Idaho legislative budget writers have been asked to allocate more than 400-thousand dollars annually to the Department of Fish and Game to count wolves. In presenting his agency’s proposed 125 million dollar budget on Tuesday, Director Ed Schriever told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee the expense would become part of the agency’s annual budget to keep a running tally of the predators in the state. Idaho stopped counting wolves in 2015 after it was no longer required to do so by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service following the lifting of protections under the Endangered Species Act. The move prompted speculation ranging from the wolf population getting out control to the animals heading toward extermination. In April, Schriever drew on existing efforts to count wolves, and last week estimated there are 1-thousand wolves in Idaho based on information from 600 cameras scattered around the state. The population had been closer to 15-hundred early in the summer of 2019 but was reduced through hunting, trapping and killing of wolves that preyed on livestock. Fish and Game is a self-funded agency that doesn’t use money from the state, but rather from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses and tags, as well as federal money. (AP)
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