Outdoor News Daily

The Game, Fish and Parks Department will be on the road over the next few weeks visiting with South Dakota citizens about mountain lions.

“We are in the process of updating South Dakota’s mountain lion management plan,” Tony Leif, GFP Wildlife Division director said. “An important early step in that process is to gather public input.”

Leif said that GFP staff will travel to several locations around the state in March and April to hold information gathering meetings. The information will be worked into a draft mountain lion management plan in April and then made available to the public for a 30-day comment period. The management plan will be finalized in time for the August GFP Commission meeting when the mountain lion hunting season will be proposed.
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With a month left in Idaho’s first regulated wolf hunting season, half the wolf zones are closed and another is one wolf shy of the harvest limit.

As of Monday, March 1, hunters have taken 162 wolves, with 58 left to reach the statewide harvest limit. Wolf harvest is nearly at the limit of 16 in the Salmon Zone where hunters have taken 15, leaving one wolf left until the season closes in that zone.

Six other zones already have closed. The wolf season closed February 1 in the Middle Fork zone, January 2 in the Southern Mountains zone, December 18 in the Palouse-Hells Canyon zone, on November 17 in the Dworshak-Elk City zone, on November 9 in the McCall-Weiser zone, and on November 2 in the Upper Snake zone.
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Wolf harvest is nearly at the limits in the Palouse-Hells Canyon and the Southern Mountains wolf zones – each zone has one wolf left until they close.

As of Monday, December 7, wolf hunters have taken four wolves, in the Palouse-Hells Canyon zone in north Idaho where the limit is five wolves, leaving one wolf until that zone closes. And in the Southern Mountains, with a limit of 10, nine have been taken, leaving one wolf in that zone.

In addition, in the Middle Fork zone, with a limit of 17, hunters have taken 14, leaving three more wolves until that zone closes.
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The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) will continue to accept public comments for another month on a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for a state wolf conservation and management plan.

Released Oct. 5, the draft plan is the preferred alternative among four presented in a draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). The DEIS was prepared under requirements of the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), and is available on the WDFW website at http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildlife/management/gray_wolf/. Desk copies of the DEIS also are available at WDFW regional offices and public libraries. Those unable to view or download the DEIS from WDFW’s website can request paper or compact-disc copies by calling (360) 902-2515.
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