Abstract
Following the growth and geographic expansion of wolf (Canis lupus) populations reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in 1995–1996, Rocky Mountain wolves were removed from the endangered species list in May 2009. Idaho and Montana immediately established hunting seasons with quotas equaling 20% of the regional wolf population. Combining hunting with predator control, 37.1% of Montana and Idaho wolves were killed in the year of delisting. Hunting and predator control are well-established methods to broaden societal acceptance of large carnivores, but it is unprecedented for a species to move so rapidly from protection under the Endangered Species Act to heavy direct harvest, and it is important to use all available data to assess the likely consequences of these changes in policy. For wolves, it is widely argued that human offtake has little effect on total mortality rates, so that a harvest of 28–50% per year can be sustained. Using previously published data from 21 North American wolf populations, we related total annual mortality and population growth to annual human offtake. Contrary to current conventional wisdom, there was a strong association between human offtake and total mortality rates across North American wolf populations. Human offtake was associated with a strongly additive or super-additive increase in total mortality. Population growth declined as human offtake increased, even at low rates of offtake. Finally, wolf populations declined with harvests substantially lower than the thresholds identified in current state and federal policies. These results should help to inform management of Rocky Mountain wolves.
Highlights
Status of US Wolf Populations Following their extirpation by direct harvesting across most of the United States, gray wolves (Canis lupus) were among the 14 mammals originally listed by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966
Was total mortality affected by human offtake, and if so, what was the form of the relationship? Second, was the population growth rate (l) affected by human offtake, and if so, what was the form of the relationship? To test the relationship of harvest to population growth, we evaluated a set of a priori models using Akaike’s Information Criterion corrected for sample size (AICc)
Human Offtake and the Annual Mortality Rate There is a strong association between human offtake and total mortality rate across North American wolf populations
Summary
Status of US Wolf Populations Following their extirpation by direct harvesting across most of the United States, gray wolves (Canis lupus) were among the 14 mammals originally listed by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. Following reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in 1995–1996, wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains Recovery Area grew to a minimum of 1,645 wolves at the end of 2008 [1] This population segment (including all or parts of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming) was delisted in 2009 [2], a decision that remains under appeal. Legal authority for wolf management passed from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to state agencies in this region, and public hunting seasons were initiated in Idaho and Montana, with quotas of 255 (220+35 within the Nez Perce Tribal Treaty Area) and 75 wolves, respectively [3,4,5,6] These quotas represent an annual harvest of
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