Editor's BlogOlympia Update: Here Are Legislators’ Fish, Wildlife Bills So FarJanuary 18, 2019If Washington’s legislature is back in town, so is the Olympia Outsider™! Well, mostly anyway, what with the restraining order and all, but boy have lawmakers been busy so far at the state capitol!... Stopping Salmon Fishing Won’t Save Puget Sound’s OrcasJanuary 10, 2019The idea that we can save Puget Sound’s starving orcas by just stopping salmon fishing for a few years once again reared its misinformed head, this time in a big-city newspaper piece.... Mobility-impaired Angler Trying To Save Access To Popular Lake Roosevelt BeachJanuary 8, 2019A disabled Lake Roosevelt angler and local officials are concerned that access to a good fishing hole just above Grand Coulee Dam might be reduced or even lost entirely.... Sportsmen’s And Boat Show Season Arrives In The NorthwestJanuary 8, 2019Congratulations, Jason Bauer, you’ve died and gone to heaven. True, heaven will look a lot like the state fairgrounds in midwinter, but on the flip side there are scones – not to mention a giant walleye tank and the smells of alder smoke and cooking meat hanging in the air.... 2018 Northwest Fish And Wildlife Year In Review, Part IIIDecember 31, 2018There were the changes at the helms, court battles, legislative battles and more, and here we wrap up 2018 with a recap of notable news from October through December.... 2018 Northwest Fish And Wildlife Year In Review, Part IIDecember 28, 2018If it wasn’t the plight of orcas and mountain caribou, it was the fangs of cougars and wolves that were in the news — along with the flight of mountain goats and pangs of grizzly bear restoration.... 2018 Northwest Fish And Wildlife Year In Review, Part IDecember 27, 2018As 2018 draws to a close, we’re taking our annual look back at some of the biggest fish and wildlife stories the Northwest saw during the past year.... Columbia Sea Lion Bill Signed By PresidentDecember 19, 2018Federal legislation expanding sea lion removals in more of the Columbia and many of its tributaries became law yesterday, capping a multi-year, multi-stakeholder, bipartisan effort to reduce pinniped predation on ESA-listed salmon and steelhead as well as other stocks in the big river.... HeadlinesSouthwest Washington Poacher Pleads Guilty To 15 CountsJanuary 18, 2019William J. Haynes, part of a loose-knit Southwest Washington poaching ring, plead guilty to 15 counts of illegal hunting activities, including five felonies, in Skamania County yesterday.... More Details On Minter Hatchery Chinook Loss Emerge At Senate HearingJanuary 17, 2019State senators learned new details about efforts to overcome the backup generator failure that led to the deaths of an estimated 6 million fall Chinook at a South Sound salmon hatchery during a December windstorm during a committee hearing in Olympia this afternoon.... Washington Salmon Recovery Not Getting Needed Funding — State AgencyJanuary 16, 2019Despite two decades of efforts to recover them, wild salmon are still declining—and a report released today by the Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office stresses that adequate funding is needed to turn the tide on the iconic species’ future.... Former WDFW Director, NWIFC’s Chair Take Aim At SeaTimes Salmon-Orca ColumnJanuary 16, 2019You know you’ve done something bad when Phil Anderson has to get involved.... Shutdown Affecting Steelhead Season Planning, Sea Lion Management — Even A Clam DigJanuary 16, 2019Add Northwest steelheading, sea lion management and a three-day razor clam dig at a national park to the list of things being impacted by the partial US government shutdown, now in its record 26th day.... Industry NewsFirst Aid At Sea For Fishermen, Boaters Courses Coming To Seattle; Registration OpenJanuary 11, 2019Captain Thomas Bliss of Northwest Response has teamed up with The Center For Wooden Boats in Seattle, Washington to bring three levels of First Aid, CPR/AED classes to the Wagner Education Center in 2019.... Canine Cargo Carrier: The Next Generation in Dog TransportationDecember 7, 2018After years of experience in building, buying and transporting with just about every type of dog trailer out there, Get My Point, LLC has developed a break-through in dog transportation. Whether you have show dogs, rescue dogs, hunting dogs, sled dogs, police/military dogs or you are a dog transportation company, we have a trailer for […]... Mack’s Lure Adds Scent-dispersing Inline ‘ScentFlash’ Flasher To LineupDecember 3, 2018This one-of-a-kind 8” in-line spinning flasher features a patented scent release system that is sure to be a game changer in the salmon, trout and kokanee fishing markets.... Considering Adding An E-Bike To Your Hunting, Fishing Arsenal?November 21, 2018While much of the use of electric bicycles is geared towards changing the game in urban transportation, we’ve found that there are plenty of uses for those among us looking to get off the beaten path.... 2019 Northwest Sportsmen’s And Boat Show ScheduleNovember 7, 2018Get your phone calendar out, Northwest hunters, anglers, fishing guides, jet sled dealers, backcountry outfitters, lodges, and scone merchants, the 2019 sportsmen’s and boat show season is just around the corner.... Wolf NewsRevised ODFW Wolf Plan Sent To Wildlife Commission For AdoptionJanuary 10, 2019THE FOLLOWING IS A PRESS RELEASE FROM THE OREGON DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE After completing the last scheduled facilitated meeting with stakeholder representatives on Monday, Jan. 8, ODFW staff are working to finalize a revised Wolf Conservation and Management Plan. That Plan will be presented to the Commission at its March 15 meeting in Salem for final adoption. Last year, Commissioners decided to postpone Wolf Plan revisions and conduct additional facilitated outreach in hopes of getting more consensus from stakeholders. Professional facilitator Deb Nudelman with Kearns and West facilitated five meetings with stakeholders from late August 2018 through early January 2019. While stakeholders representing ranching, hunting and wolf conservation came to agreement on some topics, there was no consensus on several of the most controversial issues including the number of livestock depredations that leads to consideration of lethal removal of wolves when nonlethal deterrents have not worked. Environmental group stakeholders with Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, and Defenders of Wildlife announced late last Friday, Jan. 4 that they would not attend the final meeting. “We were disappointed these groups left the discussion and we did not have the full stakeholder group present at the final meeting,” said Derek Broman, ODFW Carnivore Coordinator. “Since the drafting of the original 2005 plan, stakeholders remain very passionate so consensus is challenging to achieve.” The facilitated process was designed to create a space for stakeholders to negotiate and allow for give and take on all sides,” he continued. “We thank all stakeholders for their time and attention at the meetings and for the progress made on several issues, and everyone thanks Kearns and West for their professional facilitating of these meetings.” Stakeholder groups were able to find some consensus on wolf collaring priorities, the desire to increase the use of nonlethal techniques and funding enhanced population modeling. But stakeholders remained divided on lethal take of wolves when they are killing livestock, including the number and time frame of confirmed depredations before lethal control of wolves is considered. ODFW is responsible for investigating livestock depredations and uses a rigorous, evidence-based process to determining if a wolf or wolves was responsible. A certain number of “confirmed” livestock depredations can lead to consideration of lethal removal of wolves by the department or a landowner. Currently, the Plan allows for consideration of lethal removal after two confirmed depredations within no specific time frame, but ODFW typically authorizes lethal removal after three or more confirmed depredations. In practice, ODFW has denied more lethal removal requests for wolves than it has approved. Since the first Wolf Conservation and Management Plan was approved in 2005, hunting of wolves has been in the Plan as a potential tool to manage wolf populations. Throughout the current review of the Wolf Plan, no proposals have been made by ODFW to begin hunting wolves. If hunting of wolves were to be proposed by staff in the future, it would have to be approved by the Commission in a public rule-making process. The Wolf Plan proposal will be available for review prior to the March 15 meeting Commission meeting on the wolf website at www.odfw.com/wolves... The Daily Howler: Jan. 9, 2019 Edition — Oregon, NE WA Wolf People, Wolves In NewsJanuary 9, 2019After environmental groups pulled out of facilitated meetings on sticky issues with Oregon’s wolf management plan last week, state managers say they plan to bring updates to the Fish and Wildlife Commission later this winter anyway. “We did hear what was important to folks, and where there is some agreement,” ODFW’s Shannon Hurn told the Capital Press in a story out this afternoon. The four in- and out-of-state organizations claimed that the new version would allow depredating wolves to be lethally removed quicker and in a letter to the governor said instead ODFW “must focus on prioritizing meaningful, transparent, enforceable, and effective non-lethal measures and only allow wolves to be killed in active defense of livestock.” They withdrew before yesterday’s Wolf Plan Stakeholders meeting with RMEF, the Oregon Hunters Association and cattlemen’s and farm groups in Clackamas and got widespread press coverage because of it. One ranching member of the group initially likened the move to a “bid to try and get attention. Like a little kid throwing a tantrum.” In Washington, a group with representatives from different instate camps successfully agreed on lethal removal protocols after quick, repeated depredations and stressed nonlethal work as well. They’ve held together despite outside pressure. Back in Oregon, a member from Oregon’s hunting community, Jim Akenson told the Press he was ready to move ahead with ODFW’s plan revisions, but also called for population caps for wolves in certain parts of the state over fears of impacts to big game herds. Meanwhile, in the southwest corner of the state, the Rogue Pack was blamed for an eighth livestock death since October. The wolves run in Jackson County, in the still federally listed portion of Oregon. Elsewhere in the Northwest, Stevens County Commissioners issued an advisory to citizens in different parts of the Northeast Washington county to keep an eye on their pets, livestock and any attractants that might be lying around outside after wolves had reportedly approached “very close” to homes. Also in this part of the state, the Press reported that a Ferry County rancher who shot and wounded a Togo Pack wolf had been cleared following a state investigation. WDFW wolf manager Donny Martorello said the man, who had been checking his cattle and heard barks and saw pups, then the charging alpha male, “felt threatened for his personal safety, and was within his rights to protect himself.” The wolf was later shot and killed during a lethal removal operation. And WDFW reported in its monthly update that in December field staffers had been surveying the state’s known packs as well as following up on “reports outside of known pack territories in the Methow and areas south of I-90 to try and locate recent wolf sign.” The agency urged members of the public to continue uploading sightings, images, audio, etc., to its reporting database., calling the information “incredibly helpful” for confirming more packs on the landscape.... Next Washington Wolf Count Likely To Show Increase, Possibly Sharp JumpDecember 20, 2018An out-of-state environmental group is trying to minimize the number of wolves running around Washington, but the year-end tally is likely to be significantly higher than their “approximately 120.” That figure comes from a pressure ad by the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity that appeared in the Seattle Times and is aimed at getting the governor to force WDFW to stop killing wolves in response to repeated livestock depredations. It comes as the two parties are locked in a court battle over the state’s lethal removal protocols for wolves. Twenty have been taken out by WDFW since 2012, an average of just three a year as Washington’s gray wolf population has more than doubled, but it still might have been the inspiration for a Central Puget Sound lawmaker to prefile a bill for the 2019 session along those exact same lines a couple days later. Ultimately it all may backfire. In response to CBD’s estimate, instate wolf advocates are indicating that there may actually be more than 150 wolves in Washington these days — even 200. That higher number comes from Mitch Friedman, head of Conservation Northwest, which put out the lower figure in a post that Friedman shared publicly and in doing so offered his own guesstimate. Those would be 23 to 64 percent increases over the official 2017 minimum (122). The former is unsurprising, given the longterm 30 percent annual growth rate, and while the latter may seem shocking it is not outside the realm of possibility any more. WDFW’s 2018 count probably won’t come out until March, like it has for the past five years, but for the first time wolf poop could help provide a much more accurate estimate of how many animals are really out there. Earlier this year a University of Washington researcher was awarded a $172,000 grant from the state legislature to run his dung-detection dogs through areas where the number of public wolf reports has grown but no packs let alone breeding pairs were known to exist. “If there are wolves south of I-90, the odds of the dogs locating them should be quite high,” Dr. Samuel Wasser, who heads up UW’s Center for Conservation Biology, told me for an April story. “Colonizing wolves range widely, our dogs can cover huge areas, and their ability to detect samples if present is extraordinary.” With the 2018 field season over, the samples are now in the lab and being analyzed, and the data will also provide information on diet. “It will be a little while because we are moving to Next Generation Sequencing, which allows us to simultaneously identify the carnivore scats and what they ate in a single run,” Wasser said by email this week. Up to this year, WDFW’s year-end count has been a mix of collaring individual wolves and then locating them and their packs again in winter, when they’re easier to track or spot in the snow from the air, monitoring breeding pairs and collecting imagery from a network of trail cameras. The agency has stressed that their annual tallies were just minimums, that there were likely more wolves on the landscape that had eluded them, and hunters have generally believed there to be many more than official figures. So using DNA this new information could provide a closer estimate of the state’s actual population, not to mention possibly help us get to the wolf management plan’s recovery goals sooner. As of this past March there was just one known breeding pair in the Northern Cascades Zone, the Teanaway Pack, and none in the Southern Cascades and Northwest Coast Zone. Under the plan there must be four in each, but since that count there have been tantalizing public reports around Granite Falls, the northwest side of Mt. Rainier, and Stampede and White Passes. Wasser says the new method for testing wolf doots his dogs find is just about dialed in, with results likely available later in winter. “We are close to having it validated, using sample previously run using our old method from Northeast Washington,” he says. “Once that’s done, we will move forward with the Central Washington samples. That should move pretty quickly once we’re at the stage. We hope to finish the validations this month. If all goes well, we aim to have all our results by the end of February (or March), although that could be optimistic.” The results could arrive just about the time that the Center for Biological Diversity and WDFW attend a court hearing for CBD’s lawsuit over the state’s development of the removal protocols. Both parties are due before Thurston County Superior Court Judge John C. Skinder on March 8 to review documents submitted in support of their arguments and determine when to set a trial. By that time, it’s pretty likely that Rep. Sherry Appleton’s (D-Bainbridge) HB 1045, which would bar WDFW from killing cattle- and sheep-killing wolves and — hilariously — instead require the agency to relocate them, will have died without a committee hearing. But not before it offered Rep. Joel Kretz (R-Wauconda) yet another chance to needle Westside wolfies, this time to mull introducing a counter measure to designate Appleton’s island a wolf preserve. In other Washington wolf news, in October WDFW issued a notice that it was beginning a periodic review of the species. “Based on the information collected and reviewed, the department will make recommendations to maintain the species current listing status as endangered or reclassify species to sensitive, threatened, or other status,” the agency stated. Public comment will be announced later. And late this morning WDFW announced a confirmed wolf depredation of a calf on its Chiliwist Wildlife Area, part of the Sinlahekin complex. The 400-pound animal was among a herd of cattle that had just been brought off of DNR land on Nov. 27 to a traditional gathering site on WDFW land and was found dead the next day. The producer was advised to cover the carcass and did so, and on the 29th, an examination of the remains revealed typical wolf wounds along with the tracks of a single. The incident occurred in the still-federally listed part of the state, in or very close to the Loup Loups’ territory, but in detailing the attack, WDFW did not attribute it that pack. “No collared wolves were present in the area at the time of the depredation,” the agency stated. It would be one of the latest if not the latest attack to occur in any year since wolves began recolonizing the state.... Congress Moving Different Directions On Sea Lions, WolvesDecember 7, 2018Attempts in Congress to give state managers more latitude to deal with two of the most polarizing predators in the Northwest these days are going in opposite directions. Yesterday saw the US Senate pass a bill that would expand where sea lions could be removed on the Columbia River system, and while the House of Representatives must still concur, a bill delisting gray wolves passed last month by the lower chamber will not go anywhere in the upper house in December, it now appears. The Manage Our Wolves Act, cosponsored by two Eastern Washington Republican representatives will likely die in the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works as federal lawmakers’ workload piles up at the end of the two-year session. Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY) indicated federal budgetary issues would take precedence, according to a report from the DC Bureau of the McClatchy news service. And even if the Republican-controlled Senate were to still pass the bill in 2019, with November’s election changing the balance of power in the House, a spokeswoman for the new chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), told wire reporter Kellen Browning flatly that the panel won’t be moving any delisting legislation while he is in charge over the next two years. It’s probably best to let the biologists determine when a species is recovered rather than run things through Congress like this, but that also takes time and meanwhile frustrations mount over very real concerns and unintended consequences of 1970s’ environmental protections, and the drag-it-out-in-the-courts approach the laws have inspired in some in the environmental community. In the case of the wolves of the river, Marine Mammal Protection Act-listed sea lions are taking unacceptably large bites out of Endangered Species Act-listed Columbia salmon and steelhead, putting their recovery — not to mention the tens, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on it — in the watershed at increasing risk. With pushing from fishermen, state wildlife agencies, tribal managers, even conservation organizations, a bipartisan coalition of Northwest senators and representatives has now been able get sea lion bills passed in both houses of Congress this year. But even as we live in an era when the back door to delistings and amended protections is being opened wider and wider, it appears that for the time being we’ll need to go through the front one, the traditional way, to clear the wolves of the woods off the ESA list. Once again. Back in June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service quietly announced that it had begun to review the status of the species in the Lower 48 for, what, the third? fourth? time since the early 2000s due to court actions. That could lead to the delisting of gray wolves in the western two-thirds of Washington, Oregon and elsewhere in their range, handing over management from USFWS to WDFW, ODFW and other agencies. This morning I asked the feds for an update on how that was proceeding and they sent me a statement that was very similar to one they emailed out around the summer solstice. Here’s what today’s said: “The USFWS is currently reviewing the status of the gray wolf under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Working closely with our federal, state, tribal and local partners, we will assess the currently listed gray wolf entities in the lower 48 states using the best available scientific information. On completion of the review, the Service will, if appropriate, publish a proposal to revise the wolf’s status in the Federal Register. Any proposal will follow a robust, transparent and open public process that will provide opportunity for public comment.” With six long months ahead of it, June’s version had this as the third sentence: “If appropriate, the Service will publish a proposal to revise the wolf’s status in the Federal Register by the end of the calendar year.” Now it’s more open-ended. And comparing a second paragraph USFWS sent along as background, the update has removed the words “under the previous administration,” a reference to the 2013 proposal by the Obama Administration’s USFWS Director Dan Ashe. The rest of that para touches on the “sound science” that went into that determination and the court action that subsequently derailed it. It sounds like the science is strong with the sea lion removal authorization, so let’s hope that once the House agrees and president signs it, it isn’t challenged in court, and if it is, that it clears the hurdles that are thrown up — and which lead to bypassing the judicial system all together.... WDFW, UW Set To Again Collar Deer, Elk, Wolves, Lions For 5-yr NE WA Predator-Prey StudyNovember 28, 2018THE FOLLOWING IS A WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE PRESS RELEASE Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) staff will start capturing deer in northeast Washington in early December and fit them with radio-collars as part of an ongoing predator-prey study that began two years ago. The study, scheduled to run at least five years, will help to assess the impact of wolves, cougars, and other predators on deer and elk by monitoring the interactions of all species. This winter, researchers hope to capture at least 30 white-tailed deer in Stevens and Pend Oreille counties – primarily on public land, but also on private land where WDFW has secured landowner permission. Capture techniques include trapping animals using bait, entangling them in drop nets, and darting them with immobilization drugs from the ground. The study plan also calls for radio-collaring wolves, cougars, bobcats, and coyotes in Stevens, Pend Oreille, and Okanogan counties. Some wolves are already radio-collared in those areas, but researchers want to maintain collars on at least two wolves in each of the packs within the study area. Cougar capture work with the use of dogs will get underway in late November, followed by bobcat and coyote captures using box traps and foothold traps after Jan. 1. Collaborating researchers from the University of Washington (UW) will join WDFW research scientists and field biologists to monitor radio-collared ungulates and track their movements, distribution, habitat use, diet, productivity and survival. Cougars will be monitored to learn about changes in social behavior, population dynamics, prey selection and movements in areas where wolves also occur. State wildlife managers ask that hunters who harvest a radio-collared deer or elk – and residents who encounter a dead radio-collared animal – contact WDFW’s Eastern Region office in Spokane Valley (509-892-1001), so researchers can recover the collar and collect biological samples from the carcasses. Funding for the five-year study comes from a 2015 state legislative appropriation, federal Pittman-Robertson funds, and state wildlife funds.The UW also secured National Science Foundation grant funds for part of the project....
