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What will be monitored?

“When a species reaches recovery criteria, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reviews the population
status to determine whether reclassification or delisting is appropriate. Recovery criteria differ among
populations depending on the threats to the species, the connectivity of the populations, and local
ecological circumstances”

-Wolf Recovery in North America

The ESA also requires that wolf populations be monitored for five years after delisting to ensure that
populations remain viable without federal protection.

“State, tribal, and federal land management agencies would be encouraged and may elect to monitor or
enhance ungulate populations to assist wolf recovery and minimize potential impacts.”

Management as a nonessential experimental population under the ESA calls for “intensive monitoring and
then capture and return of dispersing animals to Yellowstone National Park as needed; immediate control
by public agency personnel of any wolves depredating on livestock”

“Therefore, during the first several years of reintroduction, active den sites within Yellowstone National
Park would be closely monitored” Human disturbance would be prohibited within a mile of these sites.

All wolves would be radio-collared and monitored three times a week.

“During the first five years after reintroductions begin, livestock depredations by wolves should be minimal
because of intensive monitoring and management of radio-collared wolves.” Radio telemetry monitoring
via radio-tagged collars.

There was initially some controversy about whether or not the FWS should be monitoring Yellowstone
for an already existing wolf population. However, previous monitoring for wolf activities in Montana,
Wyoming, and Idaho since the 1960s indicated only the occasional lone wolf wandering into the Rocky
Mountains and no wolf packs or breeding pairs were found in Idaho or Wyoming.

Occupied Gray Wolf range- determined by a five-mile radius around all locations of wolves and wolf
signs confirmed for non-radio monitored wolves (“credible, timely reports of wolf observation”) (tracks,
sightings, or photographs) or around the radio location for collared wolves.

Monitoring of fence integrity, human, and animal activity may be done with remote cameras.

Remember that “recovery” has been operationally defined as ten breeding pairs in Yellowstone for three
successive years.

EIS

Inside Yellowstone, they monitored population status, population growth, reproduction, mortalities, and
presence of disease. They also determined livestock depredation, number of packs involved in
depredations, size of wolf packs involved in depredations, time of year and location of livestock
depredations, livestock depredation control actions, and compensation for livestock depredations. Inside
the park, they examined area closures, and the effects of tourist attraction to the wolves.

-Annual Report
Outcomes Evaluation- Bartlett et al.
-project evaluation: “A project is a time-bound effort that may be a component of a more general
continuing program”

Assesses “the extent to which needs, values, and opportunities have been realized through public action”

Making “practical inferences about the degree to which policy problems have been resolved.”

“Outcomes evaluation is based on the seemingly unassailable assumption that policy is purely
instrumental, comprising means for producing results or effects”

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