Wildlife and People

Declaration of Mark S. Boyce

This is the fourth of four posts containing selected excerpts from the testimony of wildlife biologists, experts in wolf biology. The testimony was solicited in regards to the lawsuit brought by enviro groups to enjoin the delisting (removal from the Endangered Species List) of Rocky Mountain wolves. The Plaintiffs prevailed last July when U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy granted a preliminary injunction, throwing out the delisting of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and ordering them put back on the Endangered Species list [here].

Judge Molloy utterly disregarded the testimony of the actual authorities, upon whom the USFWS is legally bound to rely. Molloy found that delisting would threaten “genetic exchange”. That is the exact opposite of the testimonies of the experts. Molloy thereby discredited the entire Federal judiciary and has raised a storm of protest.

The citizenry can no longer trust our Federal judges, who have taken the law into their own hands, ignored the advice of expert scientists, propped themselves up as “experts” when they most assuredly are not, and substituted political sabotage for jurisprudence.

Selected excerpts from the DECLARATION OF MARK S. BOYCE, PH.D. to the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MONTANA, MISSOULA DIVISION (Boyce’s entire Declaration is [here]).

I hold a Ph.D. in Wildlife Ecology (Yale University, 1977) and work as a Professor of Biological Sciences and occupy an endowed chair at the University of Alberta. I have done so since 1999. I specialize in the ecology, conservation and management of species at risk, and in wildlife management. In this context, I undertake or have undertaken a variety of tasks. For example:

• I conduct research on quantitative methods for evaluating population viability of threatened and endangered species. I have published several review papers on population viability analysis. By “viability” I mean long-term persistence of populations of wildlife species.

• I have conducted research on wolves and their prey in Yellowstone National Park and adjacent areas of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. I used computer simulation to anticipate the effects of wolves on wild ungulate populations prior to wolf recovery. Then subsequent to wolf reintroduction, I have conducted research showing that our original projections correctly anticipated the dynamics of wolf and ungulate populations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. All of this research has been published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

• I have been funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Alberta Conservation Association, the Camp Fire Conservation Fund, the National Science Foundation, and the National Geographic Society to evaluate the population dynamics and predator-prey relationships of wolves in western North America. …

I disagree with the Plaintiffs’ allegations of harm to wolf populations resulting from the delisting of the Rocky Mountain wolf at this time, and I believe that there is a very high probability of long-term persistence of wolves while being managed by the individual states according to their approved management plans. …

I agree that killing wolves harms individual wolves. I also agree that if breeding members of a pack are killed, this can temporarily disrupt the social structure of that pack. But from a conservation perspective, these facts essentially have no bearing on threats to the extinction of the northern Rocky Mountain wolf population, and these facts do not constitute irreparable harm from the perspective of wildlife management. Ultimately it is the viability of the wolf population, not the individuals or packs, that is important for the future conservation of wolves in North America. …

Individual wolves may be killed without risking extinction of the population of wolves. Sustainable harvests of wolves have been demonstrated in many populations in Canada and Alaska, confirming that removals of 40% or more of the population can be sustainable. …

Sustainable harvests are possible because of an ecological process known as density dependence. This means that if population density is reduced by harvesting wolves, the surviving wolves have more prey per remaining wolf (i.e., per capita) and are able to achieve increased survival and reproductive rates. This density-dependent survival and reproduction permits sustainable harvests while maintaining a viable population of wolves. This is a general principle in population biology.

Because of density dependence and high reproductive rates, wolf populations can sustain removals of up to 40% or more of the population annually. These sustainable harvest rates are higher than can be sustained by deer and elk populations primarily because wolves have a large litter size. Certainly such sustainable harvests do not constitute irreparable harm to wolf populations. …

We have considerable experience managing wolf populations in Canada, and this experience can serve as a useful guide for management in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. In Alberta, for example, the provincial government estimates a current population of 7,000 wolves. Wolf harvest is by hunting and legal trapping on registered traplines where 400-800 wolves are removed each year, or about 10% of the population. This low harvest rate occurs even though there is no bag limit during the harvest season on the number of wolves that may be killed by hunters or trappers. Although the number of wolves killed by hunters and trappers is unregulated, this harvest does not limit the population of wolves.

These removals by hunting and trapping are insufficient to reduce depredation problems by wolves killing livestock and threatened woodland caribou, such that the Alberta provincial government has killed an additional 60-130 wolves annually (including 2008) to reduce these depredations. To achieve these desired control removals the Alberta Department of Sustainable Resource Development has used aerial gunning from helicopter and poisoning wolves with strychnine baits. These methods of aerial gunning and strychnine poisoning are deemed necessary by the Alberta provincial government because killing by hunting and trapping has been insufficient to reduce wolf numbers …

Based on my professional experience of over 20 years conducting research on wolf predation, wolf habitats, and wolf populations, I cannot accept the claims of the Plaintiffs that the population of wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains of the United States will be harmed by delisting of the species. The wolf population in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming far exceeds the target for delisting that was identified at the time that the reintroduction of wolves was proposed. Indeed, the reintroduction of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains of the United States has been remarkably successful. Therefore the decision to delist the species was credible and appropriate relative to the conservation objective of restoring a viable population of wolves in these states.