NH hunters wary of wolves' return to region
By MARK HAYWARD and GARRY RAYNO
Union Leader Staff

Chester resident Rick Murray, a hunter and professional cutter of wildlife meat, likes his spot on top of the food chain just fine.

So the notion that wolves may return to New Hampshire — whether naturally or as part of a sophisticated reintroduction effort — doesn't sit well with him.

"They're a beautiful animal, but they're hunters, and they will devastate any wild game herd they get a chance to eat," Murray said.

Across northern New England today, hunters and outdoors people were swapping wolf stories. They told tales of tracks, or sightings or rumors of wolf packs that are New Hampshire bound or already here.

"They're predators. The question I have is how would they interact with the deer herd, which is already under stress here?" said Stan Holz, a hunter and owner of the Village Gun Store in Whitefield.

Deer, moose, cattle and sheep are all in northern New Hampshire, and Holz questions whether they would all end up under the gaze of a hungry, 150-pound carnivore.

There has been no confirmed sighting of wolves in New Hampshire, but all sorts of signs point to their visitation, if not outright return.

In 1993, a wolf was killed in northern Maine, according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Three years ago, a female wolf was killed in Quebec, 20 miles from the New Hampshire border.

And a wolf killed last year in New York state fit the genetic profile of the plentiful gray wolves in the Great Lakes states.

But some remain suspicious of their return.

"It's not unlikely that it could happen in the future," said New Hampshire Fish and Game Department wildlife biologist Mark Ellingwood.

Wolves were exterminated by farmers and hunters in the late 1890s, but the reforestation of land in the state has produced an abundance of prey for the wolves such as beaver, rabbits, deer and moose.

Steven Courchesne, owner of Steven's Sportsmen's Den in Hooksett and a hunting guide in northern New Hampshire, said they are already here.

A wolf pack lives in land that includes College Grant north of Errol and Azicohos Lake just over the border in Maine, he said.

"When you see tracks (in new snow) the size of a German shepherd and the stride is two feet and it's covered the whole mountain, that's not a domestic dog or a coyote," Courchesne said.

Right now, the few wolves cause no harm. But if several packs return to New Hampshire, they could devastate wintering deer and spring moose calves, he said.

But Peggy Struhsacker, the wolf project coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation in Vermont, said hunters shouldn't worry about any impact on game animals.

In Minnesota, which has had wolves for 25 years, there has never been a reduction in the white-tail deer herd, she said. And she noted that trophy deer are found in the middle Canadian provinces, which also have wolves.

"If anything, the white-tail deer are bigger and stouter animals because they have a predator on their heels," Struhsacker said.

Struhsacker said the National Wildlife Federation hopes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will now seriously consider a wolf recovery site in the Northeast.

The options for wolf recovery could range from doing nothing, to a wolf re-introduction, to natural recovery. The federal process, of course, would involve public input and comment.

Jasen Stock, executive director of New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, said the biggest implication of yesterday's ruling would likely be on public land.

Timber harvesting in the National Forest land and on land with conservation easements would see the first impact. Conservation easements usually include a provision that rare, threatened and endangered species be considered in any management plan, Stock said.

Anthony Tur, an endangered species specialist in U.S. Fish and Wildlife's Concord office, said the harvest rate of wolves in southern Canada is pretty high, so it is not likely the wolves will come to New Hampshire on their own.

"We would need somehow to get the animals and actively place them on the landscape," Tur said, and "that would take tremendous support from states and residents for that to occur."

A 1992 federal study indicated northern Maine and the Adirondacks would be good habitats to reintroduce wolves, but residents in those areas may not support reintroduction, Tur said.

The wildlife service has a backlog listing of species in greater trouble than wolves, Tur said, so it is unlikely wolves would be a higher priority.