Jack Field, executive vice president of the Ellensburg, WA-based Washington Cattlemen's Association, fears his state's proposed gray wolf management plan sets the number of allowed breeding pairs way too high. He also doubts the Evergreen State can afford the plan's generous compensation for ranchers who lose livestock to the predators.

The Idaho Fish Game Department (IFG) has decided to shut down three of 12 wolf hunting zones because hunters in those zones are reaching their quotas. The department is allowing for a total of 220 wolves to be killed across the state, but the three zones are approaching the states legal limits.

Montana wildlife commissioners voted unanimously on Tuesday, Oct. 13, to halt gray wolf hunting in a wilderness district near Yellowstone National Park after nine of the predators were killed within three weeks of a special hunt’s early season start, including four members of a Cottonwood pack familiar to tourists.

Idaho livestock spokesmen and a Wyoming Game and Fish official say a U.S. federal judge's Sept. 21 ruling to relist about 600 Yellowstone grizzly bears as endangered will allow the grizzlies to expand their range and further reduce grazing allotments for cattle and sheep on federal lands.

Every Friday, Cole Erb finds theres no end of activity at the Blackfoot Livestock Auction that he bought in southeast Idaho nine years ago. Not only can cattle be heard bellowing in the scores of sorting pens outside the main building, ranchers eager to get the best deals on livestock are busy chattering inside.

U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-ID, discussed wolf management with new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (US- FWS) Director Sam D.

Jon Konen was unloading lambs for sale at Billings, MT, on Sunday, Aug. 16, when he got a frantic call on his cell phone from a son who remained behind at their ranch near Dillon, MT, to tend to their livestock there. Dad, weve got a heck of a mess up here! his son exclaimed.

Dr. Bill Barton, Idahos state veterinarian, expects to conduct two meetings in Idaho this month to help ensure the state remains brucellosis-free despite bordering Yellowstone National Parkthe last U.S. reservoir of the disease that can cause spontaneous abortions in livestock, wild elk and bison.

Eastern Oregon ranchers are feeling uneasy now that a second female with pups has been collared in the area. In late July, a female wolf, with two or three young pups, was collared by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) officers in the remote Salt Creek region near the Imnaha River in the Eagle Cap Wilderness area.

Jeff Siddoway has a personal stake in hoping Idaho hunters will be able to kill 220 gray wolves when the states hunting season for the marauding carnivores tentatively begins on Tuesday, Sept. 1. For the St.