Yuskavitch - In wolf country: the power and politics of reintroduction

In Wolf Country

Guilford, Connecticut

An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2015 by Jim Yuskavitch

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yuskavitch, James.

In wolf country : the power and politics of reintroduction / Jim Yuskavitch.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7627-9753-0 (paperback) 978-1-4930-1390-6 (electronic)

1. Gray wolfReintroductionRocky Mountains Region. 2. Gray wolfReintroductionPolitical aspectsRocky Mountains Region. I. Title.

QL737.C22Y87 2015

599.7730978dc23

2014037561

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

In researching and writing this book, I drew on a wide range of sources including news accounts, scientific papers, government reports and documents, as well as interviews with wildlife biologists, wolf researchers, wolf advocates, and many others. While everyones kind assistance was of great value, there are a number of people who merit special mention. First and foremost, I would like to thank Curt Mack and Jim Holyan of the Nez Perce tribes Wolf Recovery Project, who generously invited me to their offices to sit through interviews, and especially to Jim, who put up with my company on two lengthy expeditions into the Idaho backcountry in search of wolves. Also, my thanks to US Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist John Stephenson and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife wolf coordinator Russ Morgan, who let me tag along on wolf search field outings and gave me the latest wolf updates.

I am also greatly appreciative to Tara Wertz of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Roy Heberger, former USFWS Idaho wolf recovery coordinator, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Craig Foster, past ODFW and US Forest Service biologist Mark Henjum, and Carter Niemeyer, formerly with Wildlife Services and USFWS, for relating to me their experiences with wolf B-45.

Other people who took the time to talk with me about wolves included Montana wolf biologist Kent Laudon; Montana wolf researcher and former Fish, Wildlife and Parks commissioner Bob Ream; Mike Phillips, Director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund; Utah State University wolf researcher Dan MacNulty; and advocates for wolf recovery Lynne Stone of the Boulder-White Clouds Council, Tim Preso of Earthjustice, Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity, and Judy Calman of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance.

My thanks also to a number of wolf researchers who sent me scientific papers and answered any questions I had, including Jessica Bell of Michigan State University, Mark Hebblewhite of the University of Montana, John Vucetich of Michigan Technological University, Robert Wayne of the University of California, and Dan Stahler, a wolf biologist with the National Park Service at Yellowstone National Park. Thanks also to the International Wolf Center, which sponsored the 2013 International Wolf Symposium and was a tremendous source of wolf information and contacts.

A special thanks also goes to Rob Klavins of Oregon Wild, who kept me on his mailing list to receive all the current wolf news from throughout the country and to Ralph Maughan and his blog, The Wildlife News, which I found to be an invaluable source of wolf information, leads, and contacts. Finally, my sincere thanks to all the journalists who have covered the wolf reintroduction from the beginning and whose news reports I relied upon extensively; they are credited in the reference section of this book.

My first encounter with wolves was in Alaska in late summer of 1977. I was working on a research project to fulfill the requirements for my degree in Forestry and Wildlife from Oregon State University, spending part of my time in the Alaska Range within Denali National Park (still called Mount McKinley National Park back then) and the rest in the small town of Talkeetna where the Susitna River flows into the Chulitna. The gateway for mountaineers on their way to climb Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America at 20,320 feet, Talkeetna was a busy place that summer, where expeditions, along with their copious amounts of gear, were being shuttled by local bush pilots from the towns small landing strip to the climbers staging area on the Kahiltna Glacier, dubbed Kahiltna International because the base camp there was populated by climbers from all over the world.

There were two National Park Service climbing rangers assigned to Talkeetna that summer who checked in arriving climbers and gave them a look-over to make sure they had adequate gear and experience to attempt the climb. They were billeted in what was then the towns brand-new fire station and let me pitch my tent in the willows out back, where I lived for a good part of that summer, occasionally allowing me inside to take a shower.

At the end of the season, before I flew home to write my paper, one of the rangers and I decided to make a trans-Alaska Range backpacking trip through the park. Arranging for friends to drop us off outside Cantwell on the parks south boundary, we threaded our way through mountain valleys and upstream drainages, coming out at the headwaters of the Savage River, then hiked down that stream to the park road, where we would flag down a shuttle bus to take us out. On our last night, we camped beside the river a few miles from the road.

The next morning I awoke early, climbed out of the tent, and stood alone along the river, watching the water flow by. Suddenly two gray wolves appeared, loping along the gravel bar heading downstream. They were big and long-legged, but also a little gaunt and scruffy looking. Summers can be hard times for wolves. Prey is harder to catch, and although there may be an abundance of fawns and calves around, there is not a lot of meat on them; wolves often lose weight during that time of year. Passing me no more than twenty-five yards away, they were unalarmed by my presence but wary, each one continually looking back over its shoulder as if to say it knew I was a human and couldnt be trusted. I stood watching them, mesmerized, until they moved unhurried out of sight.

Fifteen years later, I experienced another wolf encounter, but of a different sort, while hunting woodland caribou on the Ungava Peninsula in Nouveau Quebec. It was September, time of the caribou migration, and the taiga and tundra country was beginning to show off its autumn colors.