The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife shuts out ranchers as it considers whether to lethally remove wolves to protect livestock, ranchers told the department’s Wolf Advisory Group Nov. 19.

Ranchers are left not knowing why or when the department will, or will not, remove wolves, said Stevens County rancher Scott Nielsen, a member of the advisory group.

“The producer is not part of that process,” he said. “It is extremely unfair to the producer.”

The advisory group met in Colville, in wolf-saturated northeast Washington. The group doesn’t set policies, but the department has spent a lot of time and money to make it a forum for hashing out wolf issues.

Fish and Wildlife’s response to wolf attacks was not on the agenda, but Nielsen and Asotin County rancher Samee Charriere, another member of the group, brought it up.

Charriere said she lost 17% of her calves this year to wolves. Fish and Wildlife stated ranchers in her area had not done enough to prevent the attacks to warrant lethal control, without elaborating on the shortcomings.

“I want all of you to take 17% of your wages and burn them,” Charriere said. “That’s the effect I’m feeling.”

She said she receives little information about the department’s thinking, even in just determining whether a cow or calf was attacked by wolves.

“I get a text message that says ‘probable’, ‘unconfirmed’, or ‘confirmed.’ That’s it. And if I ask, ‘Why?’ Or, ‘I don’t understand.’ ‘Explain that,’ I get silence,” she said. “I do not get any communication.”

According to a written policy, Fish and Wildlife will consider lethal removal after three predations in 30 days or four in 10 months if the rancher has used at least two non-lethal preventive measures.

Fish and Wildlife Director Kelly Susewind, who makes the final call, declined three times this year to cull packs that crossed the threshold. The department removed four wolves at Susewind’s order.

The department’s flexible policy has stood up well in court, but it has frustrated ranchers and wolf advocates, who both say the policy is inconsistently applied.

Ranchers distrust the department because decisions made up the chain of command conflict with what ranchers are told on the ground, said Justin Hedrick of the Diamond M ranch.

A conflict specialist who examines a mauled cow or calf will say it was a wolf attack, but somewhere along the line the determination gets changed, he said. “It’s happened more times than I can count,” he said.

Fish and Wildlife statewide wolf specialist Ben Maletzke said biologists, wildlife officers and administrators review reports on attacks and participate in drafting a recommendation to Susewind on whether to use lethal control.

“The whole district team reads it over to make sure all the information is correct and up to speed,” he said.

Nielsen, who organizes the Cattle Producers of Washington range-riding program, said greater weight should be given to the department employee who works with ranchers to prevent conflicts and sees the carnage.

“Our relationship with our conflict specialists is extremely important,” he said. “That relationship between the producer and the conflict specialist needs to rule the day.” 

When other department employees discuss what the conflict specialist reports, the rancher should be there, Nielsen said. Ranchers could answer questions about what they did to prevent attacks, he said. 

“Someone could ask, ‘Well, what if they did that?’ And maybe they did do that, and you don’t know,” he said.