Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Idaho to spend $1 mill killing wolves

That's how much money has been allotted by the Fish & Game Dept, livestock groups, and other sources to attempt to reduce the number of wolves by 90%. Nearly 500 wolves were killed in Idaho in 2021. Even if the wolf numbers could be reduced by 90%, we'd still have more wolves than what was in the pre-introduction plan. [b][/b]
At the bottom is an opposing editorial written by someone who's not so enthusiastic about it. The author is a woman from Sun Valley, Idaho's cesspool of liberalism. Let's just say that she doesn't hold the majority opinion.



BOISE — State officials on Wednesday requested $392,000 from the general fund to kill wolves in Idaho, and with other revenue sources will have just over $1 million for that purpose starting this summer.

The Wolf Depredation Control Board made the request to the Legislature’s powerful budget setting committee.

The five-member wolf control board is contained within the governor’s office and allocates money for control actions approved by the Idaho Fish and Game Commission.

The board’s general fund request is the same as last year, but a change in Idaho law last year is sending an additional $190,000 to the board from fees paid by hunters and trappers to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

Besides general fund money, the Wolf Depredation Control Board will also receive $300,000 from Fish and Game and $110,000 from livestock producers. The money goes into the Wolf Control Fund, which has an existing balance of about $230,000.

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee is setting state agency budgets for fiscal year 2023, which starts in July. It will make a decision on the wolf control board’s general fund request later this session.

Idaho expanded wolf killing last year with legislation that lawmakers said could lead to killing 90% of the state’s wolves, which at that time had an estimated population of 1,500.

Fish and Game spokesman Roger Phillips said Wednesday the agency was finalizing its current population estimate and would release details next week. Phillips said that since July, 266 wolves were killed — hunters in the state have killed 134 and trappers have killed 132.

The Wolf Control Board signs off on paying the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services to kill Idaho wolves. In 2021, the federal agency killed 40 wolves, down from 74 in 2020, Jared Hedelius, the agency’s Idaho director, told the budget committee on Wednesday.

Chanel Tewalt, deputy director of the Idaho Department of Agriculture, told lawmakers that 65 confirmed wolf kills of livestock occurred between July 1 and Nov. 30 last year.

Idaho lawmakers last year made significant changes involving killing wolves, including allowing Fish and Game to enter into contracts with private entities to kill wolves. Fish and Game late last year announced it had reached an agreement with a nonprofit hunting group to reimburse the expenses for a proven wolf kill.

Besides setting up the reimbursement program, the new law also expands killing methods to include trapping and snaring wolves on a single hunting tag, no restriction on hunting hours, using night-vision equipment with a permit, using bait and dogs, and allowing hunting from motor vehicles. It also authorizes year-round wolf trapping on private property.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in September, at the request of environmental groups concerned about the expanded wolf killing in Idaho and Montana, announced a yearlong review to see if wolves in the U.S. West should be relisted under the Endangered Species Act. Lawsuits have also been filed challenging aspects of the expanded wolf killing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

496 Idaho wolves killed in 2021
. . .and in Yellowstone, 20 wolves have been killed just outside of the park’s boundaries.

State agencies of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are bent on undoing all the ecological benefits that wolves have brought to their ecosystems. All three of these agencies are also seeking to hunt grizzly bears – for sport!

We cannot trust these state agencies to manage native predators. Lethal management for the benefit of hunters and livestock grazers, often on public lands. The killers of Idaho wolves have received rewards of $1000 to 2500 paid by the “Foundation for Wildlife Management” to their members. They keep the dead animal and sell the fur. F4WM has received grants from IDFG and legislative funding from the Wolf Control Board to pay these bounties, more than $108,000 for 2021.

Wildlife advocates, scientists, and conservationists from all over the country have begged Deb Haaland director of the Interior Department, and Martha Williams, the interim director of US Fish and Wildlife Service, to stop the slaughter. They have refused to act.

If you care about wildlife, please speak out! The Endangered Species Coalition website has a letter to the editor that you can submit to your local media. Our hope appears to be the Biden administration who could stop the slaughter of wolves -- and the destruction of your natural heritage.

Christine Gertschen

Sun Valley

And all they’d have to do is put an ad in the local paper stating “Go get em, boys!”

There is all ready a very liberal wolf season in Idaho.

That's been done. You can buy an unlimited number of wolf tags for $11 each (resident price) and in much of the state, the season's open year round. In the rest of the state, it's open for 11 months. The problem is that you don't just run out and shoot you a wolf. Idaho has 86k square miles. That's roughly 43 square miles per wolf. You don't find one behind every sagebrush.

Why don’t they sell licenses and allow hunter to kill them. Lots of people I think would pay for a license. Versus using tax payer money to kill them.

Ya’ll are probably right. Many years ago, we actually had a bounty on coyotes. I can’t remember it really thinning the population to any great degree.

Well hell, if we are going to piss away money, it might as well be killing wolves.

24/7/365 open season + no bag limit + a bounty - that should take care of things . . .

Idaho has been selling wolf tags for quite a few years. Wolves are not only a lot smarter than people think they are, they're very difficult to hunt.

Although I am no longer able to hunt due to physical problems and old age, I always carried a wolf tag when i could hunt elk and deer. Never saw but one and that was only for a few seconds across an old burn before it disappeared into the distant tree line.

The couple of guys I know who've killed wolves did so just by accident when they were hunting elk.

Woof hunting ain't easy.

L.W.

The federal gooberment should pay every cent, they are who forced Canadian wolves on us.
They should pay 110% for all costs incurred from day one

Which is taxpayers dollars.

Why would there be a season?

Good. Kill as many as possible. I buy a NR wolf tag every year. I believe it’s $35. Seeing them and killing them is two different stories.

You know how many people have a fishing license,

and cant catch fish?

It says...."allowing hunting from motor vehicles".........I wonder if that means airplanes? because I think baiting then shooting from an airplane works pretty darn good.
That's great news for Idaho, there needs to be a co-ordinated Wolf kill in the entire Pacific Northwest, otherwise any success will be short lived for the reasons already stated in above posts.

If there is not enough current hunting pressure to keep the wolf population in control, then incentivize hunters. For each wolf killed, refund 100% of a deer license - out of state hunters included. For every two wolves killed, refund 100% of an elk license.

Would this work? Or maybe my idea has some holes in it?

You would think Colorado would learn from this but......

I have had land in NW Wis. for 33 yrs. I started hearing them around 1996. I have yet to see one, but I have been very close to them. .

very doubtful

Foundation for Wildlife Management will reimburse every hunter cost up to 2000 dollars per wolf right now. That's fuel, ammunition, vehicle purchase, food, lodging, license fees, etc. - If anyone needed a go ahead to kill them - there it is. There's one wolf for every 47 miles though - good luck unless a pack runs across your lap while you're diddling around on the ridges.

I've always carried more than one wolf tag and hunted them aggressively. They are very, very difficult to find even using bait. I've only seen one and only for a few seconds. I've never killed one in the lower 48. By comparison, I've had hundreds of bears and dozens of cats in the crosshairs.