Definitions for "edible portions of a big game animal" and "waste" of game meat are being proposed by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department at the hunting season setting meetings to be held in late March and early April.

Formerly G&F regulations stated all "edible portions" must be saved, but didn’t define the term. "That has prompted many hunters to ask over the years, ‘Just what are the edible portions?" said Terry Cleveland, G&F assistant Wildlife Division chief. "Many different interpretations of the term, both outside and inside the department, have developed over the years."

Cleveland says "waste" also needed to be defined to clarify the regulation for hunters, game wardens and judges.

The G&F is proposing these definitions:
• "edible portion of a big game animal" means the meat of the front quarters as far down as the knees, the hindquarters as far down as the hocks and the meat along the backbone between the front quarters and hindquarters.
• "waste" means to leave, abandon or allow to spoil any edible portions of meat from a big game animal, small game animal, game bird or game fish.

Also being proposed is a regulation stating, "The Department may require substantive proof from any person who fails to retrieve from the site of kill all edible portions of a big game animal as to why the edible portions were not removed from the field."

"A growing trend where back-country hunters fail to pack out all edible portions of their big game animals has prompted the Game and Fish to propose this regulation," said Cleveland, who oversees G&F regulations.



Arizona — New Wolves

A new Mexican gray wolf pack was placed in an acclimation pen March 14, southeast of Hannagan Meadow in the Blue Primitive Area of the Apache National Forest.

The Steeple Creek Pack, consisting of the alpha pair and three pups born in 1999, were flown to Arizona on Monday from Wolf Haven International of Tenino, WA.

Tuesday the wolves were hand-carried and mule-packed several miles into the remote reintroduction site, according to Dan Groebner, Arizona Game and Fish Department Mexican Wolf Project leader.

The pack will be held in the acclimation pen for a short period, then released before elk calves are born this spring. Plans call for possible translocation of two packs of wolves into the Gila National Forest in New Mexico and a new pack to be released in the Bear Wallow Wilderness of
Apache National Forest this spring.

There are currently 14 Mexican wolves in Arizona, including the five new arrivals. The Campbell Blue Pack of four, the Hawks Nest Pack of four, and the lone Gavilan yearling that often explores into the Gila National Forest near Snow Lake, NM.

The reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf is a multi-agency cooperative effort of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona Game and Fish Department, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, and the USDA-Wildlife Services, U. S. Forest Service.



Washington — Cougar Taken

A cougar which state wildlife officials had monitored for two months after it appeared in a backyard near Kent was euthanized after it killed a domestic goat near Carnation.

The young, male cougar, estimated to be about 30 months old and weighing about 130 pounds, was captured by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) enforcement officers and a wildlife biologist and later euthanized. The animal had killed a pet goat in a fenced pasture at a home in a rural area between Carnation and Duvall.

In January, the same cougar was captured, outfitted with a radio-telemetry collar and released in a wooded area north of Interstate 90, after it was discovered in a tree in the backyard of a home near Lake Meridian, outside Kent.

Over the last two months, WDFW biologists have tracked the cougar by following radio signals from the collar, monitoring the animal as it moved through open spaces, greenbelts, stream corridors and wetland forests in the Issaquah-Sammamish Plateau and industrial timberlands in eastern King County.

"Monitoring this cougar has provided valuable information about these animals' movements and the habitats they select," said WDFW District Wildlife Biologist Rocky Spencer. "It's really the first time our agency has had the opportunity to gather this kind of information from a relocated animal."

Until recently, the cougar had not caused any pet, livestock or other problems. "We've tracked it very closely and have been able to document that it did not prey upon domestic animals," Spencer said.

On Monday, however, while tracking the radio signal from the cougar's collar, Spencer discovered the dead goat in a fenced pasture with puncture wounds in its neck. One of the pasture's fence posts bore cougar claw marks and hair, and there was evidence the cougar had marked the surrounding territory in a characteristic fashion, known as a "scrape," by scratching up dirt and then urinating on it.

After discovering the dead goat, Spencer called in WDFW enforcement officers and private hound handlers who tracked the cougar and treed it. The cougar was darted with immobilization drugs, removed from the scene and later euthanized.

Under WDFW policy, enforcement officers attempt to capture and relocate cougars the first time they are encountered in developed settings, unless human safety is at risk. It is department policy to euthanize the animals if they reappear a second time in civilization or prey upon pets or livestock. Any cougar involved in a human attack is immediately euthanized.