Susan Kane-Ronning: Washington should think carefully before downlisting wolves

By Susan Kane-Ronning

Nearly 50 years after wolves were listed under the Endangered Species Act by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they remain under attack, both locally and nationally. In 2011, wolves in the Northern Rockies, including Eastern Washington, were delisted. Since then, wolves have remained under state designation as an endangered species. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is now proposing to double downlist wolves two categories, from endangered to sensitive. The Fish and Wildlife Commission will soon vote on the issue.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife’s recommendation isn’t based on the 2011 Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, the guidebook for wolf management in the state. Under the plan, Washington wolves have not yet met recovery objectives. The state lacks the required successful breeding pairs in the required recovery regions to downlist, let alone skip threatened status entirely. To trigger statewide downlisting, Washington must have a successful breeding pair in each recovery region for three consecutive years. Despite years of recovery efforts, there are no successful breeding pairs in the South Cascades and Northwest Coast recovery zones. In fact, wolves in Washington are still extinct or nearly extinct in a significant portion of their range.

Despite recent reports suggesting Washington’s wolf population is increasing, Washington’s wolf mortality continues to skyrocket. Over the past three years, humans have killed 93 wolves in Washington, including 55 wolves killed by tribes on sovereign and ceded lands, 15 by poachers and 10 in lethal control actions by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Four wolves died in purported “caught in the act” incidents, although livestock carcasses often unfairly attract wolves. The department has yet to apprehend poachers who poisoned six wolves two years ago.

Wolves are also under attack at the national level. Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert’s Trust the Science Act recently passed the House of Representatives and is headed for a vote in the Senate. After wolves were essentially eradicated in the lower 48 states, they were classified as endangered in 1978. The act will remove the species from the endangered species list and transfer wolf management to the states. Boebert is supporting ranchers and hunters, part of her Colorado base, to retaliate against her state’s reintroduction of the gray wolf.

Several legislators from Washington, including Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Dan Newhouse and Marie Glusenkamp Perez, voted for the act. The act is a dangerous piece of legislation, with the potential to remove decades of arduous work to recover the Lower 48 U.S. gray wolf population.

Boebert doesn’t provide actual science. Boebert claims wolves are a great threat to livestock, wildlife and humans. Wolf depredations are only 1% of livestock mortalities. There have been only two fatal wolf attacks on humans in North America in over 100 years, one in Saskatchewan in 2005 and one in Alaska in 2010.

Boebert claims wolves pose a danger to wildlife populations. Again untrue. Studies show that wolves kill deer with chronic wasting disease, culling herds of sick animals. Wolves improve habitat and increase populations of countless species, including birds of prey, pronghorn and trout.

The recent House vote on the Trust the Science Act and Washington’s downlisting proposal arrives on the heels of the country’s shock regarding the heinous torture of a wolf in Wyoming, made possible by the delisting. Cody Roberts is now a household name for chasing a wolf to exhaustion, running her over with his snowmobile, taping her mouth shut and parading her around a bar for patrons to photograph and torment before taking her behind the bar and killing her. Wyoming wants us to believe this cruel and inhumane behavior is a one-off, although horrified speakers at their Fish and Game meeting gave chilling accounts of families using their ATVs and snowmobiles to chase and run over wolves and coyotes as a weekend pastime. They referred to it as “whacking.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services signed off on the wolf management plans for Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, knowing full well they included heinous methods to kill wolves. The federal government could have stopped the ongoing cruel attacks on wolves and relisted wolves in 2022, when several conservation groups petitioned for relisting.

Studies show that delisting and removing protections for wolves increases poaching and wolf disappearances. Removing wolf protections will jeopardize wolf recovery. Downlisting wolves in Washington will increase poaching with lesser consequences and fines, and more wolf fatalities. De-listing wolves in the U.S. will threaten the nation’s wolf population and their biodiverse role that strengthens ecosystems.

Susan Kane-Ronning,is a licensed psychologist and co-chair of the Washington Sierra Club Wildlife Committee. An Eastern Washington native, she lives in Whatcom and Chelan counties.