Life on the range: Wolf Reintroduction in Idaho

STEVE STUEBNER

Following the reintroduction of 15 wolves into the Central Idaho wilderness in 1995, an additional 20 wolves were transplanted into Idaho from Canada to reach a total of 35 wolves released. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to make sure they brought enough adult wolves into Central Idaho so they could pair up, set up territories and produce young on their own, restoring wolves to the Central Idaho ecosystem. The experiment worked extremely well. The Central Idaho wolf population took off rapidly, just as transplanted wolves did in Yellowstone National Park. The central Idaho wolf population quickly reached the official recovery goal for Idaho — 10 breeding pairs or roughly 100+ wolves — in just three years...But it wouldn’t take long for wolves to prey on livestock. Just nine days after the first batch of wolves was transplanted into central Idaho in January 1995, Wolf B13 ventured 60 air miles to Salmon rancher Gene Hussey’s cattle pasture and was found dead from a gunshot wound, lying next to a dead calf that B13 had presumably killed. The incident was an emotional flashpoint and made instant headlines in the local and national media. Hussey notified the county sheriff and USDA Wildlife Services immediately. A necropsy was performed in the field by a Wildlife Services agent. “Dead calf. I spent the night skinning the calf, everybody watching me,” said Layne Bangerter, who worked for USDA Wildlife Services at the time. “The calf had walked, it had been alive, and it was my determination that the wolf killed the calf.” The wolf kill confirmed what ranchers had feared all along — that wolves would not necessarily stay inside the Frank Church or Selway-Bitterroot wilderness boundaries, and they would kill livestock on private ranchlands outside of the wilderness. This was the first of many incidents of wolves killing livestock to come. “The citizens of Salmon, Challis, were on edge,” Bangerter says. “The classic clash between the federal government and the state and local government was happening right in the wild west of Idaho.”...MORE