OLYMPIA — A House committee heard Jan. 26 that wolf recovery has gone well in northeast Washington — so well that it’s time for a change.

Kathy McKay, owner of the K Diamond K Guest Ranch in Ferry County, said wolves killed more than 20 livestock and pets last spring. “Life and death is a natural part of ranching, but this is not normal,” she said.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed some of the attacks, including the case of the miniature donkey mauled in April and killed in May.

Wolves also killed an alpaca, six piglets, a dozen calves, the milk cow Angel and the cart pony Rocky, McKay said. The department did not remove any wolves to cool the predations.

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“If appropriate management of the wolves had taken place, the attacks — the killings — may have stopped,” McKay said. “Death is one thing, but brutality is another.”

Tribe’s counsel sought

The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee took testimony on two bills introduced by Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Okanogan County.

House Bill 2423 would create a work group to develop a wolf management plan for Eastern Washington. House Bill 2424 would align Fish and Wildlife’s wolf management with the Colville tribe’s in northeast Washington.

Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties make up 9% of the state and have over half the wolves. Wolf packs saturate the region, according to Fish and Wildlife, but are managed the same as in places with fewer wolves.

Gov. Jay Inslee and wolf advocates favor further restrictions on lethal control. The state can’t recover wolves one region at a time, Washington Wildlife First founder Claire Loebs Davis said.

“If we’re ever to achieve statewide recovery, we need to protect the robust population of wolves in the northeast, so that it can disperse to other areas of the state,” she said.

Fish and Wildlife counted 216 wolves in 2022. The department counted 18 wolves in 2011, the year it began issuing annual reports. The counts are a minimum and there are more wolves, according to the department.

“Just an educated guess, I would say there are at least 400 to 500,” Kretz said. “We’ve done a really good job in northeast Washington of recovering wolves. They’re everywhere.”

The Colville tribe manages wolves on its 1.4 million-acre reservation and has hunting rights north of the reservation. The tribe reported harvesting 10 wolves in 2022.

Tribal management

“They’ve been very successful at their management of ungulates and gray wolves,” said Jeff Flood, wildlife sheriff’s deputy for Ferry and Stevens counties. “It seems to me they have somehow not got caught up in the emotions and agenda in managing wildlife.”

Colville tribal council member Mel Tonasket said the tribe doesn’t shoot wolves to shoot wolves, but acts to preserve prey species and protect livestock.

“We have worked hard on the Colville reservation to find that balance and work with our membership,” he said.

Although Washington’s wolf count has increased by 1,100% in the past 11 years, the governor’s office e-newsletter this month stated: “There are only about 216 state-endangered wolves left in Washington.”

Fish and Wildlife biologists say Washington wolves are neither endangered nor threatened anymore. The official designation remains “endangered.”

For wolves to continue to thrive, people will have to tolerate them, according to Fish and Wildlife.

“The wolf recovery up here has been fantastic. I think it’s a credit to our local community and WDFW,” Flood said. “I don’t think it will last if we have to wait for the rest of the state to catch up.”