New Species of Wolf Found Disguised as Jackal

Here is the Nat'l Geo story on the subject.

Not sure how relevant this is to our cause, but it's pretty cool and seemed worth mentioning.

George Monbiot on Yellowstone, Wolves and Trophic Cascades

My wife sent this to me the other day, ostensibly as a candidate for a blog-post, and even though it's over a year and a half old, I think that it's of a quality that deserves posting regardless.


An excerpt of British environmental writer George Monbiot's TED Talk set to music and images of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

Here's the original TED talk:

While I've mentioned trophic cascades before on this blog, as this is largely a piecemeal affair put together during my spare time, I have not yet been able to address the concept as fully as I would like.  What's valuable about the preceding clips is that Monbiot explains trophic cascades in simple, easily understandable terms that do not presuppose or need a sophisticated understanding in order to make sense.

As for Monbiot's narrative, it's worth mentioning that when he says "deer," he's mostly referring to what we in North America think of as "elk," though there are also large populations of mule deer and moose in the greater Yellowstone area, both of which are also members of the "deer" family.

As for myself, in the summer of 1993 I was fortunate enough to spend several months working in Yellowstone before, along with 13 of my friends, being busted for smoking pot, an activity that the National Park Service, at least at that time, took a very dim view of.  I was fined $90 and told to leave the park within 48 hours, which I did, but not before having one last look around the place.  In any case, my memories of Yellowstone are fond and one day I would very much like to return, not only for the spectacle of the park itself, but also because I want to see how much it has changed in the two decades since I was last there.    

Oregon farmers stunned to see wolf in Malheur County wheat field

Here's the Capital Press article on the subject, by Sean Ellis.  The short version is that a wolf, positively identified as OR22, a young male peel-off from the Umatilla River Pack, is at large in Malheur County where he is no doubt terrifying the defenseless residents, though so far he's not caused any problems.

OR22, courtesy of ODFW

The animal has been sighted lying in a wheat field, as well as swimming an irrigation canal.  Again, some residents are "understandably" terrified and one citizen commented pithily on the article, advocating an "SSS" policy, shorthand for "shoot, shovel and shut-up," together with some anti-BLM vitriol that leaves little doubt as to his sentiments where the rights to public lands should lie.    

Update from Oregon Wild on Friday's ODFW Meeting in Bend, Other Developments...

Rob Klavins, NE Oregon Field Coordinator at Oregon Wild sent out this public update on Friday's ODFW meeting in Bend.  Pro-wolf advocates were definitely in the majority and ODFW officials were reportedly given cause to rethink proceeding with the delisting process.  

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) to Hold Meeting on Wolf Delisting Tomorrow in Bend

The ODFW will hold a meeting tomorrow morning at the Deschutes National Forest offices in Bend on whether or not to begin the process of delisting wolves as an endangered species in Oregon.

The meeting will adjourn at 8 a.m. at 63095 Deschutes Market Rd. and will include public testimony as well as the presentation of the ODFW's "Biological status review for the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) in Oregon and evaluation of criteria to remove the Gray Wolf from the List of Endangered Species under the Oregon Endangered Species Act," which can be viewed as a PDF here.

Photo; Gary Kramer, USFWS

There are now an estimated 77 wolves in Oregon, including 26 pups and four breeding pairs in Eastern Oregon.  According to Russ Morgan, ODFW Wolf Coordinator, "wolves are a success story in Oregon.  Their population is growing and their range is expanding."  Morgan further justifies the move by saying, "the state's Wolf Plan has measures to protect wolves into the future should the commission decide to initiate a delisting process."

While wolves in the western two thirds of the state would still be protected under the Federal Endangered Species Act, environmental groups oppose the proposed action arguing that, among other things, delisting would send the wrong message, potentially giving residents the impression that killing wolves is OK.

 

How the wolf became the dog

What follows is basically a repost from wolfpreservation.me.  I have a great deal to say on the subject of how wolves became dogs, but I do not pretend that I am able to do so as well as David Grimm does in the following article:

17 April 2015 6:00 am

“Scientists who study canine origins seem to fight about everything: where dogs arose, when this happened, and even the best way to find these answers. But there’s one thing most of them agree on: how dogs became domesticated. Still, it’s taken almost a century to get here, and the details are still emerging.

In 1907, the English scientist Francis Galton suggested that dogs first entered our lives when our ancestors nabbed some wolf pups, brought them back to camp, and raised them as pets. If you’ve ever seen a baby wolf, with its big eyes and oversized ears, the idea doesn’t seem so far-fetched—and, indeed, Galton’s hypothesis reigned for decades. But scientists eventually realized that domestication is a long, messy process that can take hundreds or even thousands of years. These early humans may have started with a cute pup, but they would have ended up with a wild animal.

So what did happen? Most experts now think dogs domesticated themselves. Early humans left piles of discarded carcasses at the edges of their campsites—a veritable feast, the thinking goes, for wolves that dared get close to people. Those wolves survived longer and produced more pups—a process that, generation by generation, yielded ever-bolder animals, until finally a wolf was eating out of a person’s hand. Once our ancestors realized the utility of these animals, they initiated a second, more active phase of domestication, breeding early canines to be better hunters, herders, and guardians.

A massive collaboration that’s trying to figure out where and when dogs emerged (see “Feature: Solving the mystery of dog domestication“) has found some intriguing insights into the second phase of dog domestication. A comparison of thousands of ancient dog and wolf skeletons, for example, has revealed flattening of the dorsal tips of ancient dog vertebrae, suggesting that the animals hauled heavy packs on their backs. The team has also spotted missing pairs of molars near the rear of the jaw in ancient dogs, which may indicate that the animals wore some sort of bridle to pull carts. These services, in addition to dogs’ hunting prowess, may have proved critical for human survival, potentially allowing modern humans to out compete our Neanderthal rivals and even eventually settle down and become farmers.

Now, a study in this week’s issue of Science helps explains how man and dog took the next step to become best friends. Takefumi Kikusui, an animal behaviorist at Azabu University in Sagamihara, Japan, and his colleagues have found that when dogs and humans gaze into each others eyes, both experience a rise in oxytocin—a hormone that has been linked to trust and maternal bonding. The same rise in oxytocin occurs when human mothers and infants stare at each other, suggesting that early dogs may have hijacked this response to better bond with their new human family.

The oxytocin study and the skeletal data from the new collaboration go beyond clarifying the origin of the family pet, says collaboration leader Greger Larson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. “The more that we know about the process of how dogs became associated with people, the more we learn about the origins of civilization.”

Disclaimer: for whatever it's worth, I have tried to give credit for the above article where it is due.  I did not write it and accordingly I can take no responsibility for its excellent quality.  I post it here because I believe that it's a relevant and well-reported item to do with the larger interests of this blog.  If I have linked anything in error, or failed in my attribution, the fault is all mine.  

Thanks again,

-James Morgan

ODFW Hints at Removing Wolves from Oregon Endangered Species list; State GOP Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Permanently Remove Wolves from List

Strange things are afoot in Oregon.  According to Zach Urness at the Salem Statesman Journal, "State biologists said Tuesday that wolf numbers are high enough to justify removing them the state list, while Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill to prohibit the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife commission from listing wolves as threatened or endangered."   

I urge readers to view Zach's complete article here.

While Zach is obviously enjoined, for reasons of journalistic ethics, from speculating on the coincidence of these two ostensibly separate developments, I am not, and while nothing is certain, it seems very likely that it is no accident that the ODFW announcement happens to coincide with the Republican push in Salem to permanently remove Oregon wolves from endangered species protection.

My personal and completely unsubstantiated guess is that far from working in collusion with Republicans in Salem, the ODFW is taking what it sees as a partially preemptive action by providing a sop to those who might wish to force the issue legislatively.

After all, to further borrow from Urness, " Wolves in western Oregon are still protected by the federal Endangered Species Act. And even with the delisting, wolves in Oregon would still be managed under the state's Oregon Wolf Plan, which emphasizes non-lethal control to manage wolves and only allows lethal control in certain circumstances."

  According to Michelle Dennehy, ODFW Communications Director,  "Even with the delisting, we still have a comprehensive wolf plan and still would have protections in place." 








    

Who Owns the Land?; European Conquest of The West; White Entitlement; The Wolf as Symbol. Part One.

“Lying was a sign of defeat, of psychic domestication, that had worked so deeply into our fiber that it passed as a form of truth. With only three or four generations in the West, we had learned to lie determinedly, almost religiously about what happened on the land. We didn’t know this country we had tried to possess.”

-C.L. Rawlins, “Broken Country”

That European-Americans entered the west carrying the collective cultural baggage of their predominantly northwestern European antecedents is not open to serious debate. Nor is it at all controversial to observe that in so doing, as the colonists that they essentially were, they largely transformed the west, not only by embracing modernity, but also by importing the norms of settlement, land rights, resource use and wildlife management that they, or their forefathers, had known in Europe. This was done with almost zero reflection as to whether or not Old World models were or were not applicable, and indeed, it appears that to white settlers of the 19th century, northwestern European traditions were self-evidently the proper framework for understanding how best to manage the vast and untamed wilderness that was The West.

There was no more question in the mind of the European settler that large predators were a "clear and present danger," than there is now, in the contemporary mind, with regard to terrorism, or organized crime. The widely diverse suite of cultures --ranging, as it did, from hunting and gathering and harvesting, to nomadic pastoralist hunters, to sedentary agricultural societies-- that already existed in North America was seen as deeply suspect and "obviously" inferior to "advanced" European mores. As such, as soon as Europeans established an organized presence in North America, they set about "taming" the land in part by exterminating its large predators, (one of which was obviously the human beings already there, but that is another matter that, although related, is too big to tackle here).  

That Europeans were successful in almost completely exterminating large predators from the contiguous United States is not seriously contested by anyone and need not be examined here. It is enough to recognize that it happened and that by the 1950s, with the exception of a tiny population in Montana and a larger one in Minnesota, wolves were gone from the lower 48, taking with them whatever effects, both immediate and trophic, they once had on the various ecological systems they'd previously inhabited.  

As for the attitudes and values that informed European extermination of large predators, while they have changed among many Americans, they have not changed among all, and where this divide is most evident is in the West where, for the most part, wolf reintroduction is fiercely resisted by rural citizens and heavily favored by those who live in towns and cities. Both views of the matter are worth looking into, especially if we're to have any real hope of ever resolving the issue in a manner that, while perhaps not wholly satisfactory to either party, is at least acceptable to both.

***

On it's face, rural rejection of wolves appears to be about competition. Competition for things like game, land, the safety of domesticated animals --both livestock and pets. However, I would argue that at least in the West, the wolf is also rejected not for anything so concrete, but rather, as a symbol.  

Not only is the wolf a large intelligent pack hunter who can't really be told what to do and where to go, but often, the wolf's very presence, the fact that the wolf cannot be shot on sight as was the case for generations, appears to have been dictated by the whims of "city folks" who neither live near the land or know anything about it. To the rural Westerner, raised as he or she has been on ideals of independence, self-sufficiency and the deeply erroneous notion that as Westerners they have not ever been, nor ever will be, beholden to the federal government or any other outsiders in any way, this is an intolerable affront. It very much looks and feels as though they are being told by others how to conduct their affairs.

While there are many problems with this view --not least of which is the fact that "Westerner" identity is largely based on a mythology, built through generations of cowboy movies and other fanciful fictions that have little or no basis in historical reality-- it's worthwhile to take it seriously because whether we agree with its basis or not, it informs the opinions and beliefs of many rural westerners and accordingly must necessarily inform any accurate understanding of their position.

***

Meanwhile, in contrast to the "rural" (for lack of a better term) view of the matter, there is, in broad and admittedly simplified terms, the "conservationist" ethos --one widely held by educated urbanites-- which has it that the land, the environment and its associated ecological systems, are best understood as belonging to everyone rather than exclusively to those who chanced to be born upon it. This view, in its most simplistic terms, has it as self-evident that proprietary rights to public lands are vested with the public, and not specifically with narrow ranching and hunting and resource-extraction interests, whatever their prior claims may be.

Taken to its logical conclusion, the conservationist view has it that partial restoration of the natural suite of apex predators in the American west will ultimately have the trophic effect of reinvigorating the larger ecosystem which in turn, will have knock-on effects that ultimately benefit everyone by creating a richer and more varied and more sustainable environment throughout the intermountain west.  

***

I say nothing at all about the validity of the two general ways of looking at wolf reintroduction that I have outlined above. My goal here is only to present the differing bases of perception as fairly as possible. In part two of this essay I will tackle some of the tougher issues and will attempt to draw some conclusions.  

Thanks for reading.

 

Salem Statesman Journal Opinion Piece Raises the issue of Hunting Interests

Yesterday's Statesman Journal included an opinion piece by Mickey Bellman.  You can read it here.  Bellman, a professional "forester," which is to say that he's part of the logging industry, trots out some easy platitudes about the need for balance in approaching the issue (and he's right about that), but doesn't actually make any concrete recommendations.  The reason I mention him here at all is that he brings up the issue of wolf predation on game animals which is an issue I have yet to delve into much.

According to Bellman, "Oregon hunters are searching for fewer big game animals and so are the wolves. Fewer clearcuts in federal forests have significantly reduced the amount of available forage for big game, resulting in declining game populations, resulting in more disgruntled big game hunters."  Leaving aside the questionable assertions he makes regarding clearcuts and big-game populations, Bellman does raise the excellent point that hunters are yet another politically powerful group with a specific set of interests in the wolf debate that will have to be factored in to any kind of long-term wolf-plan.

As of right now I do not have a great deal to say on the subject, but I can assure readers that it is a topic that I will revisit in some detail as time and events permit.  

The Seattle Times on the urban/rural divide

Most of what's in this article has already been covered below, but it's worth a read for some interesting insights into the urban/rural divide where wolves are concerned.  The fact that townspeople tend to get a little more cautious about wolf reintroduction once wolves show up in the neighborhood, lends weight to the idea that rural opposition to reintroduction isn't only about land-use and property rights.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/wolves-thriving-in-washington-but-only-in-the-east/

Oregon Country "Wolf Meetings" of 1843 establish policy on predators in the Pacific Northwest

     "The ostensible purpose of (the wolf meetings) was to adopt measures for the extermination of predatory animals, a suggestion of practical character, on which all might unite, for there was perhaps not a settler possessing livestock in the whole country who had not suffered loss from this cause."

--Charles H. Carey, "General History of Oregon," 1971




The Oregon Country "wolf meetings," so-called because while they were certainly to do with setting up a regional (European) government of some sort, they were ostensibly about predator control which was an issue of immediate concern to any of the less than 500 European settlers then in the Willamette Valley.  Right away, what one notices is that there is no thought of living with predators, nor, and this is understandable since anything like a modern understanding of ecosystems and trophic cascades must have been embryonic at best, is there any notion that there may be long-term and totally unpredictable consequences.

The first meeting was held on February 1, 1843 at the Oregon Institute in Salem.  Again, the idea was to use the pressing issue of predation, something that all of the settlers could get behind, as an excuse to convene a meeting who's real purpose was to form at least the outlines of a provisional government.

The second meeting occurred on February 6, 1843, and instituted a system of bounties for wolves, mountain lions and bears.  Notably, the settlers made their opinion of the indigenous peoples clear when they established that they would receive half the pay-out on bounties.

On May 2nd, 1843 the last "wolf meeting" happened and the beginnings of a provisional government were established.

For the purposes of this blog, what's most telling about the very existence of the wolf meetings is not just that they were wholeheartedly all about killing off as many predators as possible, but rather, that they were never questioned at all, by anyone inside that community.  It was a given that predators were bad; it was an obvious position that was so ingrained in the world-view of the people who lived in that particular place and time, that they could no more imagine someone wanting to defend predators then could a contemporary American imagine someone wanting to defend terrorists.

Wolves must die!  It's a no brainer, right?

Anyhow, here's the Oregon Historical Society's page on the subject.   

18 wolves shot near Interior village to boost moose population

From Alaska, this article is on its face a simple story reporting a pretty straightforward wolf cull in the interior, executed at the behest of local indigenous Alaskans.  However, reading between the lines and especially in the comments section, we can clearly see that the story is also about land use and who gets to make decisions about wildlife management.  It is, of course, worth mentioning that clearly Alaska is a very different case from that of the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies, but even there, where there are no issues with endangered or reintroduced populations, the wolf engenders strong feelings.  As to whether these wolves did or did not need to die, I don't feel that I know enough about it to have an opinion.  That said, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I am generally inclined to trust Native American communities when it comes to wildlife management since their cultural heritage is so different from the Northern European heritage that informed the eradication of the wolf in the lower 48.  Again however, I do not take a position in this instance.

Wolf Totem/ Le Dernier Loup (2015) Trailer

The story here is that this is a French film telling a semi-biographical story of a Chinese student during Mao's cultural revolution (1967 I believe) who is sent to teach among remote Mongolian nomads.  Said student is fascinated by the nomad's long-standing enemy, the wolf, and decides to capture and raise a pup of his own.  I would like to say that hilarity and hi-jinks then ensue, but no, the pup becomes increasingly ungovernable and it appears that further drama unfolds.  No doubt it is a decent movie, but what really jumps out at me is the cinematography involving Mongolia's dramatic landscape together with close-up action shots of wolves.

Two Canadian Wolves Visit Isle Royale NP but Choose not to Stay

According to John Flesher of the Associated Press, two wolves, a breeding-age female and a smaller individual --possibly her offspring-- visited Isle Royale National Park for five days this winter.  The two crossed Lake Superior from Canada over an ice-bridge during a hard freeze.

For wolf proponents, it was disappointing that the two did not stay in the park, as the small existing wolf population of Isle Royale lacks genetic diversity.

On the plus side, the visit confirms what scientists have long suspected; that Isle Royale National Park was originally colonized by wolves travelling across ice bridges.

Here is the original AP article.

Not wolves, but furry, carnivorous and entertaining regardless...

A pair of lynx (lynxes?) having a passionate verbal altercation in Northern Maine.  Presumably it's to do with territory or perhaps a local female.  In any case, unlike the guy who took the video, I am not at all convinced that they are preparing to fight.  To my eye this is a sort of display-based confrontation, not uncommon in carnivores, that allows them to determine who is tougher without actually having to risk a real fight in which one or both of them might easily sustain life-threatening injuries.  I post it because it is a slow news day on the wolf front here in the Pacific Northwest, and also because it warms the cockles of my heart.          

Lolo wolves killed to give famous elk herd a break

Rich Landers of the Spokesman Review in Spokane reports on the Federal Wildlife Service, at Idaho Department of Fish and Game's request, killing 19 wolves last month in Idaho's Lolo region, near the Idaho Montana border.  This in a bid to partially restore the area's once huge elk population.  

Washington reports Wolf Numbers up 30% for 2014

According to a March 2nd news release from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Washington's wolf population grew by 30% and formed four new packs last year.  As of December 31st 2014, there are at least 68 wolves in Washington, up from 52 in 2013.
    
According to Donny Martorello of the WDFW, "while we can't count every wolf in the state, the formation of four new packs is clear evidence that wolves are recovering in Washington.  Since 2011, the number of confirmed wolf packs has more than tripled in our state."  

Martorello said the number of packs would have been higher if not for the loss of a pack last spring; one of its two members was struck and killed by a vehicle while the other was accepted for care by Wolf Haven International in Tenino after it was found living among domestic dogs in a small town in Pend Oreille County, according to the release.  

At least nine other wolves died in Washington last year.  Three were killed by poachers, three died of natural causes, two died of unknown causes while one breeding female was obliged to be killed in an effort to stop the Huckleberry pack from preying on Stevens County sheep.  

The Huckleberry pack raised the number of livestock killed by wolves to a new record, accounting for 33 of the 35 sheep killed or injured in 2014.  

WDFW's new director, Jim Unsworth said, "I've been involved in wolf management for more than a decade, and the issues are much the same from state to state.  Conflicts with livestock are bound to rise as the state's wolf population increases, and we have to do everything we can to manage that situation. So far, wolf predation on livestock has been well below levels experienced in most other states with wolves."

Also of note from the release:

Stephanie Simek, WDFW wildlife conflict manager, said WDFW continues to emphasize the importance of preventive actions in minimizing wolf attacks on livestock. She said WDFW is:

• Expanding partnerships with ranchers to avoid conflicts with wolves. The department has stationed wildlife conflict specialists in communities where wolves are recovering to work with individual producers.
• Expanding its "range rider" program, where ranchers can turn for help if they need assistance guarding their livestock. Range riders have been used by several producers, and the state program will provide an increased human presence in grazing areas.
• Informing livestock owners of the availability of a new carcass pit in Ferry County where they can dispose of dead livestock and other attractants.
• Continuing to offer cost-sharing agreements for ranchers who seek help in funding preventive measures to protect their animals.

 Martorello said the scarcity of snow made it more difficult to track wolves late last year, complicating the 2014 survey. As a result, the survey likely underestimates the number of wolves, packs, and breeding pairs, he said.
Martorello noted that the number of confirmed successful breeding pairs in the annual wolf survey has remained the same for the past three years, despite a significant increase in the number of individual wolves. Since 2012, WDFW has documented a total of five breeding pairs between the Eastern Washington and North Cascades recovery regions.

"Given the continued growth of the state's wolf population, there's a good chance that we have breeding pairs east of the Cascade Range we haven't found yet," he said.

No wolf packs or breeding pairs have yet been documented in the South Cascades/Northwest Coast recovery region.

Under the state's Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, wolves can be removed from the state's endangered species list once 15 successful breeding pairs are documented for three consecutive years among the three designated wolf-recovery regions.  

Mission statement:

NWLobos is a blog about wolf reintroduction in the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest.  While its primary purpose is as an information clearing house, it does not purport to be purely objective on the subject and instead, approaches the matter from a perspective that questions traditional American attitudes about land-use and entitlement in the west.  Since these issues are fraught, it's worth making clear that it is not my intention to ever treat anyone, or their opinions, with disrespect.  To the contrary, what's wanted and needed here is a civil discourse wherein thinking and intelligent adults can agree that other thinking and intelligent adults are perfectly capable of arriving at a different opinion without resort to moral obloquy or self-delusion.  Thanks for reading.  -James Morgan