The Idaho Wolf Depredation Control Board is considering a proposal to spend more money on monitoring and control, and new research.
Ranchers last week recommended the panel put more GPS-equipped collars on wolves this winter, the best time of year to collar and track them, to allow USDA Wildlife Services to identify wolves preying on livestock, and to act. The board was also asked to lease or buy a helicopter to replace Wildlife Services’ 1966-built military aircraft that is expensive to maintain and often unavailable.
A Cascade-area rancher who has had his cattle herd reduced by wolf depredations also suggested the board spend money on research into clinically diagnosing and testing livestock for myopathy, which is muscle weakness or dysfunction. Western Watersheds and other environmental groups contend some livestock deaths are incorrectly attributed to wolves despite a lack of physical evidence of attack.
Some expect wolf depredations to increase again this year and in 2019.
USDA in 2017 reported 147 investigations and 89 confirmed depredations, compared to 78 investigations and 48 confirmed depredations the year prior.
The Wolf Depredation Control Board was created in 2014, and is made up of representatives from Idaho Fish and Game and the state Department of Agriculture. It is budgeted $400,000 by the Idaho Legislature, and $110,000 from each of the livestock industry and sportsmen. The board’s statutory authority is slated to end or “sunset” in June 2020, unless the Legislature takes further action.
A bill to remove the enabling legislation’s sunset clause will likely be proposed during the 2019 legislative session. (Capital Press)
