Washington Fish & Wildlife Digest: October 5-October 25, 2023

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Digest is a weekly summary prepared by Washington Wildlife First to notify our supporters about urgent action alerts and upcoming events, apprise them of important issues and recent developments with Washington fish and wildlife management, and provide a recap of relevant news items. Due to a staff absence, this edition will address important news from the past three weeks.

What You Need to Know and Do This Week

Find more details about each item in the sections below.

 News:

  • Eight conservation groups filed a petition yesterday, October 25, with the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission, asking it to immediately take steps to address high levels of bear and cougar mortality, which may already have caused substantial harm to those populations. See “Washington Fish & Wildlife News” for more.
  • Northwest Sportsman reports that WDFW has recommended denying the Wolf Protection Rulemaking Petition. See “Washington Fish & Wildlife News” for more.
  • Colorado has secured a deal with Oregon to obtain 10 wolves for the first year of their wolf reintroduction program. See “National & International Fish & Wildlife News” for more.

Action Items

Washington

  • WDFW is soliciting public feedback on its proposed black bear timber damage rule, which would define a process for “an annual spring permitting process for bear removals.” You can read our talking points on the proposal here. This rule would replace the prior bear timber damage rule that was invalidated by the appeals court in 2021, following a suit brought by Animal & Earth Advocates on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity.
    • This rule is another way to implement the spring bear hunting that this commission banned. The proposed rule is subject to the same issues we encountered during that debate: (1) We do not understand the impact that the rule may have on the bear population, especially on the local level; (2) we do not understand the extent of the problem we are trying to solve, because timber companies refuse to share that information; and (3) there is no evidence to suggest that killing bears on commercial timberlands has any impact on decreasing conflicts.
  • Please submit comments supporting WDFW’s proposal to uplist the threatened western gray squirrel to “endangered.” The draft Periodic Status Review (PSR) highlights concerns like isolation and declining population, wildfire, timber harvest, and habitat loss, especially in the North Cascades and Klickitat regions. Some powerful commercial timber operations are opposing the move. You can submit comments to commissioners until the expected vote at the November 17 virtual meeting.
    • Friends of the White Salmon River has provided a letter supporting the proposed uplisting and a letter explaining the lack of information on the effectiveness of voluntary measures to conserve the species.
    • Read a letter from Washington Wildlife First and other groups on the western gray squirrel draft PSR.
    • The Center for Biological Diversity also has a form letter in support of uplisting that you can modify.

National

  • The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is inviting public comment on the draft environmental impact statement for its alternate plans to reintroduce grizzly bears in the North Cascades. You may comment until November 13, 2023. See here for a sample comment from the Sierra Club and here for a Zoom recording of Mount Baker Sierra Club and Endangered Species Coalition’s presentation on the proposed reintroduction.
  • The Center for Biological Diversity is collecting signatures to send to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, asking agency director Martha Williams to reform the “convoluted, slow process for deciding whether to protect species.”

Washington Fish & Wildlife News

General Management Issues

Wash. wildlife policy ignites barnburner debate between enviros, hunters, tribes. K. C. Mehaffey, The Columbia Insight. October 12, 2023.

  • This extensive article describes the conflict over the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission’s draft Conservation Policy. Mehaffey quotes Claire Davis of Washington Wildlife First: “Conservation should be placed first for the end goal of conservation, not…for the purpose of long-term sustainable consumption…We realize that fish and wildlife have their own place in the world—a right to exist in their own right—and not just for the sake of being used by people.” The article goes into detail about criticisms from hunters and tribes, WDFW staff and the Commission’s responses, and Dr. John Organ’s August 11 presentation (timecode 4:10:00) on the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (in which he noted that the model is not “set in stone” and must not constrain discussions of how we face conservation crises, and also observed that hunters were not solely responsible for the institutionalization of conservation principles, as many pro-hunting activists like to claim). The article concludes by reporting that Commission Chair Barbara Baker said that “regaining the trust of the hunting public and tribes is her focus right now.”

Wolves

WDFW Recommends Denying Latest Wolf Rule Petition. Andy Walgamott, Northwest Sportsman. October 20, 2023.

  • Walgamott summarizes WDFW’s recommendation to deny the Wolf Protection Rulemaking Petition. The recommendation claims that “the complex issue of wolf-livestock conflict is best addressed not by codification of rules.”

US zoo saving endangered red wolf, one dental checkup at a time. Matt Mcknight, Reuters. October 25, 2023.

  • The Point Defiance Zoo’s red wolf breeding and reintroduction program includes tooth cleaning and annual exams. The article gives a history of the eradication of red wolves and U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s efforts to bring them back.

Cougars & Bears

Groups file petition to amend Washington’s unscientific bear and cougar hunting rules. October 25, 2023.

  • Eight conservation groups have filed a petition with the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission to reduce cougar and bear hunting to pre-2020 and pre-2019 levels, asking it to immediately take steps to address high levels of bear and cougar mortality, which may already have caused substantial harm to those populations.
  • The petition was submitted by Washington Wildlife First, Center for Biological Diversity, the Humane Society of the United States, the Mountain Lion Foundation, WildFutures, Predator Defense, Coexisting with Cougars in Klickitat County, and Kettle Range Conservation Group. Read the petition here and the proposed rules here, and take a look at press releases from Washington Wildlife First and the Center for Biological Diversity. The petition has already generated significant press attention:
    • The Spokesman-Review writes that “The groups argue [rules that increased hunting quotas] have allowed hunters to kill cougars and bears beyond sustainable levels, and that the increase threatens the health of the two species’ populations.” Author Michael Wright quotes CBD’s Collette Adkins: “It’s shortsighted and unscientific to allow hunters to kill so many of Washington’s bears and cougars.” He also quotes Brian Lynn of Sportsman’s Alliance, who claims: “Each of these groups implores the use of science, but when science supported a spring bear season, they rejected it out of hand so blatantly that the biologist left.”
    • Andy Walgamott of Northwest Sportsman also quotes Lynn: “[The petitioners] want to end hunting in Washington and use it as a blueprint to do so in other states. That’s why we’ve had to turn to the courts to protect scientific wildlife management.”
    • SourceOne includes a well-rounded account, which succinctly summarizes the petition and the concerns that led to it while including a similar quote from Lynn.

Finding the Light (YouTube video). Mountain Lion Foundation. October 18, 2023.

  • If you missed Mountain Lion Foundation and Savannah Rose’s talk on mental health, photography, and protecting cougars, you can watch the video here.

Bear and Cubs Drawn to Unsecured Attractants. Big Country News. October 16, 2023.

  • WDFW relocated a mother bear and two cubs from Leavenworth after they were attracted to non-bear-safe garbage cans and apples fallen from a tree.

Feds add public meetings on Washington grizzly bear restoration. Randy Bracht, The Center Square.

  • The National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have announced four in-person sessions for the public to discuss the proposed grizzly bear reintroduction plan. See “Upcoming Events” for more information.

Cougar spotted on Centennial Trail in Riverside State Park. Amanda Smith, NonStop Local KHQ. October 18, 2023.

  • Cautions that after an “incident” between a cougar and a biker near Spokane in which no one was hurt, the cougar has been collared and “will be monitored,” with WDFW ready to “intervene if it returns and shows dangerous behavior.”

Fish, Shellfish & Marine Mammals

Survey Shows Only 17 Wild Spring Chinook Salmon Return to Oregon’s South Umpqua River (press release). Center for Biological Diversity. October 23, 2023.

  • In a joint press release with Umpqua Watersheds and the Native Fish Society, CBD reports that the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife found only seven returning wild spring Chinook salmon during snorkel surveys in the south Umpqua River.
  • KLCC has a story on CBD and other groups’ petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list spring Chinook under the Endangered Species Act.

The oldest Puget Sound orca: L25 may be approaching 100. Lynda V. Mapes, The Seattle Times. October 18, 2023.

  • Southern Resident killer whale L25, “the world’s oldest known living wild orca,” may be nearly a century old, according to the Center for Whale Research. The matriarch and leader of the L pod still looks healthy; the article explains that, as she grew up in an era of “salmon abundance,” her body is in good shape. The article quotes Deborah Giles of Wild Orca: “She is a spectacular whale, just a gorgeous animal…She has led an amazing life, and seen so much.”

Orcas return to Whidbey waters after absence. Karina Andrew, Whidbey News-Times. October 17, 2023.

  • J pod, K pod, and L pod Southern Resident killer whales have appeared off the coast of Whidbey Island after an absence in the area since last winter.
  • KIRO NewsRadio reported more sightings of the three pods off of Edmonds and Seattle.

What killed Tokitae? Doctors cite ‘multiple chronic conditions’. Dyer Oxley, KUOW. October 18, 2023.

  • The necropsy of captive Southern Resident killer whale Tokitae revealed that the orca died of renal conditions, pneumonia, and a heart condition.

Supporting Orca Recovery Day. David Pan, Mukilteo Beacon. October 18, 2023.

  • The Snohomish Conservation District organized an event to call attention to the threats to Southern Resident killer whales, particularly toxins entering bodies of water from stormwater runoff. The article suggests ways for residents to prevent environmental pollution.

Green crab, rising tides and the future of fishing: marine resource summit well attended. Michael S. Lockett, The Daily World. October 17, 2023.

  • The Marine Resource Committee (MRC) Summit in Westport brought together WDFW, SeaGrant, county conservation districts, and other organizations to discuss such issues as invasive green crab, sea level rise, and erosion.

In the Margins: Hupp Springs hatchery contributed to a salmon success story. Leland Smith, Gig Harbor Now. October 18, 2023.

  • The writer praises the role of a hatchery in restoring spring Chinook in the White River.

Elk

Study: Elk hoof disease goes beyond the hoof. Michael Wright, The Spokesman-Review. October 19, 2023.

  • A study by Washington State University researchers, published in Scientific Reports, has found that treponeme-associated hoof disease has a broad effect on infected elk, not just affecting their hooves. The disease has spread among elk throughout western Washington.

Continuing Blue Mountain elk study shows contrasting results. Eric Barker, Lewiston Tribune (via The Spokesman-Review). October 21, 2023.

  • A WDFW study on elk calf survival in the Blue Mountains found different results from last year’s, with survival of the 100 calves studied in 2021 at 13% and those studied in 2022 at 47.5%.  An agency wildlife biologist cautions against drawing conclusions as this stage of the three-year study, but suggests that the difference may be due to climatic variation over the study’s first two years. Barker notes that both anti-predator and pro-wildlife/animal advocacy groups are closely following the study.

Other Wildlife

Coyotes and humans increasingly cross paths here. Experts offer advice about co-existing. Shauna Sowersby, The Olympian. October 17, 2023.

  • Sowersby gives a brief rundown of coyote ecology, including their “behavioral plasticity” (high degree of adaptability to different environments) and their tendency to travel in small family groups. The article includes tips on minimizing human-coyote interactions, including by securing trash, not feeding pets outdoors, not leaving small pets unsupervised outdoors, and “hazing” potentially problematic coyotes by clapping your hands, shouting, or “even throwing your keys.”

Birds on the bridge: State, region consider managing cormorants. Katie Frankowicz, KMUN. October 18, 2023.

  • The Columbia Basin Collaborative, which includes “Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, tribes, federal agencies and other stakeholders,” is proposing a new cormorant management program for the estuary. The collaborative wants to use non-lethal deterrents to discourage cormorants from nesting on the Astoria Bridge, where they eat federally listed salmon and steelhead. The aim is to encourage the birds to re-establish a colony on East Sand Island. The article explains that there are still many unknowns in the management plan, including the effect on forage fish of relocating the birds and the birds’ current effect on overall salmon and steelhead populations. Previously, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had killed many cormorants on East Sand Island, driving them upriver.

Wildlife officials rescue bat from sticky wasp glue trap in Crescent Bar. Source One. October 17, 2023.

  • WDFW cautioned against the use of outdoor glue traps after a bat had to be sent for rehabilitation after being dislodged from a wasp trap. WDFW recommends using “reusable hanging traps with small entrances for hornets or wasps,” which avoid the risk of trapping birds and bats that may then suffer a prolonged death.

National & International Fish & Wildlife News

General Wildlife & Management Issues

Many Amphibians Are Facing Extinction. This Is What It Will Take to Save Them (opinion). Noah Greenwald, The Messenger. October 13, 2023.

  • The endangered species director at CBD warns that many amphibians are in danger from climate change, disease, and invasive species, with almost 41% of amphibian species worldwide facing extinction, according to a recent study in Nature. Greenwald also warns that the Endangered Species Act is under threat from Congress, while restoration efforts for endangered species remain severely underfunded.

21 species removed from US Endangered Species Act after going extinct. Gloria Oladipo, The Guardian. October 17, 2023.

  • The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has signaled that 21 species, including a type of warbler, eight species of mussels, a small fruit bat, and eight Hawaiian birds, have been removed from the Endangered Species Act list because they are extinct. The Guardian quotes Noah Greenwald of CBD: “Few people realize the extent to which the crises of extinction and climate change are deeply intertwined…Both threaten to undo our very way of life, leaving our children with a considerably poorer planet.” Defenders of Wildlife’s vice-president of conservation research and innovation, Lindsay Rosa, says: “Extinction is a very real and permanent consequence of leaving the joint biodiversity and climate crises unhindered.”

California expands moratorium on rat poison. Gordon Takumatsu and Rudy Chinchilla, NBC Los Angeles. October 17, 2023.

  • Governor Newsom has signed AB 1322, which places a moratorium on the anticoagulant rodenticide diphacinone, associated with harm to wild animals like bobcats, cougars, raccoons, and raptors that consume targeted rodents. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Raptors Are the Solution, among other nonprofits, championed the legislation. The article quotes Tiffany Yap of CBD: “Rat poison indiscriminately harms animals up and down the food chain, making them more susceptible to disease and causing internal bleeding and death.”

UM Students Create Virtual Reality Hunting Tool to Advance Stewardship. Kyle Spurr, University of Montana. October 18, 2023.

  • The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation granted funds to the University of Montana for a “VR interactive hunting tool,” part of a push to include hunting curriculum at the university.

Wolves

Oregon wolves headed for Rocky Mountains. Kendra Chamberlain, Columbia Insight. October 19, 2023.

  • Colorado Parks and Wildlife has signed a one-year contract with Oregon to begin reintroducing wolves in Colorado, with Oregon donating 10 wolves in the first year. Colorado may seek more wolves from Washington, but the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission has not yet decided whether to grant them.

Editorial: The concept and reality of wolves. The Capital Press. October 19, 2023.

  • In light of Oregon’s agreement to send 10 wolves to Colorado this year, the Northwest agricultural newspaper opines, “We only wish wildlife managers had thrown in the rest of them as a bonus.” The paper laments the fact that, with wolf recovery, “ranchers were expected to change the way they manage their livestock to keep the wolves at bay,” though it acknowledges that “the reality of wolves is that most of them mind their own business.”

Draft Gray Wolf Conservation and Management Plan. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. October 2023.

  • Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has released its draft wolf management plan and is soliciting public comment via the page linked above. The draft plan proposes two alternatives: Alternative 1 would maintain the 2003 Wolf Plan, whereas Alternative 2 would “ensure continued public transparency on how FWP monitors and manages the wolf population to achieve the population management objectives that were initially adopted as part of the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission’s 2010 season setting process,” according to the draft environmental impact statement.

Natural Resources Board Approves 2023 Wolf Management Plan and Rule (press release). Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. October 25, 2023.

  • Wisconsin has passed its draft wolf management plan with some minor amendments. An earlier news story from AP explains that the new wolf management plan, unlike the plan adopted in 1999, no longer sets a desired population of 350 wolves. It recommends a population of 1,000 and does not set a cap.

Cougars & Bears

NM Game Commission to decide hunting limits for mountain lion, bear. Roz Brown, Public News Service. October 23, 2023.

  • This week, the New Mexico Game Commission will vote whether to set a kill quota of 563 cougars per year. Mary Katherine Ray of the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club asserts that this quota is too high in light of the effects of drought and wildfires.

Mountain lions in Nevada hunted by sportsmen, maimed by traps and killed by the state. Dana Gentry, Nevada Current (via Reno Gazette). October 23, 2023.

  • Reports on Nevada’s “predator management project,” with wildlife advocates like Don Molde of the Nevada Wildlife Alliance calling attention to the “jaw-dropping” number of cougars killed in hound hunts and in snares set for bobcats.

Lawsuit filed to Challenge Year-Round Cougar Hunting and Trapping in Utah (press release). Mountain Lion Foundation. October 18, 2023.

  • The Mountain Lion Foundation and Western Wildlife Conservancy have filed a lawsuit against the state of Utah challenging the constitutionality of a law allowing year-round cougar trapping and hunting. As the press release explains, “When lawmakers inserted the cougar-hunting language into HB 469 [the law establishing the changes], it happened at the last minute, with little public notice and no clear justification. There was some discussion of cougar populations supposedly growing in number, but those statements ran contrary to research by field biologists.”
    • The Salt Lake Tribune reports on the legal challenge and the nonprofits’ warning that cougars in Utah “could vanish in three years.”
    • This article in The Fence Post falsely claims that the initiative would remove livestock compensation programs and “all management” of cougars.
    • For more background information, read Alysha Lundgren’s April 2023 article about conservationists’ concerns about cougar hunting and trapping in Utah.

Problem grizzly? Tribes find success diverting hikers in the Winds. Mike Koshmrl, Wyofile. September 21, 2023.

  • Rather than attempting to relocate a grizzly bear on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tried another approach: It suggested that the Arapahoe and Shoshone tribes shut the area down to give the bear time to leave on its own. The approach seems to have worked, with no more reappearances of the bear after the tribes reopened the area after about three weeks.

No Place for Grizzly Bear Hunt: Ethics and Emotions Informed by Science (Medium post). Gosia Bryja, PhD. October 25, 2023.

  • The author revisits rhetoric around the British Columbian ban of grizzly hunting in 2017, in which proponents of the hunt denigrated the opposition as driven by “emotions.” Bryja writes: “Emotions — an indispensable part of human functioning — influence the decisions of those who oppose grizzly trophy hunting and those who support it. A crucial difference distinguishes, however, the two groups. In contrast to hunters who get an emotional thrill from pursuing grizzly bears, those who oppose trophy hunting conceive of emotions as underpinned by ethical concerns.”

It’s Time to Acknowledge the ‘Problem Bear’ Reality in the West. Tyler Freel, Outdoor Life. October 22, 2021.

  • An older article that came up in conversations; Freel speculates that in human-bear conflict, “some parties want to place the blame entirely on people,” yet “there will still be bears that make bad decisions and need to be euthanized.” He goes on to argue for “regulated hunting of grizzly bears in certain areas of the Western U.S.”

Fish & Marine Mammals

Lawsuit Launched to Stop Bering Sea Trawl Nets From Killing Orcas (press release). Center for Biological Diversity. October 12, 2023.

  • The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has filed a notice of its intent to sue the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service, for its failure to protect killer whales and other marine mammals from trawl net fishing. This past summer, trawl nets killed nine killer whales, with an additional surviving killer whale freed, “its fate unknown.” CBD’s letter asserts that NOAA Fisheries is violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act by allowing destructive trawl nets to entrap endangered killer whales, as well as humpback whales and pinnipeds.

Other Wildlife

Wyoming Hunters Angry Over Pile of Coyote Carcasses Dumped in Public. Mark Heinz, Cowboy State Daily. October 16, 2023.

  • Wyoming hunters, including a member of the coyote-hunting organization Wyoming Best of the Best (WBOTB), decried the dumping of coyote corpses on a public road. A WBOTB representative said, “As an organization that promotes the harvesting of coyotes we do not promote the wasteful dumping of their carcasses in public spaces.” The article goes on to describe various methods with which hunters kill coyotes, including luring and aerial gunning, and quotes former Wyoming Fish and Game Commission member Mike Schmid as speculating whether the dumping was “done and staged by an anti-hunting group to help their cause and make hunters look barbaric, cruel and wasteful.” Schmid believes this hypothetical “staging” could help garner support for a Bureau of Land Management proposal to ban “lethal predator management” in the area.

On the Lighter Side

4 Cute Animals With Creepy Secrets (Medium post). Cybele Knowles, Center for Biological Diversity. October 21, 2016.

  • Just in time for Halloween, learn about beautiful and odd creatures with secret weapons, like fangs and toxins.

We Dare You to Watch These Frighteningly Bad Bird Horror Movies. Audubon. October 18, 2023.

  • Discover Audubon’s picks for the worst evil bird movies ever made.