Kretz Pushing WDFW To Prioritize Radio Collars

What’s to be done about the growing wolf population in Washington, and the growing number of depredations attributed to those wolves?

Northeast Washington representative Joel Kretz, says for producers to protect their livelihood and their income, they need to know where the wolves are.  That’s why the Wauconda Republican introduced House Bill 2906, which would direct the state department of Fish and Wildlife to prioritize the use of radio collars to monitor wolves that have been in conflict with livestock and humans.  Kretz said collaring wolves will not only tell ranchers where wolves are, but maybe just as important, where wolves aren’t.

“You know, they spend a lot of time on preventative, non-lethal measures trying to prevent conflict, but if there are no wolves within many, many miles and the Department can tell them that, then they can go back and do some of the things that they’ve been putting off while they were working on the wolf avoidance situation.  So, it really frees them up when there is not a threat but it also alerts them when there is a treat.”

Opponents wolf management will claim ranchers want to kill all of the wolves in the state.  Kretz said ranchers don’t want the gray wolf eradicated, or completely removed from Washington.  But he acknowledged many of the ranchers with whom he’s spoken, are skeptical.

“What they say is ‘we’re willing to do the non-lethal but we also have to be having the option that when it does not work, which sometimes it doesn’t, that there has to be a removal option on those wolves’.  And back to the other states, it’s been proven there are times when you’re not going to change a wolf’s behavior you’re not going to change a pack’s behavior and it’s time to remove a wolf, or two.”

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