IDAHO’S WAR ON WOLVES INCLUDES PUPS Records show that Idaho is now killing pups. In the state’s escalating war on wolves, this is something new. Idaho has been steadily ratcheting up its assault on the recovering wolf population especially since the day in 2011 when wolves lost federal protections under the Endangered Species Act. It’s easy to grow numb to...

  It may seem a stretch that wolves could benefit trout. One lives in water, the other on land. How could their lives be interwoven? Scientific discoveries have shown that the presence of wolves and other predators leads to clear, deep and cool mountain streams lined with lush vegetation and beaver ponds. What connects wolves to water systems and to...

Wolves Do Not Kill For Sport Like all other predators, wolves kill for sustenance and survival. They kill other animals to feed themselves, their pack members and their young. The case could be made that some sportsmen kill for sport and not food. But unlike that segment of the human population, wolves do not kill for sport. The word “sport”...

As settlers moved west, they brought the pre-conceived notion that predators held no real value in the natural world. It was during the westward expansion of the late 19th century and through the first few decades of the 20th century that, this top-level carnivore was wiped out in the American West. The frontier had been tamed, but at what cost?...

Traps Set With No Warnings In March of 2020, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) received a petition requesting that trappers be required to place warning signs at public trailheads, and on public trails and campgrounds within 25 feet of traps and snares. At the following quarterly meeting, IDFG decided against the petition. The intent was for signs...

What Is Living with Wolves? Living with Wolves is a national nonprofit organization uniquely positioned to inform you about wolves, a species unjustly persecuted by policy makers, ranchers, hunters and trappers. After the life-changing experience of living with the Sawtooth Pack in the mountains of Idaho, Emmy award-winning filmmakers, Jim and Jamie Dutcher, turned their attention to countering the widespread...

Traps May Be Closer Than You Realize Locals and tourists alike flock to Idaho’s gorgeous outdoor recreation areas throughout the year. Many of them enjoy the outdoors with their dogs. Most are probably unaware that potentially lethal traps and snares can be set alarmingly close to public trails and campgrounds. Trappers are allowed to set leg-hold traps and snares only...

Traps are Indiscriminate For many thousands of years people have been trapping animals. Originally, animals were trapped as a matter of survival for the trapper, providing food and fur for clothing and blankets. Most of the world no longer has a survival-based need for trapping. People have access to other, more humane sources of food and clothing. Though demand in...

Trapping Trends Trapping animals is still common practice in many parts of the world. Although the demand for products made from animal fur has decreased in Europe and America, there is still a market for fur elsewhere in the world, particularly in Russia and China. Millions of animals, referred to as “furbearers,” are trapped every year to strip them of...

You can see a lot of wolf in your dog. We recognize the face, a broad mask that tapers into a long muzzle. We have looked into the eyes, bright with curiosity. We understand the messages conveyed through posture: the alertness in a cocked ear, the playfulness of a bow, the confidence and fear, both revealed by an expressive tail....

Of the many unconventional ways the State of Idaho has found to kill wolves, the most egregious was conceived in 2014 with the formation of the Wolf Depredation Control Board. The singular purpose of this board is to kill wolves. It was designed to be “a 3-way partnership between livestock owners, sportsmen, and the legislature” to pay Wildlife Services, a federal agency, to kill wolves that attack livestock and elk. Gray wolves live in at least twelve states, but…

Idaho Fish and Game Wants Fewer Wolves One thousand wolves are neither a lot nor too many wolves for Idaho’s vast wild lands. Comparing populations of several large predator species for context, Idaho is home to 20,000 bears, 3,000 mountain lions, and 50,000 coyotes. Ever since wolves were reintroduced to Idaho in 1995, there has been an often-cited fear that...

Keeping Livestock Safe There are many ways to keep wildlife and livestock safe when both are living side-by-side in wild places. An assortment of tools and techniques, known as “non-lethal deterrents,” are proven effective in keeping native predators (wolves, bears and mountain lions) away from cattle and sheep being raised for human consumption. When these tools are not used, sometimes...

Gray wolves aren't always gray. While their name suggests the uniformity of a single drab color, gray wolves are actually very diverse in appearance, boasting an extensive color palette. Not only do gray wolves cover the spectrum from black to white, including many shades of gray and grizzled, they can also be hues of brown, red, tan, cream, buff, taupe,...

Keystone species are animals that have a significant impact on the ecosystem despite relatively low population numbers. In the absence of keystone species, a dynamic ecosystem is often drastically altered and destabilized. Keystone animals are usually top predators fulfilling an essential role in predator-prey relationships. If the keystone species were to disappear…

Wolves rarely pose a threat to people. Fear of wolves is disproportionate to the actual threat they present. Like many wild animals, wolves pose some danger to people, but in rare circumstances. It is important to note how uncommon wolf attacks on people are, before discussing the specific circumstances. Attacks are rare, and lethal attacks are exceedingly rare, especially in...

Wolves only have one litter of pups annually. There is an abundance of misinformation circulating about wolves. One topic often misrepresented has to do with their reproduction, leaving people with the false impression that wolves are prolific breeders. They are not. A mother wolf can only have one litter per year, and pups are always born in the spring. New...