Michigan Tech University/Keweenaw Ping
Posted on 03/11/2006 11:00:51 AM PST by george76
Gnawing leisurely on the remains of a moose carcass, the wolf pack's alpha male seemed unaware that mortal danger was coming ever closer.
Suddenly the eight-member rival pack burst into view. The alpha scrambled to his feet, but too late.
Howling and barking, the enemy chased him down and mercilessly attacked, killing the hapless victim within a couple of minutes.
It's not unusual for the gray wolves on Isle Royale National Park to target each other, said John Vucetich, a Michigan Tech University wildlife biologist who witnessed the carnage from an airplane in January.
But the rival pack's brazen invasion of another's territory was a sign — the wolves are hungry.
The reason is a steady decline of moose, now at their lowest ebb in the 48 years ...
The moose population at 450 this winter, down from 540 last year.
Only four years ago, they totaled an abundant 1,100 in the national park...
Presently, there are about 15 moose for every wolf. The normal ratio is 40 to 50 moose per wolf.
Wolves feast mostly on calves and elderly moose, both of which are in short supply...
The moose's historic low ...
"One-third of the kills this winter were calves," Peterson said. "The wolves need to go down to give more calves a chance of reaching adulthood."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
To the enviros it is called murder, and I'm sure would invoke the death penalty for that if they could.
FWS counted over a thousand wolves this year in the 3 state region where they introduced wolves. Every year they miss a few packs on top of that. However delisting is a very long way off becaue thsoe of us living with them "can't be trusted" to maintain them.
No that is not quite right, there are some foreigners that pay big bucks to fly to Yellowstoen every year to "gaze into their eyes". Wolf lovers have virtually destroyed the vegetation on one hill as they all trek up the side to watch the wolves and hope to see them kill something.
Those wolves are protected by the ESA and only FWS can kill them.
Enviros insist that they will not kill all of their prey, although the fact is they did wipe out the deer population there years ago, and it never came back.
They have impacted the Northern Yellowsotne elk herd tremendously, they have dropped from 19,000 to less than 9000, but wh is counting, certainly not FWS this year. Instead of a count in January this year they reported a "study" that showed the herd would have dropped to that level without the wolves. (Computers are wonderful, you can make them say anything you want them to.)
I agree, make a that out of them!
Call me an isolationist but I say let the wolves work it out among themselves. From this article, it seems they have a perfectly workable "solution" in mind.
Actually there is at least one recorded case of the early mountain men eating a wolf when ther was no game.
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