More Money Asked For Wolf Recovery Kempthorne Wants To Double Funds For Managing Wolves

U.S. Sen. Dirk Kempthorne wants to double the federal money available for tracking wolf recovery efforts in Idaho led by the Nez Perce Tribe.

Kempthorne has asked the Senate Appropriations Committee to add $150,000 for the wolf program in the budget year starting Oct. 1.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot reintroduce wolves into Idaho, and then fail to provide the funding to manage and control these predators,” the Idaho Republican said.

The federal agency contracts with the Nez Perce Tribe to run the wolf program in Idaho. Samuel Penney, Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee chairman, said the tribe received $143,000 from the government this year for the wolf program. In contrast, the wolf recovery program in Yellowstone National Park received $300,000 this year, he said.

In Yellowstone, the National Park Service has to track wolves across about 2.4 million acres. The tribal staff, Penney said, has to track wolves across some 15 million acres.

“I think just the inequity in funding shows it is needed for the immense area we’re monitoring the wolves in,” Penney said.

The tribe wants the money to fulfill the four objectives of the program, Penney said. They include tracking and controlling wolves if they cause problems, researching their effects on livestock and keeping the public up to speed.

The central Idaho wolves, which were brought south from Canada in January 1995 and 1996, are considered a non-essential experimental population, which gives tribal and federal biologists more latitude in dealing with them.

The federal wolf recovery plan calls for turning wolf management over to the state and removing federal involvement once the population reaches an average of 10 breeding pairs for three years.

Of the 35 wolves released, 29 are still alive and accounted for, biologists cannot locate two and four have died. At least three pairs had pups last year.

Timm Kaminski, tribal wolf project leader, said biologists want to put radio collars on last year’s and this year’s pups this fall to track their movements, but would need additional money.

Without the collars and enough money to track the wolves, wolf recovery project leaders will not be able to make the case for removing the wolf from the endangered species list, Kempthorne said.