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Wolf Advisory Group Howls For Better Information Access

Doug Smith
/
National Park Service

After a tense year for wolf management in Washington state, the Department of Fish and Wildlife is making some crucial changes. Members of the Wolf Advisory Group emphasized the importance of those changes at a meeting near Olympia Wednesday.

Candace Bennett is an advisory group member and wildlife conflict specialist with the Department of Fish and Wildlife. She said they’ve been looking for ways to give people the full picture.

“We’re not doing a great job of getting out the successes, and so one of the things we discussed is a monthly update on everything that we’re doing with respect [sic] to wolves, not just when we’re doing lethal removals,” Bennett said.

Public commenters at the meeting weren’t happy about how the lethal removal of the Profanity Peak Pack  went last year.

But many advisory group members agreed the “disastrous” feelings around the incident were in part due to bad communication. Definitions and decisions made before lethal removal began weren’t clear enough.

Representatives from the department said new projects to improve their public relations are underway. A major website update is due for completion in 2018.