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May 9 deadline to comment on wolf delisting

L

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
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Location
northwestern South Dakota
Read the story below and then use this information to comment:
Comments from the public are encouraged on this proposal to delist the northern Rocky Mountain population of wolves. They can be electronically mailed to [email protected]; hand-delivered to USFWS, 585 Shepard Way, Helena, MT 59601; or mailed to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wolf Delisting, 585 Shepard Way, Helena, MT 59601.

All comments must be received within 60 days of the proposed rule's publication date in the Federal Register. For more information on Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves, visit http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/wolf/


Gray Wolf's Federal Status Changing

PIERRE, S.D.--As of March 12, the gray wolf was removed from the protection of the Endangered Species Act east of the Missouri River in South Dakota. This change resulted from the recent delisting of the western Great Lakes population of gray wolves by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This population occurs primarily in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, with the population's boundaries extending into parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Wolves within this area will be managed by the respective state wildlife agencies. In South Dakota, even though wolves have been delisted in East River, they will still be off limits to hunters.

"Although East River wolves have been delisted, only individuals specifically authorized by the GFP Secretary could take a wolf, and only then if it is posing a threat to human health, safety or welfare or causing damage to property," according to Art Smith, S.D. Game, Fish and Parks Wildlife Damage Management Program Administrator.

Another recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal is of interest to South Dakotans. The service recently proposed the boundaries for the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population, which will include all of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming and portions of Washington, Oregon, and Utah.

The service also proposed to delist this population, which reflects the success of gray wolf reintroduction efforts in the western United States. The current proposal for the Northern Rocky Mountain population would mean the gray wolf would remain a federal endangered species in western South Dakota.

The S.D. Game, Fish and Parks Department disagrees with the prospect of having wolves in western South Dakota remain listed as an endangered species and is concerned about confusion and management challenges in dealing with a species that is a federal endangered species west of the Missouri River but a state-managed species east of the river.

SDGFP is currently working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to include all of South Dakota in a "delisted" status. "It is the department's goal that when all the wolf delisting efforts conclude that it will result in the gray wolf becoming a state-managed species throughout South Dakota," said GFP Secretary Jeff Vonk. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has acknowledged that South Dakota is not considered suitable wolf habitat, that the state currently lacks a viable wolf population and that wolves in South Dakota are not needed to recover the species."

The service is accepting comments on the Northern Rocky Mountain population proposal until May 9, 2007.

"Wolf management is an extraordinarily complex prospect. I believe the public would be best served by transferring management of wolves in western South Dakota to our agency," Vonk said. "We are in a position at our state level to determine appropriate measures both for protecting and managing wolves."

More information about these two federal proposals can be found at this Web site: http://www.fws.gov/endangered/.

http://www.sdgfp.info/GFPnews/News07/03_30_07.htm
 
Tuesday May 01, 2007 9:49:41 AM



Wolves prey on cattle while ranchers huff and puff
MOTLEY, Minn. (AP)--One day after selling his cattle, hay and farm machinery, Mike Kasten Sr. visited with his good friend, John Eischeid, in the office of Tri-County Livestock Auction Inc. Still sporting his cowboy hat and boots, Kasten pulled up a chair and explained why he decided to sell.

Last June, he said he was getting his two grandsons off to summer school classes when he noticed trouble in a pasture close to his house.

"The cows were up close, calving," he recalled, "and there were three timber wolves, two of them working the cow. One calf took off running toward the brush, and I ran to get my .243.

"When I got back, they were by another cow that had just calved that morning, and they were trying to get her."

Kasten said the adult female wolf ran off, but he managed to shoot two young males. He notified the local authorities, who in turn summoned a DNR official and trapper from the USDA office in Grand Rapids.

By midwinter, Kasten said he had lost several more calves to wolves, but he had no carcasses to prove his damages. He said it is common knowledge that wolves can tear carcasses to pieces, dragging them away to their den.

In addition, some of Kasten's adult cows suffered injuries he attributes to wolf attacks.

"One cow had her hip socket completely out, and two more had shoulder injuries. When we butchered one, they found out all of her ribs were cracked, probably from hitting a post because they stampeded," he said.

He also thinks a wolf-related stampede caused the trampling deaths of twin calves.

Livestock depredation by wild animals is not uncommon in the Upper Midwest, but Kasten said the nature of his operation made the losses more painful. His crossbred herd was relatively small, with 160 stock cows or less at any given time.

Raised on a Montana ranch, Kasten moved in 1985 to the Motley area. Carefully building his ranch from the ground up, some of his best-laid plans later created unexpected challenges.

"I made a lot of mistakes when I did my ranching because I was a conservationist," he said. "I used small acres so I could rotate graze, and when you've got wolves, that's against you."

Kasten also focused on fall-calving cows, for better timing in the calf market and the ability to graze calves on grass for a longer period of time.

"But I didn't realize that when they calved, it was going to be during wolf season.

"I also culled out any cows that had a bad disposition, that would go on a fight," he said.

But Kasten said once the wolves moved in, his herd became difficult to manage.

"You just couldn't work them after the wolves got into those cows. They just got goofy."

Both men say cattle stampedes not only make ranching more difficult, but also create a public safety threat. Some of Kasten's pastureland is just a couple hundred yards from U.S. Highway 10, a four-lane expressway of sorts between the Minneapolis metropolitan area and the hunting and fishing mecca of northern Minnesota.

Kasten said one wolf kill happened about 250 yards away from the highway, and the cattle broke through several fences trying to escape the predators.

"If those cattle would have run east, they would've all headed for the highway. If 140 head of cattle get out on that highway when the boys are headed up here from the cities, I would have lost everything because of the liability."

Ironically, just two days after Kasten's farm sale, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made an announcement that may make it easier for ranchers to deal with wolf depredation.

The U.S. Department of Interior agency announced Jan. 29 that the western Great Lakes population of gray wolves, often called timber wolves, would be removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. The agency says it is recognizing the success of gray wolf recovery efforts under the Endangered Species Act.

Bill Paul, who works at USDA's Wildlife Services office in Grand Rapids, says it's expected to take some time for the delisting to go into effect. When it does, he said, affected states will use their own management plans to address wolf depredation issues.

"Under Minnesota's plan, if a wolf was in the act of attacking a producer's livestock, they could legally shoot the wolf," Paul said. "But it would have to be in the act, it couldn't just be passing through the area."

Paul was one of the government officials summoned when Kasten shot two wolves in his cattle pasture last June. Legally, he said, ranchers cannot shoot wolves even if they're attacking livestock.

"The only provision is if they are posing immediate threat to their personal safety," he said.

Paul quickly pointed out that last June's wolf attack on Kasten's ranch occurred just a few hundred yards from his home. He acknowledges that missing livestock is a big factor in wolf depredation, since ranchers don't get compensated unless there is evidence that an attack took place.

Along with the two wolves Kasten shot, Paul captured two more in nearby traps, and those animals were destroyed.

"By federal regulation, when wolves are verified to kill livestock, we can kill them," he said. "We continue trapping in that area until the wolf signs diminish, and then we move on to the next place."

The process starts from scratch with each new livestock season.

"We can't do preventative work," Paul said. "We can't just stay at one farm forever and ever simply keeping them wolf-free."

Kasten said it wasn't only livestock losses that prompted him to call it quits but also the added cost of trying to protect his animals from wolves. By using his grasslands for feed, he estimates it cost less than $20 a day to feed his cows and their calves.

"But I had to bring them all in and feed them because of the wolves," he explained.

Based on the price his hay brought at auction, Kasten figures it was costing him nearly four times as much to feed his confined cattle.

"It ain't the wolves' fault; I don't blame the wolves," Kasten said. "The government likes to show serene pictures of wolves running through a meadow, and if they want to do that, fine. But take my one cow, running up and down along the fence, looking for her baby.

"If you want to put it in the same terms, look at 9/11, people running in panic, wondering what the heck has happened. Then, look at all my cattle stampeding and cows getting hurt. I mean grown cows getting rolled over. Put those pictures side by side."
 
Kola,
Not that we know of, but our neighbors have. A couple years ago the state trapper accidently killed a big wolf with a "coyote getter" on our neighbor's place after the neighbor called him because he was losing a lot of calves to what they both thought were coyotes.

The wolf's DNA confirmed that it came from Minnesota, but other wolves that have been killed in west river SD have come from the Canadian wolf population that was introduced into Yellowstone Park in Wyoming. I've only personally seen one very large, almost black wolf, but sometimes at night you can hear them howl and other neighbors have also seen them.
 
Oh great!!!

I'll be in your end of the earth in Aug., get' em all out by then, please!!!!! :wink: :wink: :wink:
 
Those wolf kills that Haymaker posted about happened about 3 miles from my house as the crow flies or the wolf travel's.

Mike Kasten is a good friend of mine and was just plain sick with his situation.He is raiseing his 2 young grandson's and shot 2 wolves off his house steps last spring all of this is a 1/2 mile from town.But we dont have that many wolves, to here the DNR talk.
 
Just to remind those of you who intend to comment that the deadline looms...

Wolf deadline looms
By Richard Reeder

The deadline to submit comments about delisting the gray wolf is May 9.

The 60-day comment period expires next Wednesday and will be the last chance for residents to tell the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service their feelings about the wolf plan.

FWS has proposed delisting wolves in the Rocky Mountain region. But disputes about the State of Wyoming's management plan have slowed the process.

FWS has rejected the state's plan, and the state has filed a lawsuit about that rejection.

The dispute includes the boundary for classifying the wolf as a predator or trophy game animal.

The federal plan calls for a boundary along WYO 120 from the state line to Cody and Meeteetse and south in which the wolf would be classified as a trophy animal and could not be killed without a license.

The state wants that boundary placed to the west, closer to Yellowstone Park, along the Shoshone Forest boundary, classifying the wolf as a predator east of that line and giving landowners the right to shoot wolves harming livestock.

The state also wants to be able to control wolves that are preying on big game herds. State leaders are pushing for the right to control the predators' effects on elk and deer.

"We don't understand why Fish and Wildlife won't allow us to save the big game herds," state Rep. Colin Simpson, R-Cody, told 600 people who attended a public meeting about wolves in Cody on April 19.

"We have to protect our herds before they are gone," he added. "This is a critical part of the plan."

State Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, is on the negotiating team working with the FWS to bridge the gap between the two plans.

"Our original plan in 2002 passed peer review," he said. "Our bill in the last legislative session set our stance on the way we want to manage the wolves."

About 80 percent of the speakers at the Cody hearing favored wolf delisting, according to longtime anti-wolf activist Arlene Hanson of Wapiti.

Mitch King, regional director of Fish and Wildlife, has said they will move ahead with delisting in Montana and Idaho, but leave the wolf protected in Wyoming.

Montana and Idaho plans have been accepted and include guidelines and regulations.

FWS asked the State of Wyoming to submit a new plan for consideration by May 1.

But Gov. Dave Freudenthal has said the state could not have a plan ready by that date, and insists the new law he signed about wolf management is final.

http://www.codyenterprise.com/articles/2007/04/30/news/news1.txt
 
Just to remind those of you who intend to comment that the deadline is tomorrow.

The deadline to submit comments about delisting the gray wolf is May 9.

Comments from the public are encouraged on this proposal to delist the northern Rocky Mountain population of wolves.

They can be electronically mailed to [email protected];

hand-delivered to USFWS, 585 Shepard Way, Helena, MT 59601;

or mailed to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wolf Delisting, 585 Shepard Way, Helena, MT 59601.

I suggest emailing your comments at this late date.

All comments must be received within 60 days of the proposed rule's publication date in the Federal Register.

For more information on Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves, visit http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/wolf/
 

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