Wolf hunt protest set

TOM HASSLINGER

Hagadone News Network

SANDPOINT — The Northern Idaho Wolf Alliance is staging a demonstration Monday to denounce the state’s planned wolf hunt.

The protest, which comes on the eve of wolf hunting season, starts at 11 a.m. at the Bonner County Courthouse on South First Avenue.

“We fear that under the guise of wolf management, what’s about to happen is a wolf massacre,” NIWA spokesperson Stephen Augustine, said in a press release announcing the demonstration.

The Sandpoint-based group aims to raise public awareness about the role wolves play in the environment and questions why the hunt was approved within six months of the animal’s removal from the Endangered Species list.

NIWA is slated to hold a similar demonstration outside the Idaho Department of Fish & Game’s Panhandle headquarters in Coeur d’Alene today.

Chip Corsi, Fish & Game’s regional supervisor, said the office is aware of the planned demonstration and has fielded calls from proponents of the hunt, who plan to rally outside the office in support on Friday.

“We told them the same thing we tell everybody,” Corsi said. “You’re welcome to exercise free speech, just please respect other people who are coming in to go to meetings and buy tags and such.”

The Idaho Fish and Game Commission granted the Panhandle Zone a 30-wolf harvest for Idaho’s first wolf hunting season, contributing to the state harvest of 220.

Wolves were de-listed as endangered species back in the spring, and have a current population of at least 1,000 in Idaho, Corsi said.

If successful, the state harvest number is forecasted to drop the total wolf population down to about 800 in Idaho, well above the long-term goal of 518, he added.

The season is scheduled to begin in some parts of Idaho Sept. 1. Tags will be unlimited for wolf hunting season, which lasts from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 in the Panhandle.

NIWA challenges claims that wolves are devastating elk populations and points to Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation figures indicating elk populations have shown gains three years in a row. Ancient Pathways, another organization opposed to the hunt, disputes contentions that wolves are massacring livestock.

“Idaho ranchers say that wolves are decimating livestock, yet they are responsible for less than 1 percent of livestock depredation. In 2008, feral dogs killed more than four times as many sheep in Idaho than wolves did,” said Ancient Pathways’ Ken Fischman, who has a doctorate in genetics.