12-16 SS Wolf Synergy

An opportunity to bring Sportsmen together with agricultural producers in a win win. According to an article in the Idaho Statesman,the latest livestock attack by Oregon's Snake River wolf pack puts it one bite away from a potential state kill order. An Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife report says the rancher who found a wounded cow had taken required nonlethal steps to deter wolf attacks. The report says bite marks on the cow's hindquarters were characteristics of wolf attacks. In contrast to Oregon, Idaho Fish and Game's Jeff Gould tells us that trappers in Idaho are helping to take care of the wolf problem."We have a second year of trapping where now we are starting to build some tradition. There are some trappers who are building tradition and what we want to do is explore options with them to see if we can facilitate additional trapping. If there are ways that we can offset some of their costs and have them continue to trap until the end of the season we just want to begin those discussions. Those are two separate stories on how we are working with managing wolves in Idaho on the one hand, working with hunting and trapping, and on the other hand in areas where hunting and trapping are not doing enough, we are working with Wildlife Services when they are responding to livestock depredation, and we do not want to see them fall short on not having the resources to be able to address that situation, especially when we think it is going to benefit elk in that circumstance.