Close encounter raises concerns about wolves

Idaho Press-Tribune ^ | 6/4/06 | Scott Richards

[tgusa]

GRANGEVILLE — Hello. My name is Scott Richards. I have lived in Grangeville for the last 17 years. I have enjoyed training my hunting dogs for the past 34 years.

To do this it takes a great deal of love for your dogs and for the great outdoors. I have always prided myself in the manner of which I train my dogs and take care of them. When I choose a new pup, he or she spends the first 6 months in my house. He or she is loved and a bond is there forever. I do not believe there are bad dogs, just inexperienced owners. I have spent the last four years trying to introduce this sport to as many young people as I can. My photo albums are full of pictures with children sitting under a tree with the dogs, telling them they did a good job.

[CAPTAINSUPERMARVELMAN]

my advice...next time get some bigger dogs.

[Wolfstar]

The reason why wolves and bears and other critters don't kill more people is that people either remove them from their nearby environment or build walls to keep them out.

Nooo. Really?! Well whodathunkit.

And I don't know about your neck of the woods but around here, people don't send their kids out to play in the back yard armed with guns to defend themselves.

My "neck of the woods" is Los Angeles where, in some neighborhoods, parents might nearly do just that to defend against hoards of predators of the two-legged variety.

[Old_Mil]

The guy sounds like a puss. If wolves killed my dog like that it would be wolf hunting time, law or not.

Absolutely.

[george76]

What about gators ?

Gators recently killed three Florida women in one week.

Another Florida woman shot a gator in her home...where her children sleep and play.

She was later served by a local deputy sheriff for "Hunting without a permit."

---

"...normally run the other way when encountering a human. They are extremely elusive at best.

These poor creatures, I tell you.

They are our American Wilderness and would probably be extinct if they hadn't been placed on the endangered list."

[midnightson]

I gotta say, this story is crap! I don't beleive it!

[Old_Mil]

I am not a liberal, and I'm not an environmentalist, however, I'd like to suggest one correction (flame away all)...It isn't that wolves frequent areas populated by humans, it's that humans frequent areas populated by wolves...i.e. wildlife.

Mistake #1. This is our planet, and anyone who starts a discussion with a presumption that we are trespassing on "wolf territory" starts from a very wrong place indeed.

Come on folks. If you would simply do a few minutes of research you will see that human fatalities in the United States due to wolves are zero.

This isn't just an issue of human fatalities (although, the human fatalities due to cougars don't seem to bother people who think like you, either). This is a question of the effect these creatures have on other species that *deserve* our protection (ie dogs, farm animals, etc) because of special service rendered to our own. These poor creatures, I tell you. They are our American Wilderness and would probably be extinct if they hadn't been placed on the endangered list.

30 years ago when there were no wolves, the American wilderness did just fine. There are no more Sabre-tooth tigers, and the wilderness does just fine. Let wolves, cougers, etc go on the endangered species list. Humanity suffers nothing from the extinction of large predators.

[cowboyway]

I gotta say, this story is crap! I don't beleive it!

I know what you mean.

This guy goes out with a few dogs, trees a 1200 pound griz, runs up to the tree and snaps a 'photograph' of the 1200 pound griz, gets attacked by wolves that just so happen to be close to the griz, tries to beat a wolf with a limb, outruns a wolf back to his truck by dodging around trees, meets up with his buddy who just happens to get there at the same time, both start fumbling their guns that they left in the truck.................

[BadAndy]

"This guy goes out with a few dogs, trees a 1200 pound griz, runs up to the tree and snaps a 'photograph' of the 1200 pound griz, gets attacked by wolves that just so happen to be close to the griz, tries to beat a wolf with a limb, outruns a wolf back to his truck by dodging around trees, meets up with his buddy who just happens to get there at the same time, both start fumbling their guns that they left in the truck................."

Yup, a real tard salad.

[Double Tap]

Bookmark

[MissEdie]

It looked like it was too big to be a coyote. Mind you I was doing over 70 mph in my Miata, but when I rode by him his chest was above my passenger side window.

[Double Tap]

Sounds to me like you need to go back and read the article again. No mention of a 1200 pound grizzly. He hit a tree with the limb trying to scare the wolf off. He made it back to the truck because his dog was harrassing the wolf that was chasing him. And I know plenty of folks that leave their weapons in the car when they are out in the woods. They just don't want to carry them.

Whether the story is BS or not, I don't know. But your points certainly are BS.

[Mat_Helm]

Should of had a few Wolfhounds with him!

Don't get mad, just get a bigger dog! Sheep ranchers use these to keep coyotes away. They will kill them with a single bite. Introduce these into the wolf country and let the fun begin. Or start a new sport for trophy wolf hunting with your Wolfhound. This is how Britain and Ireland got rid of their wolves. Let the games begin...

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

****"What about gators? Gators recently killed three Florida women in one week."****
Well, of course, a gator coming into my home having children to protect, then of course I would shoot it. However, look at some of the places Florida is building its homes.

We lived in Weston years ago, and even back then this town's rear end butted right up against the Everglades. Who in their right mind would move to a home on the Everglades and think that gators won't be a problem? And these developments in Weston build lakes as a neighborhood centerpiece, they build mini water parks for the residents, etc. And what about the Darwin nominee who decided to snorkel in a canal where gators have been known to swim? What in the heck was she thinking?

I think these can't be lumped into one story and should be more of a case by case discussion.

[thinkthenpost]

They basically were EXTINCT and were vigorously sought to be eradicated by those were populated the West, anywhere in the West. Most of the complaints you are hearing about started after all the reintroduction plans, something most in the West did not want.

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

The folks in Yellowstone might beg to differ with you, actually. Without the wolves, the Yellowstone elk have been overpopulating the place. Ecosystems work best with all the natural players.

And it's funny when you look at the statistics kept by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Do you know what the number one predator of livestock is? The answer, in fact is the coyote. And the #2 predator? I don't think you know the answer to this one because it's actually our beloved domestic doggy. Dogs, in fact, killed more livestock in 2005 than all other predators — cougars, wolves, bobcats and bears — combined.

So..........before you continue to pick on the big, bad wolf, your Fido should be eradicated first by your own logic.

[thinkthenpost]

Well, IMO they should have opened up the park for some elk harvesting.

The dogs you are referring to as I am fairly certain are feral dogs, domestic dogs that have gotten out or were dumped and have packed up. I think if you've kept up with the posts from Conservative Texan Mom you'd agree as would most on the thread that these predators, too ought to be aggressively hunted and controlled or eradicated.

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

Maybe we ought to kill the humans who steal cattle from ranchers since 21,000 cattle were lost to theft in 2005. Domestic dogs killed 21,900 head of cattle. Predator-related causes of death to cattle totaled 190,000 last year. Of that number, 4,400 have been attributed to the wolf.

Non-predator related deaths totaled 3,861,000. And if we total all of this up? In 2005, 4,051,000 head of cattle were lost to all causes, with only 4,400 due to the ever picked on and misunderstood wolf.

[george76]

Then the deputy sheriff released the wounded gator.

Not the best idea, to release a wounded predator after the predator has invaded a home and attacked a family inside of their home.


The poor woman got harrassed by the deputy sheriff for protecting her kids and her home.

---

These events can be lumped because we are seeing the same politically correct behavior across the nation. The PC line is that "humans are bad, predators are good."

Second, the population of the world was about one Billion in 1900. Now the population is about Six Billion...soon to be 30 Billion ?

Where will these billions of new humans going to live ?

The earth is already crowded.

They will want schools, jobs, health care, homes, shopping, clean water, cheap energy, cheap oil and gas, food...

[thinkthenpost]

Cattle rustlers were not so long ago hung by their necks until they were dead, not such a bad idea IMO.

I will have to assume the nearly 4 million head of cattle you cite were killed and butchered for us humans to eat. I'm not sure how that factors in, but if the Wolves had not been reintroduced then ranchers would have had ~4400 more head of cattle to do with as they pleased.

I think the # for Wolves will continue to rise as they expand the size of their range, and evetually the # for dogs will fall as they are driven out or killed by the Wolves.

[george76]

Six county commissioners from two states agreed Tuesday that counties in the West should consider suing the federal government about wolves.

"If the state's not going to sue, maybe it's time for us to," Park County Commission Chairman Tim Morrison

• Wolves are killing livestock and depleting elk herds, while making few inroads on bison.
• Some marginal ranching operations are selling their land as subdivisions because of costly predation.
• Ranchers are using fewer acres for grazing, keeping domestic animals closer to home but losing needed grasslands.
• Wolf concerns increasingly are "locking up" public lands.
• There are so many wolves in this area already that it may be too late to manage them.
• The federal government was not truthful when it proposed and actually carried out wolf reintroduction.

• Commissioner Tim French said while farmers and ranchers prefer retaining ownership of their land to leave to their children and grandchildren, "If you're going broke, you've got to look at your options."

  "Whatever we can do together is still not working," Morrison added. "We're still not dealing with the problem: we've got wolves at our back door."

• Montana and Wyoming need "grassroots efforts" such as counties banding together, combined with pressure on federal legislators, to make necessary changes in laws governing wolf management.

  Brown said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "put wolves in Yellowstone Park" and created a recovery area 300 miles around the park, then "tied all the dollars to Yellowstone and openly admitted (they) knew wolves would leave."