Posted on 12/03/2013 12:44:44 PM PST by george76
Past experience in Idaho, northeastern Oregon and Washington state illustrate that it's time to take gray wolves completely off the federal list of endangered species.
The West’s wolf problem started in 1995 and 1996. That’s when 66 wolves from Canada were reintroduced in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park.
Those wolves multiplied and spread into Wyoming, Utah and Oregon. They also took up residence in Washington state and Montana, where other wolves from Canada already lived. Today at least 1,674 wolves live in 321 packs within the region, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That’s in addition to the 65,000 wolves living in Canada and Alaska.
One does not have to be a wildlife biologist to see the gray wolf is not an endangered species in any sense of the word.
The rapid spread and population growth of the gray wolf is proof that it is here to stay. Across the West, the wolf has established itself as a top predator. Where once there were no packs, hundreds now thrive. That’s in addition to a thriving wolf population across the upper Midwest.
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it is ranchers who need protection, not wolves.
(Excerpt) Read more at capitalpress.com ...
Congresscritters top the list.............
Crip, the wolves will just travel across the ice to Copper Harbor. Don’t tell the wolves about that whole new “we shoot wolves, don’t we!” rule. No need for them to know that!
The ancestor of the dog.
Canis lupus familiaris
Send them here to the Eastern Shore of MD; the deer eat everything and need to be thinned out.
I envision a Hunger Games type scenario where we drop unarmed bureaucrats into the middle of wolf pack infested areas and watch the fun.
++++++++
As long as they’re chained to a bowling ball....or better.
Hunting is good.
Food on the family table and ...
Even Alaska ones???
I spent more time in the hills hunting this fall than I ever have.
The elk herds in this area (not to mention the moose, which are all but eliminated, as well as the mountain goats and bighorn sheep, whose numbers are way down) are diminished, broken up, fleeing, with the remnants acting as they never have before.
The remaining elk seem to be herding up in as big a numbers as they can, and many, many of them are heading to privately held land and simply hunkering down there.
On the big private ranches they are granted a bit of safety, in that ranchers watch for wolves and of course usually allow very few hunters in.
On public ground no one is vigilant around the clock and if the elk spend time up there they will be slaughtered. What has happened to the ordinary meat hunter, like myself, is that we have to hunt higher and deeper and more frequently just in hopes of bumping into a scattered group of elk.
The wealthy-—and I bear them no grudge-—can purchase a hunting vacation on the big ranches, around five grand for four or five days, and can usually score a big bull.
The upshot of the introduction of the gray wolf is that the numbers of elk are way down, as are other big game animal populations; the remaining big game is perpetually nervous, milling, moving, not breeding or producing calves like it used to; and the hunting privileges have shifted to the very rich (and the very poor, who will poach for the food of necessity, the law be damned), while the typical wildlife-supporting hunter is increasingly deciding just to stay the hell home.
Here’s a quick story: while I was way up high last week I ran into a younger hunter, a really skilled outdoorsman, who spends far more time than I in the mountains. He said that last year he was hunting way up, when he glassed a big bull lying on a neighboring ridge, maybe a half mile away.
As he set about figuring out a sneak, he noticed movement coming down that ridge toward the elk—wolves, eight or ten of them. They cover the ground fast, and they were closing on the big bull.
My friend thought, Surely the big boy will get up and start to move. Even if he can’t outrun them. But he will move.
As he watched, the wolves almost on the elk, the bull finally stood. Then my friend understood the situation. The big bull had been attacked by the wolves earlier, and his hindquarters were mostly eaten off him: a red bloody maw back there. For some reason—maybe to pursue and attack more of the herd—the wolves had left him.
Now they were returning to finish the job, which at length they did.
There you have the fruits of environmentalism.
Sad story and confirms what I’ve heard from others who spend far more time outdoors than I do. Too bad your young hunter friend was too far away to shoot a couple of the wolves.
My husband is not a hunter, but I totally agree.
There are wolves in NM. I just SSS.
No mention of wolves and hydatid disease due to Echinococcosis granulosus tape worms. Two thirds of wolves examined now contain this pest. The eggs last 25 years in soil and can be inhaled in dust.
Hunting is an ineffective means of wolf eradication. One can kill 70% of the wolf population every year and it will remain stable. When eradication was accomplished in the past, it was with poison bait.
Wolves prefer two types of elk: yearling calves and pregnant females, not the old and the sick as was touted by environmentalists.
As long as wolves can subsist off cattle, they will be able to extirpate other species and survive. Look for moose, caribou, elk, and mountain goats and sheep to be on the death watch. Deer will be harder to take down, but will be scarce. Vegetation will run amok and contribute to our already overburdened fuel loads. This is an environmental disaster.
You are absolutely right.
Even the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has been forced to recognize (although not admit publicly) that the birthrate for elk is fast approaching zero.
When possible the wolves, much like leftists in general, will simply take the fetus and move on.
They're spreading throughout Michigan now.......
They had been told. Cliff White had already run the numbers up in Banff National Park.
Glad to encounter someone so well-informed as you.
As you probably know even on FR one can run into posters who just love the natural beauty and majesty of the non-native wolves.
I’ll be eager to ping you, if you don’t mind, when I find myself in a battle with that gang.
As I say, very pleased to make your acquaintance.
Not a problem. If you need source references, George Dovel is by far the best collector of reliable information on the wolf reintroduction.
BTW, it truly is a reintroduction as North American Holocene wolves came over the Bering land bridge, probably chasing bison herds driven by people (as there sure as hell wasn't enough forage to attract them). By that time, the Indians had already killed off Canis Dirus and the endemic North American bison (if there truly was one). Wolves, as we know them, are an introduced species.
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