Wyoming will spend nearly $2.5 million on wolf management during the next two years, according to a bill Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed Wednesday.

Wyoming is expected to take over management of wolves in the Greater Yellowstone Area in late March following the removal of the northern Rockies gray wolf from the endangered species list. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials announced the delisting Feb. 21.

Part of the money will fund salaries for a wolf management coordinator and three biologists who will oversee monitoring, research and control efforts. The bill was part of a budget package that passed both chambers last week.

Wyoming Game and Fish director Terry Cleveland said the money will go exclusively for management activities in the northwest corner of the state, where wolves will be considered trophy game and a hunting license will be required to shoot them.

Outside northwest Wyoming, wolves will be considered predators and people will be able to kill them any time by any means and without a license.

In the predator area, monitoring efforts will be limited to the collection of information on wolf sightings. Also, anyone who kills a wolf in the predator area must notify Game and Fish within 10 days and include the location of the kill and the sex of the animal.   

Cleveland said wolf research would also be limited to the trophy-game area.
“We could probably [conduct monitoring and research in the predator area], but I don’t see the need,” he said. “We will be focusing our resources in the trophy-game area.”

He said the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has no authority over animals that have predator status.

Cleveland said department officials hope to hire people for the new positions in the next three months. The new employees will be spread out over the trophy-game area in places like Jackson, Pinedale, Dubois, Lander or Cody.

“We’ll have to see where we have the most ability to get the job done most efficiently and where people can afford to live,” Cleveland said Thursday from his office in Cheyenne.

Cleveland said he expects the department will expend $1.5 million getting the program up and running the first year, including purchasing equipment such as trucks, horses, radios, cell phones, computers, radio tracking equipment and GPS equipment. He said officials expect to spend roughly $1 million every subsequent year. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spends roughly $500,000 a year on wolf management in Wyoming outside the national parks.

“We’ll be doing the same thing that the Fish and Wildlife Service has done over the last 10 years, but we’ll be doing it in a much more comprehensive manner,” Cleveland said.

He said extensive monitoring will be needed to make sure the state maintains seven breeding pairs of wolves outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. A breeding pair is defined as a male wolf, a female wolf and two pups that are not yet a year old that survive until Dec. 31.

As for conflicts, Cleveland said state law requires Game and Fish to respond to livestock depredations within 48 hours inside the trophy-game area. The mandated 48-hour response time is another reason for the high cost of wolf management in the state, he said.

Other costs include aircraft time to monitor wolves, radio collaring, compensation for livestock losses in the trophy-game area and a contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service for additional help with conflicts. Cleveland said the state will update an agreement with APHIS Wildlife Services that deals with predator conflicts.

For the most part, Cleveland said, wolf conflicts will be handled like other conflicts with large predators in the state.

“It’ll be very, very similar to what we’re doing with grizzly bears,” he said.

Franz Camenzind, executive director of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, said the management program is so expensive because Wyoming officials will manage the wolf population close to the minimum required under law. “Wyoming’s plan is to suppress the population, and that’s going to cost more,” he said. “It’s not fair to the sportsmen, it’s not fair to the taxpayer and it’s not fair to the wolf.”

Camenzind also criticized the creation of the predator area.

“Has there ever been, in the history of the Endangered Species Act, any situation where, once an animal is delisted, they have absolutely no protection over a significant part of their range?” he said. “What we have to remember is that the threshold of recovery is also the brink of endangerment.”