hundreds of miles. “It costs me $48 a day on an average day, and I have to go every 72 hours,” said Jack Hammack of Sandpoint, a founding member of the group that is based in the Idaho Panhandle. “It’s typically between a 10- and a 13-hour day.” It takes so much time and money to be a serious wolf trapper that group members feared many hunters, even those like themselves who desperately want to see wolf populations thinned, would either not take up trapping or not stick with it. So they formed the foundation, a sort of wolf-trapping cooperative that essentially pays regular-joe trappers to kill wolves. People can join the group for $35. Those who join and then successfully trap a wolf, can submit their expenses and be reimbursed up to $500 per wolf. Hammack said it has increased the number of active trappers in the Panhandle, and the idea is ripe for export to other areas of the state and perhaps even to Montana...more

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