Washington wolves

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Press Release: WA Wolf Poaching, Reward for Information

June 17, 2021 — Conservation groups announced today a combined $15,000 reward for information on the poaching of the breeding female of the Wedge wolf pack. The wolf was found dead of a gunshot wound May 26 in the Sheep Creek area of Stevens County in northeast Washington state.

Gov. Inslee Orders Rework of Washington’s Wolf-killing Policies

September 4, 2020 — In a win for wolf advocates, Gov. Jay Inslee directed the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission today to draft new rules governing the killing of wolves involved in conflicts with livestock. This action reverses the commission’s denial of a petition filed by advocates in May that called for reforms of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s lethal wolf-management policies.

Press Release: Legal Petition Filed to Regulate Washington Wolf-killing

May 11, 2020 — Conservation groups petitioned the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission today for rules limiting when the state can kill endangered wolves for conflicts with livestock. The state has killed 31 wolves since 2012, relying on a protocol that skews heavily toward lethal and ineffective outcomes.

Official 2017 Washington Wolf Count Released

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife released its official 2017 wolf count this past Friday.  You can find the report in full here, but fourteen wolves were killed by humans and the overall state population grew by just seven.  Concerns over high levels of human-caused wolf mortality are one of the reasons Cascadia Wildlands … Read more

Reward Boosted to $20,000 in Search for Killer of Two Washington Wolves

December 11, 2017 — The Center for Biological Diversity and Cascadia Wildlands today increased a reward to $20,000 for information leading to conviction in the killing of two wolves last month in northeast Washington. 

The Deja Vu of Killing Wolves

Late last month, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that it would shoot up to four wolves in the Harl Butte pack. Again. In August, following conflicts between wolves and livestock in the same area, the Department killed another four wolves from the same pack.

Cascadia Lawsuit Challenges Wolf Killing in Washington!

September 25, 2017 — Two conservation groups filed a lawsuit today seeking to stop the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and its director, James Unsworth, from killing any more state-endangered wolves.

The Saga of Wolf Recovery in Washington

by Nick Cady   A highlight of Cascadia Wildlands' wolf conservation work includes a lawsuit that culminated in the successful negotiation of wolf/livestock conflict rules in Oregon between conservation groups, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and livestock producers.  Those rules provided concrete guidelines as to when the state could kill wolves in response to … Read more

Press Release: Petition Filed to Require Nonlethal Steps to Control Washington Wolves

July 9, 2014 — Eight conservation groups filed a petition late Friday requesting that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife enact rules that sharply limit the use of lethal control of wolves to respond to livestock depredations. Most prominently the petition asks the state to require livestock producers to exhaust nonlethal measures to prevent depredations before any lethal action can be taken. In 2012 the Department killed seven wolves in the Wedge Pack despite the fact that the livestock producer who had lost livestock had taken little action to protect his stock.

Press Release: Washington Wildlife Agency Urged to End Support for Abolishing Federal Wolf Protections

March 6, 2014 — Eleven conservation organizations representing hundreds of thousands of Washington residents sent a letter to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife today urging the agency to rescind its support for stripping wolves of federal Endangered Species Act protections. The department has repeatedly expressed support for dropping the federal safeguards, most recently in a letter sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Dec. 13, 2013. The delisting runs counter to the best available science and ignores the values of the vast majority of Washington residents who want to see federal wolf protections
maintained.

Press Release: Peer Review Questions Obama Proposal to Strip Protections for Wolves

February 7, 2014 — A scientific peer review released today greatly questions the science behind the Obama administration’s proposal to strip protections for gray wolves across nearly all of the lower 48 states. The report was initiated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency that proposed the delisting, and should compel the administration to maintain protections for the species in much of the US where it is currently listed as an endangered species.