[thinkthenpost]

"In wet, muddy areas where elk and moose have always been plentiful, I no longer can find even a track."

The money part of the article, and there were several.

The elk herds numbers are way down, as the wolf packs have been very hard on calves ever since the reintroduction programs were started. Hunters and other outdoor folks, even ever day folks in the suburbs, living in the mountain states need to start paying attention.

Oh, don't worry they'll stay on Yellowstone.
MY ASS

Don't get me started on coyotes they have spread everywhere, and either through a good food supply or crossbreeding are larger than 25-30 years ago.

[brytlea]

We saw occasionally coyotes right downtown early in the morning in the E. TX town we lived in. They routinely killed cats and small dogs.
susie

[Tammy8]

Interesting that you bring up coyotes being bigger, I read an article several years ago that said the wolf was not really eradicated in most of the US, it had crossed with coyotes and created a hybrid that was different from the traditional coyote or wolf. According the the article the coyotes they did DNA samples of had wolf DNA.

The man that did the research for the article got curious as to why there were few to no natural wolve populations, yet many coyotes when man had tried to eradicate both. He wondered how the coyote survived and the wolf did not. He came to the conclusion that todays coyotes are a hybrid of yesterdays wolf/coyote crossbreeding.

[stevio]

I guess I'm going to get you started on coyotes. ;^) We have them around our area, the other night we heard one as close as our backyard. My 6 & 4yr old want to sleep outside this weekend with me in a tent. Is there any precautions I should take? A gun and knife will definitely be will me.

[PoorMuttly]

Yes, the elk bog down....in the bog...and the doggies pounce real good. Way of the wild, and why it took us 200 years to push 'em back up north. When the slickers and suburbanites get themselves and their children slowly disembowled...perhaps a little ancient wisdom will get accepted, even by them.

Or not.

10 years ago I saw a coyote in Central Park, N.Y.C., and before that, one in a rubble field in the Bronx. When they meet Fluffy the pitbull, little Cujo should be quite an entertaining handful for one and all...'specially in the schoolyards.

The adventure continues.