News

Bill

As usual, you've hit the nail on the head the first time. We know from scientific attitude surveys that date back to wolf reintroduction in the mid-90s that the vast majority of citizens in our states are far more moderate about wolves than the vocal anti-wolf troglodytes claim. I'm not sure at what point this moderation will make itself felt, since the same citizens keep electing loud-mouth anti-wolf politicians like Butch Otter and Dave Freudenthal, who are in fact in thrall to the troglodytes instead of the citizenry. Maybe the populace likes political theater more than rational wildlife policies, because that's precisely what it is--slapstick, Three Stooges comedy now, potentially tragedy if the troglodytes get their way.

Freudenthal admitted in a press conference yesterday in Cheyenne that yes, it IS true that western Wyoming's elk haven't been decimated by wolves and that elk herd objectives are still being exceeded, something we've known all along, so now he's switching his tune to the claim that hunters ought to be taking those excess elk instead of wolves. Well, gee, that's what those reduced-price, late season cow-calf "Type 6" tags are for, and the State's hunters, myself included, have been taking advantage of those tags for over a decade. The fact is, hunters simply can't take any more elk--how much saturation of the field does Gov Dave think hunters can stand, especially in November and December?

Might wolves actually be performing an important management service by helping take out some of those excess elk?

Heaven forbid that wolves might actually be good for something! So Freudenthal is also complaining that maybe the herd objectives aren't calculated correctly; he thinks they ought to be lower. Well, so does the livestock industry, which is why herd objectives are as low as they are. We'd have a lot more elk out there if it weren't for all the AUMs allotted to cattle.

In any case, I have long been on record as supporting trophy game status for wolves in Wyoming, but it has to be trophy game status throughout the State, not just in northwestern Wyoming, as the State demands. Predatory animal status for wolves in 2/3 of the State--what is called for in the current wolf plan and is what the State is suing the feds over--is unacceptable biologically, legally, and quite frankly, morally. It's about time that the people of the West acknowledge that wolves have a critical part to play in western ecology, and that they should be treated as any other wild animal.

Keep up the good work.

Robert

It would be more constructive if we could refrain from calling people morons and fools and trash. In fact, though I am a fan of wolves, I resemble those remarks about Governor Otter. He is none of those things, even though his remarks on the Statehouse steps were extreme. There's no use being extreme in return. It erases any credibility your remarks may have.

We try to keep discussions civilized at New West because we are civilized people. Let us discuss the wolf issue as an issue.

Dear Jill

Pete Simpson, brother of former Wyoming Senator Al Simpson, is best known for this perceptive remark: "In Wyoming, everything is political except politics. Politics is personal."

The more experience one has with politics, the more one becomes aware that who people are--their moral standards, their motivations, their allegiances, their flaws--are what politics is about. It is inescapable. Your comment that we are civililzed people indicates that you lack experience with people and don't know history. People are not civilized--people are barbarians, savages, naked apes. Nor are they rational.

Until the Enlightenment's enshrinement of Reason, people who wrote and thought about politics understood this fact. Can you read history and then come back and tell me that we are a civilized people? No. Civilization is far more barbaric than so-called primitive societies. No purpose is served by denying it.

We are far better off being honest about the nature of politics and the nature of the people we are dealing with than attempting to apply an absurdly idealistic desire that we all get along.

Sincerely,
Robert Hoskins

There is no evidence that wolves have caused the decline in hunter harvest, although I wouldn't be surprised if wolf predation was a factor in the decline. But I'm one who would like to wait for the facts, not give into the emotion of the moment. Instead of letting science rule the day, wolf-haters go out, don't see an elk, and automatically assume wolves ate all of them. Let's have some objective science to decide the cause of the decline. In the meantime, let's manage wolves, not push them back onto the trapdoor of extinction.

Very emotional stereotype of hunters.....they hunt surplus elk and yes the elk numbers have drastically declined.....ask the people who live in elk country and see fewer and fewer elk every year on winter range.....or the hard core hunters who spend more time afield than you do at work.....i have never heard a hunter say there is no more elk....that is as drastic as saying wolves haven't impacted calf and cow (ELK) populations in Idaho....

I would like to commend Otter on his decision....He is representing the MAJORITY in Idaho....Keep up the good work!!!!!!!

The title of this piece and some of the subsequent replies have confirmed a suspicion I have had all along. The wolf introduction has nothing to do with "keystone species", "balance of nature", or any of those high blown statements. It had and has to do with punishing hunters and ranchers, and trying to drive them out because they are perceived as "bad" by some people.
Each state was supposed to have 10/100 wolves, Idaho has many times that as do all three states, now they "don't deserve" delisting? Since when is deserve supposed to be a part of it?

Politically out-of-touch re the USFWS Otter may be (although with Dirk at the top he may be closer to political reality than I wish) but locally, he's stacking the deck. Otter appointed the vice chair of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, Marv Hagedorn, to the open Idaho House seat made vacant by the chain of appointments/vacancies initiated by Sali's hiring ID Sen. Gerry Sweet for his DC staff.

The Legislature just became an even more anti-wolf venue.

Otter made a big mistake by showing his true colors, not that I never knew how false he was. I am convinced that in my area, ranching, and hunting is one of the factors leading to the destruction of native species of animals, and plants. Ranching has also been one of the factors leading to the destruction of the environment. I’ve personally seen Owls and Hawks shot dead by rifles. Where they a threat to livestock?

I’d rather be eaten by a carnivore than shot dead by a drunken, irresponsible hunter and yes I know we have many of those here. People who enjoy killing for sport and leaving the carcasses out to rot.
I know that not every rancher and hunter is irresponsible. But, I side with Nature and yes, I love seeing animals in the wild. And I don’t mean somebody’s cattle.
All Otter has done is attract attention that I’m sure he did not want. He has caused Idahoans like myself who love nature and our state to begin to organize.

Can you articulate some of the benefits of all of the wolves we now have? The "trophic cascade" is used ad nauseam, but details are not forth coming. They sure have not helped the Yellowstone elk or moose. They do seem to have helped the coyote population to increase. Supposedly they are making the trees grow (all of that weeing on the trees?), but that claim was being made almost as soon as they unloaded the crates. The swans are gone because "predators" got them last winter.
It may be your opinion that the food producers (ranchers) are harming the ecosystem, there are a lot of folks in the world with barely enough to eat, who are grateful for every bite they get from this country.
Are you totally self sustaining so that you use nothing grown by a farmer or rancher? If so where do you get it? Or is that the problem you want to feel superior to those who do feed you?
Management responsiblity should include the ability to make decisions, not jsut pay the costs. How much are you yourselves willing to pay individually to "manage" the wolves?

Thank you Erin. I have to say the whole idea of Idaho having to "deserve" delisting when they are many times the goal set makes me very nervous. Does that mean the three states chosen to introduce the wolves were chosen to punish them for being politically incorrect?
Is that why the opinions of 10 expert wolf biologists were ignored in Wyoming? We didn't "deserve" to be considered despite also having several times the population goal?
Who are these people to decide what other people "deserve"? Whole states of people in fact?

Bearbait's comments would be relevant, except:

1) Two examples of excess killing, or three, or 10, or 100, when you consider the number of animals wolves do in fact kill, doesn't strike me as statistically significant for a claim about dominant behavior. The wolf, as a highly sophisticated and complex animal, somewhat like humans, will show variable and complex behavior throughout its lifetime. Wolves, as I learned from my three winters in the Yukon studying wolf control, will also rip open caribou and eat while the animal is still alive. Are we to assign some moral status to this behavior? Last time I checked, wolves weren't issued rifles to assist in the hunt for making a clean kill, as I have available to me with my .308 Model 70. Predation is messy, and is not always efficient--although most of the time, it is efficient enough. By far, either from personal experience, if you have it, or from studying the literature, it is quite clear that wolves can little afford to engage in killing more than they can eat on a regular basis, either from the standpoint of energy expenditure or energy gain. Wolves, like humans, are fundamentally lazy and will not work more than they have to to make a living. Especially when that way of making living is so dangerous. (Quite frankly, in my observations of wolves, I don't think I've seen a lazier carnivore than wolves, except for male African lions. I've spent a lot of time watching wolves sleep).

A more important statistic I learned from my time from up North that I find interesting is that with moose, only 1 in 7 attacks by wolves is successful. Quite frequently, wolves are found dead from having been killed by moose, or with broken bones that very clearly resulted from having been caught on the business end of a moose. If any one has ever seen a moose go after dogs with its front hooves, that person would to agree that the moose is a pretty ferocious swordmaster and far more dangerous than a grizzly bear.

2) As a hunter and a wrangler who's worked for outfitters, I don't in theory object to ranchers running their own hunting programs but the claim that ranchers need to operate hunting programs to stay afloat these days is a bit anachronistic, dating back to days half a century ago and more, as the vast majority of large ranches with which I am familiar, at least in Wyoming, are owned by very, very wealthy people who don't need the income, and instead run hunting programs as the expression of a feudal mentality that all wildlife are private property to be done with as the owners will. As a matter of fact, I personally don't know any small-time ranchers who have the time any more to run ranch hunting programs. What usually happens in this case is that outfitters "block up" ranches with a lease and do the commercial hunting.

I would point out, as I'm sure Bearbait is aware, that it's only the large ranches that have the acreage to encompass transitional ranges of big game animals, so that the landowner, or the outfitter who has leased the land, can control the hunt and keep the game from the local yokals, which is how these wealthy landowners think about resident hunters.

Thus, with a few exceptions, it's only the very large, wealthy ranches that can afford to run ranch hunting programs. It's simply not true, by and large, that ranch hunting programs are necessary to keep the ranch going.

I might also point out that in some cases, wolves are causing a redistribution of herds onto private lands, which surely benefits the landowner. It saves the landowner from having to haze big game animals onto private land (a few times with helicoters) away from public lands hunters. I hope Bearbait doesn't deny that this illegal activity (herding of big game animals onto private land) happens.

3) Regarding tolerance of ranchers for big game animals on private or public land, it never ceases to amaze me that ranchers don't perceive the hypocrisy or contradiction in complaining about wolves' alleged negative impact on big game herds on the one hand while continually pushing state wildlife agencies to keep big game herds as small as possible through late season cow-calf/doe-fawn hunts or depredation hunts to keep big game from eating forage "dedicated" to cattle. Limiting big game populations to meet the demands of ranchers for fewer animals competing on the range for forage is a major if not well-publicized function of state wildlife agencies. Does Bearbait deny this?

For example, I've seen any number of crocodile tears shed about low cow-calf ratios in the Wiggins Fork Elk Herd, which is the herd in Wyoming I hunt. The State of Wyoming made the Wiggins Fork Herd the "poster elk herd" in its Petition to Delist Wolves to the Fish & Wildlife Service a couple of years ago, making the claim that low cow-calf ratios were attributable to wolves, which set up shop in this country in 1998. (We now have two packs of wolves in the watershed, with possibly one or two others, although the latter haven't bred yet). What the State left out of its Petition was that the Wyoming G&F;Dept. had run an extensive herd reduction program from 1998-2003 on the Wiggins Fork Elk Herd to reduce numbers to meet landowner complaints about "too many elk."

G&F;has never published the numbers taken in this hunt, because the numbers are controversial, but I estimate from the annual herd unit reports that over 1000 cows and calves were removed from the herd over that 5-year period. Now, if that intensive a hunt doesn't lower cow-calf ratios, I don't know what would. Wolves had nothing to do with it.

On top of that, this intensive reduction of the Wiggins Fork Elk Herd took place in the face of an on-again, off-again drought that began in the early 90s. As a matter of fact, according to the official herd unit reports, that's when the cow-calf ratios began to decline--in the early 90s, not the late 90s after wolves had moved into the watershed.

I also find it interesting to hear that big game is welcome on private land--that's why we need to keep ranches working. Well, here in Wyoming, the State operates 22 elk feedgrounds with the express purpose of interdicting elk migration to traditional winter ranges on both public and private land. As a consequence of those feedgrounds, which we have solely because the livestock industry and local ranchers demand them, we have a serious disease problem, with brucellosis endemic to feedground elk and Chronic Wasting Disease on the way. (The disease problem comes from the unnaturally high densities of animals on the feedgrounds; I call the feedgrounds "elk ghettos"). Despite the disease problem, which has seen local cattle herds infected with brucellosis by elk and which has caused the State to lose its brucellosis free status (it's happened in Idaho too, because of feeding elk), ranchers have made a conscious decision to keep the feedgrounds because because grass is more important than the risk of brucellosis to cattle. The State of Wyoming, which operates the feedgrounds as a subsidy to the livestock industry, using hunters' license fees to pay for them at the tune of approximately $1.5 million a year, refuses to consider closing the feedgrounds, even though we can expect a 50% mortality rate, minimum, among feedground elk when CWD becomes full-blown. Including elk that are fed on the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, over 20,000 elk are fed on feedgrounds each year in Wyoming. Do the math; what's 50% of 20,000?

In short, even though we are watching a disease fatal to elk--CWD, the cervid equivalent of Mad Cow Disease--come closer and closer to the elk feedgrounds, ranchers are more than willing to sacrifice those elk to protect access to grass. This is tolerance for big game animals?

I would agree with you, I assume, since you didn't state an opinion on it, that the rewilding concept as laid out in Paul Martin's book is pure nonsense. The great megafauna of the North American Pleistocene went extinct largely as a consequence of the end of the Ice Age (that is, climate change), with drastic changes in the ecology of North America; there is precious little archaeological evidence, despite the claims of Martin and others, that humans had anything to do with those extinctions except perhaps to hurry them along at the end.

We would be far better off returning bison to the Great Plains, for example, rather than trying to recreate the savannahs of East Africa with elephants and such.

As usual Marion, you're spouting nonsense. However, I cannot allow your comments about moose to stand, since they are false. The moose study you refer to so contemptuously was conducted by Dr. Joel Berger of the Wildlife Conservation Society. He is one of the most widely respected wildlife scientists in North America and has published extensively on a number of biological and ecological topics surrounding both ungulates and carnivores.

Rather than trying to take several pages here to explain Dr. Berger's moose study, and its primary finding that moose in Jackson Hole have been starving to death, people who are interested in the science can contact me at and I can send you a copy of his report to the Wyoming Game & Fish Commission two years ago.

I will say that one of the primary factors in moose decline in Jackson Hole has been the presence of elk feedgrounds in Jackson Hole and the Gros Ventre River Valley. These feedgrounds have so concentrated elk in riparian areas that they have devasted willow communities upon which moose depend, particularly in winter. This negative consequence of feeding elk--destruction of habitat in the vicinity of feedgrounds, especially moose habitat, was first recognized in the early 20s, about a decade after the creation of the Ntional Elk Refuge, and was later fully documented by the first scientist assigned to the Refuge, the great biologist Olaus Murie. Murie discusses the impact of feeding in his book The Elk of North America (1951), in the chapters on Elk Habitat and Elk Management. It has been a continuing major concern over the decades. See Bruce Smith, Erik Cole, and David Dobkin, Imperfect Pasture: A Century of Change at the National Elk Refuge, Grand Teton Natural History Association, Moose, Wyoming, 2004. Dr. Bruce Smith is another highly respected North American wildlife scientist and served as senior scientist on the Refuge for two decades. He has done some of the most important scientific work on elk in the late 20th century.

As for the G&F;moose study Marion refers to, I provide below an news article written by Whitney Royster from the Casper Star-Tribune, published this summer:

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/07/02/news/top_story/52e50f92379687d58725719e0071ffc8.txt


Where art thou, moose?

By WHITNEY ROYSTER
Star-Tribune environmental reporter Sunday, July 02, 2006

*

JACKSON -- Here's a tip: When tracking moose with Scott Becker, wear pants.

Wear sneakers or hiking boots, of course, but for Pete's sake, don't try to impress Becker by wearing a skirt. Your calves, shins and knees will look like someone's taken at you with a switch.

Following Becker through fields of sage and bitter brush with a backdrop of the Tetons, it's hard not to envy his work. He held an H-shaped antenna above his head and picked up faint blips of a signal.

"She's in those trees," he said, pointing down a meandering creek on the prairie fronting Grand Teton National Park. It was the first time he hadn't referred to the moose as "my gal."

Becker, a University of Wyoming graduate student, is the go-to man these days for moose studies.

Becker is in the second of a three-year study to help identify the cause of moose decline in northwest Wyoming. Since the early 1990s, moose numbers have been dwindling, and Wyoming Game and Fish Department officials have been scratching their heads. So, the department has created a moose study team, and has hired Becker and others to study the animals.

Not all of Wyoming's moose population is struggling. For example, moose have recently expanded into the mountain ranges of south-central Wyoming from an introduced herd in northern Colorado, and those animals are doing well, Game and Fish officials say.

But Wyoming's largest moose populations are in the west and northwest, and the latter are struggling. The Jackson moose herd, for example, has dropped from an estimated 4,000 animals in 1995 to under 3,000 today.

Statewide, Game and Fish estimates there are about 11,066 moose. The agency has a statewide population objective of 14,530 moose.

No clear answer

Becker's study in part takes off where a previous study, headed by Joel Berger and the Wildlife Conservation Society, left off. Berger concentrated on the effects of predation on moose; Becker's study seeks to explain what habitat moose are using most. Is that habitat dwindling and affecting moose populations?

Becker is also looking at survival rates of adults, and when he can, calves, to see what segment of the population is limiting overall moose numbers.

It's a tricky business. Survival rates for adults Becker has been watching are normal -- in the mid to high 80 percent range. Pregnancy rates are normal, too. But calf survival rates are low.

The cause? That's unclear. Becker's study is not concentrating on calf survival rates -- he's not collaring young moose as he does adults -- so gleaning that information is a challenge. By the time researchers get to a calf carcass, the cause of death is nearly impossible to determine.

"It's possible females are in poor enough condition, they give birth to calves of poor health so they don't survive outside of the womb," Becker said. "The only known mortality we did have last year was a calf got hung up on a fence."

It's possible the research has something to do with it. Of 20 cows fitted with GPS collars last year, only three were observed with calves later, according to a report by Becker. Of "non-handled" cows, about 75 percent had calves.

But for the most part, researchers agree that moose are suffering because of dwindling habitat.

Predation

One thing Becker and Berger seem to agree on is that predators are not having a big impact on moose numbers.

In Berger's decade-long study, research pointed to malnourishment as the primary cause (60 percent) of adult female moose deaths. Predation by bears was the second-leading cause (14 percent), followed by hunting (10 percent). Predation by wolves was less than 2 percent. Roadkill amounted to 8 percent of deaths.

Becker agrees that predation is not having a big impact, though he says the point of his study is to look at survival rates, not mortality rates.

"It doesn't appear predators are having much of an impact on adult survival," Becker said.

The Game and Fish Department agrees.

Reg Rothwell, supervisor of biological services, said the decline in moose numbers appears to be habitat-related.

"Anything that has to do with the environment, it's seldom one thing that's the cause," Rothwell said. "A lot of times, it's a lot of history building up, not necessarily something new."

Years of drought, Rothwell said, could be catching up to northwestern moose populations. Moose here have the lowest numbers of cows having twins "on the planet," Rothwell said, suggesting an overall health problem.

When driving from Pinedale to Jackson, Rothwell said, people can see drainages with extensive willows. Some of those willows are hammered by moose. That could mean moose are over-utilizing the willow species they like and are more nutritious to them, leaving less-nutritious and desirable willow.

"If you take that problem and compact it by drought, it may be some kind of compounding thing," Rothwell said.

Bob Wharff, executive director for the hunters group Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, said moose population declines cannot be laid "solely at the feet of predators."

But, he said, there has not been a comprehensive study on the physiological effects of predation -- the stress the predators cause in moose. That stress, he said, can lead to lower pregnancy rates, low calf survival and even animals leaving an area to get away from predators, causing population redistribution.

"It only goes to reason if you're something that can be killed by a lot of different predators, the more those predators increase, it's going to add to the stress you're going to have," Wharff said.

But moose populations in the Sublette herd are also declining -- an area generally without wolves and grizzly bears.

Both Berger and Becker said they have not seen any indication of predators chasing moose in their studies.

"Honestly, from what I've seen this winter, I don't think it's too much of an issue," Becker said. "It may happen in some cases, but in all the winter up here I was watching these moose, I rarely saw a wolf actually chasing them around. There was only one cow I saw with wolf tracks around, and I know she was harassed. It's another theory out there that we're going to try to find what the cause (is) for the decline."

In the field

Becker said his study expands on Berger's, in part because of a bigger budget -- about $250,000 over three years. Berger collared 18 animals; Becker has 62. Berger tracked the animals on foot; Becker has the help of helicopters.

Becker's study, funded in part by the Game and Fish Department, the Wyoming Department of Transportation, University of Wyoming and Wyoming Animal Damage Management Board, also seeks information on highway crossings. He also intends to plug population numbers into a computer model to see if that helps determine what population segment is limiting population growth.

Although some have taken the Game and Fish Department to task for being anti-predator, Becker flatly denies his study's role is to implicate predators in moose declines.

"This is a survival study; the cause of mortality is secondary," Becker said. "If adult survival is within normal ranges, there's no need to look at that."

But there is a need to track moose, which was Becker's objective on a recent day at the foot of Teton National Park.

The cow moose's collar near the Tetons continued to blip off the antenna. Becker wanted to see if his "gal" had a calf.

The arrowleaf balsam roots were opening and turning their heads to the sun. The cow apparently was turning her head, too, making radio-tracking more difficult. At every turn, Becker insisted she was "just in the next bunch of trees."

A swift and high Ditch Creek prevented further travel. So today, the cow moose will remain unstudied, illustrating again the complexities of understand moose populations around the Tetons.

Environmental reporter Whitney Royster can be reached at (307) 734-0260 or at .

###

In closing Marion, when are you going to get your facts right?

Read Aldo Leopold's Game Management (1933), the very first textbook on game management, to see how far back the scientific recognition of the importance of habitat loss for wildlife goes. The critical role of habitat loss is one of the pillars of wildlife conservation. It is not a predetermined outcome; it is a brute fact. Only someone absolutely ignorant of wildlife science could make such a claim.

What greens in Jackson? The place is full of wealthy, pampered snobs in their trophy homes who barely know the difference between a moose and a mule.

Regarding something Marion said several comments ago:
"Considering the number of lions in the area where it was loosed, and the fact that lions prey heavily on deer, it does seem if predation was the answer, things would be improving, not getting worse.
There is a study where they tried collaring cats and tracking them to study their predation. They had a lot of problems with the collaring and tracking, but they still documented not one kill of an infected animal. I cannot find a single case of an infected animal being predated upon. Can you?"

The idea, Marion, is not that the predators kill and eat the infected animals. Predators are not going to elimate CWD. Rather, the part that predators play is to keep herd numbers lower (i.e., a natural check on population) and keep ungulates from congregating in huge herds. Since it is thought that transmission of CWD is lateral (from animal to animal) and that environmental contamination may be a possibility, these feeding grounds in Wyoming are just a bad idea -- plain and simple. Sure, there will be many animals that starve when the program is ended, but ultimately that is what needs to happen.

Seems teaching a "chicken little" is much like a dog chasing his tail. :)

I can see the anti-wolf cronies are out in force. 70 sheep killed in one night? Elk populations decimated? Haven't you learned by now that the story of the big bad wolf is a myth.

Let's face it - the reason a small minority of Idaho residents want wolves eradicated is because, god dammit, yer daddies killed wolves, and now the damned feds are telling you that yer daddies are wrong. It's not based on science, it's not based on number of elk...it's based on hate and time engrained myth.

Yes, it's true the wolves currently in Idaho are not native to Idaho. The reason for that is simple - your ancestors (or perhaps you?) killed them all. The wolves that came from Canada, however, are Grey Wolves - not some super wolf bred with arctic wolves. That's a lie you have perpetuated. Grey wolves WERE native to the Idaho Rocky Mountains from about 100,000 BC to 1950 AD, however, until you killed them off.

Jesus, the logic is so skewed. Let's kill all but 100 wolves so we can hunt more elk? Doesn't that seem a little wrong to you? What gives you more domain to elk than the wolves? Besides, elk numbers in the northern Rockies are actually increasing! In Yellowstone it has been shown that the entire ecosystem is improving. Contrast that to Estes Park, Colorado, where elk are overrunning the park, destroying vegetation and dying of disease. They have no predators, are stagnant, and unnatural.

You know what though...I'm ready for a battle, and so is THE MAJORITY OF THE UNITED STATES. We're not all yoga participating, chai drinking hippies. We got guns (and there are a lot of us)...I'm a nationally ranked biathlon ski athlete...and if we need to go to war over this issue we will. Personally, I'm willing to die to stop the proposed massacre and so are many others. We'll make the White Supremist bad publicity Idaho got back in the 1980s and 90s look like a damned Disney movie.

Chill out DVS, you don't have to kill people to get what you want, load up all of the wolves you want and take them home with you. If you can time from being so important you might want to read thru the FWS reports and see the reports of 30-70 sheep at a time being killed by wolves in one night, it has happened, and it is documented.
You know bearbait, it is scary to see the lengths some will go to to force their will upon others.....and interestingly enough they feel rightous doing it. Once folks have this idol, and the wolf is definately an idol to many, they feel they must protect it and believe in the attributes they have given it. Facts have no place in any of the discussion. The rule that Yellowstone must have 7 or 8 packs mantained is one of the things not even remotely based on any facts nor any hisotry. When the elk are gone, we may have to build a fence to keep them in there as is being ruled the law.

DV8 says......I'm a nationally ranked biathlon ski athlete...and if we need to go to war over this issue we will.

thanks for the laugh...you sound like a real WARRIOR....i wear spandex and like to fight......im serious that has got to be the funniest thing ive read all week....

you may also note that estess park does not allow hunting therein lies their problem

DV8 then rattles on about Let's kill all but 100 wolves so we can hunt more elk? Doesn't that seem a little wrong to you? What gives you more domain to elk than the wolves?

1. nope seems about right to me
2. i guess the food chain and my financial contribution gives me more domain.

being a nationally ranked spandex wearin ski bum you should understand the concept of competion...wolves and hunters compete........there was a reason they were eliminated once....it was not a mistake...

It took the american farmers and ranchers until the mid 1930's to do away with the livestock killing wolf. There was a reason for total eradication then as there is now. The best rifle then was a 30-30 carbine, now we have the high powered fast, flat shooting rifles. It won't take long this time to rid ourself of them.