Idaho gets OK to land helicopters in wilderness area to collar wolves

LEWISTON, Idaho — The Idaho Department of Fish and Game can land helicopters in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area this winter to put radio collars on wolves.

U.S. Forest Service Regional Forester Harv Forsgren, based in Ogden, gave the state permission Tuesday to land choppers up to 20 times to collar about a dozen wolves, the Lewiston Tribune reported. The Forest Service resisted a broader request from the state in 2006, but decided this latest, more limited proposal was acceptable.

Landing helicopters in a federally protected wilderness has long been a point of contention.

The use of motorized or even mechanized travel is not normally allowed in congressionally mandated wilderness areas. But Idaho officials say trapping wolves from the ground isn't effective, so they want to do it while they're flying on annual winter deer and elk counts over the 2.24 million acre area in central Idaho.

"It's an efficiency thing for us," said Jim Unsworth, deputy director of the department at Boise. "We are back there doing elk and deer surveys, and when we have a chance to mark some wolves it saves sportsmen and everyone else money if we can efficiently tag them right there on the spot."

Some environmental groups are suspicious Idaho's proposed flights will contribute to killing wolves, which now number about 1,000 in the state and more than 1,600 in the northern Rocky Mountains, including Wyoming and Montana.

Craig Gehrke, of The Wilderness Society in Boise, said motorized incursions into the Frank Church should only be allowed if they are to improve the wilderness ecosystem.

Simply collaring wolves, he said, doesn't meet that goal.

"I don't think grabbing a bunch of data and shelving it, hoping to find a use for it later, really complies with the direction that such non-conforming uses be conducted only to benefit the wilderness resource as a whole," Gehrke said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Even without permission from the federal government, Department of Fish and Game officials landed a helicopter in the wilderness after darting a wolf on April 12.

Federal officials labeled the landing "an incursion;" Unsworth said his agency believes it has a right to land in wilderness areas, but sought permission from Forsgren because it wants to cooperate with federal land managers.