Wolf Restoration is a Challenge to West’s Old Guard
If hunters succeed in this end run around the ESA, and there is the perception of a widespread slaughter of wolves, they risk long term public opposition and loss of public support for all hunting.By George Wuerthner, 9-27-10
George Wallace defying federal officials at U of Alabama
A year ago I wrote a New West column asking rhetorically if hunters were stupid. In that article I wondered if hunters were aware of the fact that shooting wolves is unpopular with most Americans and if hunting of wolves continued, it might create a backlash against hunting.
To answer my own question I have to say that hunters are not stupid—but most are clueless. Hunters don’t seem to have a inkling about how non-hunters perceive them. Public support for hunting is only luke-warm—the majority of Americans grudgingly accept hunting, but they are not enthusiastic about people killing animals. Only 10 percent or so of Americans hunt. Hunters are in the minority and they are largely older white males. In America older white males are in their twilight years.
Demographically the country is changing to a more diverse racial, religious and age structure. The majority of Americans who do not hunt only accept hunting if they believe the hunter is killing an animal to eat it. Public support for hunting declines rapidly if hunters kill animals for trophy mounts. When it comes to shooting an animal just to kill it as would be the case for hunters shooting wolves—and/or worse as a matter of vindication as in predator control, public support turns to public opposition.
Both the ESA and wolves are extremely popular with the country as a whole. I suggest that if hunters succeed in this end run around the ESA, and there is the perception of a widespread slaughter of wolves, they are the ones that risk long term public opposition.
This was brought home to me last week. I asked my 13-year-old son if he wanted to go hunting with me this fall. He said “Dad, I don’t want to hunt. Hunters are redneck wolf killers. I don’t want to be like them.” Another friend in Montana told me his 14-year-old son had the same negative reaction about hunting and hunters and doesn’t want to hunt this year.
Ironically hunters are all worried about their shrinking numbers and how to get kids to become the next generation of hunters. Today’s kids are better informed ecologically than their parents, and most of them have sympathies for animals like wolves. They don’t want to have anything to do with people who kill predators. If hunters want to ensure they won’t have a younger generation following in their footsteps, they could probably not find a better way than advocating wolf killing.
The actions of hunters today and their Congressional allies remind me of the segregationists in the South. I can still see in my mind’s eye the image of George Wallace and the Alabama state police standing on the steps of the University resolutely defying a court order to admit blacks into the University of Alabama. Wallace was immensely popular for his act of defiance against the hated “feds”. Yet Wallace seemed unaware that he was part of the last hurrah of the segregated South. What he did was immensely popular at home, but it was out of step with where America was on race. In the end, thankfully George Wallace and his ilk lost the war—and today we have a black President.
The passion, the anger, and the frustration exhibited by hunters (and ranchers ) is not so much about wolf predation itself. It’s really about control. For decades hunters and ranchers have enjoyed a predator free environment. Hunters have always been the ones who controlled wildlife and state wildlife agencies. The outrage expressed by many hunters and ranchers is a reaction to what is perceived as the audacity of other people in society to assume, much less assert, they should have a voice in wildlife management issues. For decades hunters have considered elk and deer their “property”. You can see this attitude displayed in their angry comments. “We paid for managing wildlife and by gosh, we are the only ones who should have a say in how all wildlife is managed.” The overriding attitude is one of possession. Wolves are killing “our” elk and deer. The deer and elk by all rights exist for us.
The debate over wolf management challenges those assumptions. Just as judges who ordered an end to segregation in the South, shaking up and eventually tumbling a hundred years of racism, hunters (and ranchers) are fearful they are losing their control over wildlife. That’s the context which the wolf debate is framed, and if one doesn’t understand this, the passion, anger, and outrage doesn’t make sense.
Even if with thousands of wolves, the number of cattle and sheep killed by wolves is and would continue to be tiny compared to the number lost to diseases, poison plants, and even domestic dogs. Wolves are not really a threat to the livestock industry. And neither are they a threat to hunting. There will always be plenty of places where hunters can find elk and deer to shoot--hunting isn’t going to disappear because of wolves. So the passions expressed are not based on just the perceived impact of wolves on hunters and ranchers, rather it is the idea that wolves and wolf management challenges the old guard and their position of power. Wolf restoration is more than bringing back a valued predator to the landscape—it is a challenge to the hegemony of the West’s old guard.
Hunters are much like George Wallace standing up in front of the halls of the University. They are standing up to change in the established order of things—and that is scary to anyone. I predict that if hunters succeed in obtaining an exemption to the ESA that permits killing of wolves, it will only swell the ranks of animal rights groups, and anti hunting support around the country. And that, in the end, is a far worse threat to hunting than wolves.
In California after hunters repeatedly countered non-hunters efforts to have a say in cougar hunting, the voters finally outlawed all hunting of cougars. I suspect if hunters push too far, they may well see a similar outcome about wolves. They may be win the first battles, but they are going to lose control of the issue in the end. Not only could this result in a ban on all hunting of predators, but it could well lead to an acceleration of the decline in hunter ranks as more and more moderate and ecologically informed hunters and/or potential young hunters are turned off by hunter attitudes. In the end, hunters have to recognize that there is now a wider public who are demanding a voice in wildlife management.
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there is just as much ugliness on the pro wolf side.
you're just fanning the flames of hysteria in your article.
what activities does your son do? judging from the premise of your article i would stereotypically extrapolate that he and his friend: watched TV, played video games, ate potato chips, went to the mall, wore out the cell phone,shoulder tapped, vandalized the neighborhood, tagged a few cars, scored some pot, said no to meth for now, and crapped on some senoirs lawn.
Once State Game and Fish departments' funding is no longer under the thumb of the "old guard," wildlife management will look very different than it does today. Control over our wildlife and the ecosystems they depend on will be determined by people that are more interested in the welfare of the wildlife themselves, rather than the number and species of wildlife hunters are permitted to kill.
It will happen. Hunters could help soften the blow for their special, declining interests. But as long as they align themselves with blood sport and blood lust, there's little hope for the moderates. See "Tea Party Candidates" for your future.
In fact most of us have become "trophy" hunters. The seasons on politicians are quite liberal, not to mention expenditures on taxidermy are minimal.
Just like hunting other "big game" it's sometimes a questionable use of time, though. In fact mind-bogglingly enough this farmer took a significant chunk of time out of my first day of harvesting (!!?) for a meeting yesterday, a subcommittee of the Madison Elk Working Group. And all we did was form another subcommittee. Bah. Humbug!!
Generally speaking, I would much rather deal with animals. By and large, they are honest, at least. And I don't take killing them lightly anymore. Far from it... That's one good thing about being a trophy hunter, I don't pull the trigger much anymore. Although depending on my wife's mood when she rallies here shortly, I may chop chicken heads before our board meeting this morning. I don't even take that lightly anymore. Even if it's roosters who've worn out their welcome.
I can't see George asking his son to go hunting, I can see him indoctrinating him on how awful those low life redneck hunters are and how superior he is.
Why dont' you take him on a trip to Yellowstone this fall to enjoy the might herds of elk? There are 12 cows and 3 calves left with 3, maybe a 4th bull on the Madison. You can take him and show him where you got rid of those nasty elk in Norris Meadows, Elk Park, Gibbon Meadows, etc. Once all of the meadows are empty then the wolves can finish off the ranchers and George can pat himself on the back....until he wansts a steak or hamburger.
I guess we can get along without out hunting, if we don't also kill livestock husbandry. But what do you do with the 400 bears killed by autos annually in Pennsylvania? Or the highway department guy in Oregon who hauled off more deer from a forty mile stretch of remote highway, vehicle killed, in a year than the hunting rules allowed for the whole unit? People kill wildlife every day. Cars, trucks, trains and airplanes. Domestic dogs do their number on larger animals, and cats kill a billion birds a year in North America. When you get all huffy about hunters, you had better step up to the plate and take on Muffin's owner, too. And the dickheads with the mean dogs. And limit the traffic on highways to daylight to save animals.
I have championed overpasses, underpasses, whatever it takes to allow critters to move from one side of the Interstate to the other. Always will. The big Booglie Wooglie in wildlife deaths is the car, the truck, the ship, the train, the airplane, the power line, the wind turbine, the dam. This deal about hunters and hunting is paper asshole talk. The whole of wildlife protection, and wildlife habitat protection is from hunters and the taxes on their tools. Same goes for fish, for ducks, whatever is pursued. Those people have a dog in the fight. They pay the way. George and his ilk are arrogant observers, and if like the rest of environmental cause champions in America, one cheap sob. They get your money from the US Govt., or extort it from the private side as per the Ruby pipeline. Or get it through the backdoor with EAJA.
So here we have this whole plethora of wildlife killing events that never get due attention, but the hunters get the cheap shot journalist treatment. It figures. The answer, historically, when the "crown", the "party in power" claims all the game, is for the rurals to poach. Poaching is a Robin Hood story, and that is how far back it goes. Robin Hood was a poacher of the King's game, and he gave the excess to his neighbors. George's attempts at criminalizing hunters will only lead to poachers and poaching, and that will be revealing.
Most poaching today is about Chinese medicine and traditional cures that are animal and plant based. Horn of a herd bull to treat impotence. Tiger meat to provide strength to fight a disease. Their list is endless. But if push comes to shove with the enlightened economic solutions of the environmentally backed party in power, poverty will take the wolf food supply to the family larder, and bury the wolf that dares eat the family dinner.
I read the paper most every day. Humans are not quite ready to be called pacifists and vegans. Young men continue to kill each other daily, in great numbers, over causes not understandable in the country. That the urban population feels a need to stop hunters in rural areas is quaint, since it is apparent they are not close to stopping their kids from killing each other. But that is a civil rights story for another time. A cultural right that us rednecks and hicks can't understand and need not butt in on. The Balkanization of America continues. George wants to be an architect of that process. Separate, demean, and finally relocate or imprison. He ain't inventing the wheel. That was what all the Wallace and Southern courthouse steps talk is about. He needs to make hunting evil, hunters evil, and I guess make sure we know that it is white folks who hunt because they are evil white folks in a brown world. I guess he is covering his ass for the day the brown majority comes for the white folks. The tyranny of the majority is what it is all about. That was his anecdotal tale in a shot glass. We will get you. And to that I extend my third metacarpel in its entirety.
When you see a PETA T-shirt or bumper sticker, the small print usually states "People Eat Tasty Animals."
What's upsetting and disorienting for hunters, ranchers, farmers, loggers, miners and their families, is that even if they're in the majority in small towns, they're in the minority in the big cities and especially in the urbanized West and East coasts. This process has been going on for 50, 100, 150 years as rural America emptied out, exporting young adults and raw resources.
True, rural America does have disproportionate power in the Senate and in many state legislatures, but demographics is destiny and that's pretty gloomy for traditionalists in rural America.
I'm sure when China calls in the loans we can't pay they are going to be so greatful to the enviros for keeping the fuel away from Americans so they can have the land to play on. Loans to keep shoveling money out to the greenies that spend their time in court for more and more pwoer and handouts.
Far from the country "banning hunting", to the contrary the zenith for wolf reintroduction was 15 years ago. That will be the last experiment. It could only occur where the majority don't consider themselves enviro's. It will never occur where the majority do. What a crazy irony-but not so hard to understand. It's not about the wolf, it's about enviros wanting to "control" redneck behavior (to delight in shoving it down their throat in other words). Where's the serious effort to reintroduce the wolf to Vermont or California? I do believe the Center for Biological Diversity just sued the USFWS to reintro the wolf to the rest of the country. It's a joke. They'll never follow through with it, but I hope they succeed-because it would be the end of the ESA. Perhaps the hunting groups might want to sign on as interveners? Perhaps the hunting groups might want to take over the lawsuit. Only when the ESA really inconveniences the urban enviro's, will there be any reform. The gray ponytails would get pragmatic real fast.
On the other hand, one has to admit that God has a sense of humor and has blessed NYC with bedbugs and stink bugs. It doesn't look like they are going to get rid of them easily either. Perhaps San Francisco is next. :>)
A little something I've been pondering lately is the "negative effects of non-motorized recreation in wilderness areas on Lynx habitat". We know that the basis for all enviro law, whether NEPA or ESA, is the idea that the agency is guilty until they prove themselves innocent(it's probably the only court venue where the burden of proof is on the defendent). We also know that Judge Molloy just ordered the USFWS to double critical Lynx habitat. This includes Colorado-a very green state. We also know that a judge didn't slap an injunction (put a halt to)on logging because it "harmed" the spotted owl, but because the USFS hadn't "adequately analized" the possible effects on the owl(it's all procedural isn't it). I know the USFS hasn't analized "at all" the effects of hiking on Lynx habitat (why would they, you can't analize every contingency can you-much less one you never thought would get litigated).
I just won the first part of my case, and all that sweet EAJA money. Judge Molloy rules the USFS and USFWS haven't adequately analized it. Certainly hordes of hikers on the weekends in Hyalite canyon south of Bozeman deny the Lynx use of critical habitat. I'll gaurentee that radio collars show they avoid it. But that doesn't matter, all I have to prove is they haven't disproved it yet(I love that twisted logic). Certainly there must be a conservative lawyer out there who can see the logic in this.
Just imagine the headline that would make! "Judge's ESA ruling could ban hiking in wilderness areas". Now that would resonate throughout Western enviro enclaves like Aspen and Jackson. Fascinating. Hey, don't blame me, I didn't write the case law. And I know George will join the lawsuit because its what's right for the Lynx. It sure would force urban enviros to make a choice wouldn't it.
I'd be happy to let it die at that. Who wants to ruin the lives of "outfitters" who guide hunters into the Wilderness. Litigation and shoving things down the throat of others is not my way. But Judge Molloy has painted himself into a corner on this one. Didn't he order the USFS to reduce timber harvest on half of the Flathead for the Grizzly Bear. This is a guy who just ruled that any more than a half mile of "temporary logging road" would harm the Bear or that 4 days of helocopter logging would be a taking. It would be aritrary and capricious for the judge to rule that helicopter noise harms the grizzly but hikers streaming into the rattlesnake wilderness doesn't harm the Lynx. Check and mate.
Of course I'm full of it. It'll never happen. But it does make an intrigueing thought experiment. It's all a fantasy. But it's no different than the deep ecology fantasy of "re wilding" the West. It's a failure. Get depressed about it.
The demographics may be trending, but only in a direction of ignorance. New Yorkers haven't a clue about the world that brings them stuff to consume.
And Logger is right about what would happen in California. The wolf lovers are fully aware of the deleterious impacts of ESA listings, and fully willing to impose those impacts on a relative few others. It's pure democracy, I guess, but the United States happens to be a republic, with a system deliberately designed to protect the very valid rights of electoral minorities -- of whatever color or class, come to think of it.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175301/tomgram:_chip_ward,_a_west_raised_by_wolves/
Chip accurately notes that the reason wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone was to rescue the ecosystem from too many elk. Yes, too many elk. After all, there were ongoing debates about overgrazing and keeping elk populations within sustainable bounds.
(And then there's the feedground phenomena of western Wyoming, which supports a huge population of elk for hunting pleasure, but which also acts as a giant Petri dish for cultivating brucellosis and wait for it, chronic wasting disease. When CWD hits the feedgrounds, you'll have the greatest wildlife management disaster since the eradication of bison from the Plains.)
Chip is quite right in noting that the ecology of Yellowstone and the northern Rockies has dramatically improved with the presence of wolves, making elk less bovine and more wild and giving cousin beaver a chance to bring water and wetlands back, with all their attendant species.
Logger, I will donate to the lawsuit, no one has ever proved that bears are not becoming habituated to human food by eating the human feces left behind by the hikers, so I think it is hikers turn to also sacrifice for the wildlife they love so much.
An excellent article. I truly admire your ability to see the underlying issue as one of control and power, and not of ecosystem management.
Your analogy comparing the wolf hunt to the end of slavery is perfect--the issue then, as now, was more about control and keeping a way of life than anything else. And that's exactly the issue with the wolves in the West.
Thank you for continuing to use your awesome intellectual and writing talents to shine such a bright and penetrating light on the true issues surrounding the wolf debate. Keep it up!
Jon Cheever
Bill would strip wolf of protection
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From AP and Staff Reports;
October 1, 2010
U.S. senators from Wyoming, Idaho and Utah proposed legislation Thursday that would strip federal endangered species protections from wolves in the northern Rockies.
The legislation is the latest in a series of recent bills that supporters say are generally aimed at short-circuiting lawsuits from conservation groups opposed to seeing an end to federal wolf protections.
Much of the environ-mentalists’ concern has centered on Wyoming, where the state has proposed classifying wolves as predators that could be shot on sight in most areas. They support turning management of wolves over to states, but want adequate plans in place to ensure wolves survival as a player in the environment.
Wolves were restored in the northern Rockies in the mid-1990s and more than 1,700 live in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Oregon and Washington state.
“Recovery numbers and science show that wolves no longer need to be on the endangered species list,” Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said. He is one of the sponsors.
“States are completely capable of managing wolves on their own without the federal government micromanaging them at every turn,” he said. “This bill would finally free our state, ranchers and wildlife from the shackles of federal mismanagement.”
In Jackson, Louise Lasley, public lands director of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, said management should be based on the best available science, not politics. Conservationists have been successful getting courts to agree either that state wolf plans don’t pass muster or that control offered to states was outside what’s allowed in the Endangered Species Act.
“The Endangered Species Act was to cover all species throughout the United States and it does not make sense to eliminate piecemeal species from protection,” Lasley said Thursday. “The alliance stance has been all along that Wyoming should have management control over wolves, but that the trophy game status should be statewide.”
Trophy game status would require a license to shoot a wolf. Wyoming’s law would classify the wolf as a predator in 80 percent of the state, allowing them to be killed at any time by any means.
In contrast, trophy status “would allow Game and Fish to appropriately manage every part of the state according to the populations, conflicts and needs,” Lasley said.
Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s administration has sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service repeatedly, and so far unsuccessfully, to try to force the federal agency to turn wolf management over to the state.
The federal wildlife agency turned wolf management over to Wyoming, Idaho and Montana a couple of years ago but reinstated federal protections after a federal judge in Montana expressed concerns over Wyoming’s plan. The same judge more recently shot down the agency’s effort to remove federal protections in Idaho and Montana, leaving them in Wyoming.
Idaho officials are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the August ruling and Montana is expected to follow.
hat put gray wolves back onto the endangered species list in the Northern Rockies. A second appeal was filed on Thursday by the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation and Montana Farm Bureau Federation.
Montana wildlife officials say they will file yet another appeal Friday.
Wyoming Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, who chairs a legislative committee that deals with wildlife issues, said he would welcome an end to federal protections for the wolf that would allow states to set hunting seasons.
“I think by going to the hunting issue, we’ll be able to reduce a number of impacts to the land owners and the ranchers,” the state legislator said. “I’m still a firm believer that if they’re hunted, they’re going to avoid people.”
The bill’s other sponsors are Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.; and Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho.
The people who put down hunting and hunters are mostly city,and urban people,who have never lived anywhere outside of a major metropolitan area. They know about hunting from the animal rights groups,who all portray hunters as bad.
Just like the enviros-they want to force their personal beliefs on hunters,they will not come to any meaningful agreement-it's their way,or no way,as evidenced by the wolf lawsuits. The numbers that were to be used to consider the wolf recovered were reached years ago. Yet the enviros now want 5,000 wolves in the Northern Rockies.
Now we have groups like the Center for Biologic Diversity,who sue over everything,in CA they sue,and stop close to a half million peoploe from getting residential drinking water from an EXISTING reservoir,due to a 3" fish,the Santa Ana sucker,which has populations in other rivers and streams,and is not a part of any other species diet,but no,humans are evil,they put a 3" fish,not in any danger whatsoever from people getting their drinking water,
ahead of PEOPLE. These groups just don't care what the cost to PEOPLE is,they must protect every species.
Species go extinct every day,and would still do so without humans-it's called evolution,or survival of the fittest.
It's time for the enviros to stop interfering,and let states,and the people who actually LIVE in the affected area to manage the local wildlife.
People who live in the Northern Rockies should NOT be told what they can,and can not do by some far-left,liberal,extreme enviros from the East,or the West coasts.
The never ending lawsuits have done nothing other than keep a bunch of lawyers employed.
This years wolf hunting season is going to be shoot, shovel and shutup...enough said."
If this comment does'nt proove the article correct, i don't know what could.
Excellent article, and as the aforementioned comment demonstrates an accurate article.
The "nonsense" started when a bunch of extreme enviros who live in CA,NY,and places like Aspen,and Boulder,got involved,and started showing pictures of wolf pups to their city,and urban friends,then got them to donate money for a lawsuit,that created the never ending lawsuit.
The people who put down hunting and hunters are mostly city,and urban people,who have never lived anywhere outside of a major metropolitan area. They know about hunting from the animal rights groups,who all portray hunters as bad.
Just like the enviros-they want to force their personal beliefs on hunters,they will not come to any meaningful agreement-it's their way,or no way,as evidenced by the wolf lawsuits. The numbers that were to be used to consider the wolf recovered were reached years ago. Yet the enviros now want 5,000 wolves in the Northern Rockies.
Now we have groups like the Center for Biologic Diversity,who sue over everything,in CA they sue,and stop close to a half million peoploe from getting residential drinking water from an EXISTING reservoir,due to a 3" fish,the Santa Ana sucker,which has populations in other rivers and streams,and is not a part of any other species diet,but no,humans are evil,they put a 3" fish,not in any danger whatsoever from people getting their drinking water,
ahead of PEOPLE. These groups just don't care what the cost to PEOPLE is,they must protect every species.
Species go extinct every day,and would still do so without humans-it's called evolution,or survival of the fittest.
It's time for the enviros to stop interfering,and let states,and the people who actually LIVE in the affected area to manage the local wildlife.
People who live in the Northern Rockies should NOT be told what they can,and can not do by some far-left,liberal,extreme enviros from the East,or the West coasts.
The never ending lawsuits have done nothing other than keep a bunch of lawyers employed."
You have to be one of the biggest morons on this site. Can't you even understand it's comments like the ones you just left that the article is refrencing hurt the image of hunting.
Moron.
Guess your prejudice is just nonsense as usual hill poacher.
You forgot it in your diatribe against Wyoming.
"Baerh" is used in reverence of the fine woodsmen up in northern Maine. They say "BAERH" not "BEAR", Mainers have my favorite accent of all. Oh toddler guess what they have wolves in ME also, yes that's right those evil east coasters do have wolves also. Your arguemtn to put wolves where the east coast wolf lovers can view em looks kinda false now don't it todd.
But hey you've probally never been there/nor will you ever travel to the great state of Maine.
I have every right to complain about WY's wolf plan, and if you had any sense you'd realize they're the source of your frustation. But no todd, it's the cowboy/rancher state everytrhing they do is hunkey dorey right toddler?
Get your head out off the sagebrush and wakeup, it's not the enviros fault on this issue it's WY's stupid varmint wolf plan period.
According to todd enviros are to blaem for all of humanity's problems.
"well they are, they hate people and ranchers sulk sulk"
Some comments seem a bit out of line especially when the writer forgets that not all people from east or west don't want to misunderstand issues in "the west."
After a ride last spring through a herd of at least 3,000 elk west and south of Ennis, MT I find it hard to believe that there will not be elk to kill this fall - either for food or for antlers. What a waste though to kill for antlers and a head.
The idea that has been proposed to bury, suffocate, poison, and sterilize does make me concerned since imprisonment, sterilizing, and other heinous acts committed in the past against women are being revived against an animal that in some way does threaten the control some people want over animals.
I like what Wendell Berry said in one of his books "how you treat each other in the bedroom is how you will treat the natural world around you."
Hill Poacher is obviously my somewhat lame attempt to poke fun at "Mtn. Hunter". He sounds more like a person of the hill's poacher type than a mtn. hunter.
Seriously todd WY is to blame for your wolf anger.
weather, bears, diesease, cougars, domestic/wild dogs take a greater toll on livestock than wolves.
Your talking points, empty gestures and all out hatred for wolves/predators becomes more apparent each day.
Why don't you just stop.
So a sport killing wolf is a more noble critter than man, because man is immoral in that he might sport hunt. Wolves are more needed because they keep the numbers of animals in check. Say, do they have 5 days in November to do that? Or is it all year long? Is there a rule book for wolf kills? There is for man's hunting. And the major problem with both man and wolves is that given the chance, either will diminish their prey to a point where survival becomes a chore. Would that be why we became omnivores? So damned hungry we tried eating plant material because our bigger brains made some connection?
Most of this argument is about who gets to kill that last whatever. The vegans would have all meat eaten by something other than humans, and if possible, force their ideas on the majority. The same goes with the carnivores among us.
The tyranny of the urban majority has ruled and continues to rule rural America. Wolves are not able to distinguish between livestock and indigenous food. Having them run amok in livestock is very detrimental to the livestock industry. But that does not matter to ignorant urban hordes. I was reading a book on the cultural organization of the Crow Nation last week. They got horse in 1730-35, from some form of Paiutes south of the Great Salt Lake. So much for the wild horse being such an important part of the history of the unclaimed public domain. Their existence in the West is less than 300 years. Introduced by man. The equine version of cheat grass. And the Crows only took a few decades to become the most adept horsemen in the Americas. So much for the ignorant savage definitions adapted and adopted by the Euro Invaders, most of whom became urbanized and still are intent on cultural and physical genocide of cultures and customs not applicable to central city living.
I am beginning to wonder is there is an analogy in ridding the West of ranchers and Europe's ridding their states of Romany, the Gypsies. You do have to keep your eye on the tyranny of the urban majority, and the city states in the metropolitan areas determined by race and economic status, ethnicity, and maintenance of political power.
The wolf reintroduction was a power play in a public space done with a political motivation. The continued political power play is getting chinks in its armor, and Wyoming is the wedge in those chinks. If there were one iota of national will to reintroduce apex predators into the wild, we would once again have grizzly bears in California and down the Continental spine to Mexico. Wolves would be running out of Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Crater Lake, Mt. Rainier, Rocky Mountain NP, and the whole of USA east of the Mississippi. Heaven knows there is plenty of food for them. We are constantly told that the majority of livestock is on farms east of the Mississippi, and deer are a problem in most of the rural areas of the Midwest and East Coast. Solve the lime disease problem with wolves, the natural way to ungulate control. The present wolf deal is an imposition on a few states so the rest of the country can pat their backs about what wonderful ecologists they are. Try your ideas on your state for a change. Have this benign predator taking whacks at your lifestyle and livelihoods. And, when the next pandemic strikes, we can use wolves for their traditional purpose of carrion cleanup. No need to wonder who is buried in what grave at the local cemetery. Just clean up the broken bones sometime down the road.
Wolves have a huge and long history in the world. Something like 26 subspecies are found the world over. They have been a limiting factor on human survival for thousands of years. The cultural dislike for them is deep and ingrained, and the common sensical idea that they can do you harm in an indirect way has been around for centuries. How the newly enlightened, inexperienced American public can pontificate on wolves as only a betterment of the ecology to no end is not an honest platform for wolf protection. Wolves are disease vectors around the world. Evidently ours are pure. Wolves predate on livestock around the world, and recently, humans in India. Ours must be different. Wolves have harmed people in Canada. Ours must be different.
Wolves are being used as a weapon against particular lifestyles and livelihoods, by urban terrorists, in an attempt to demonize fellow humans and to make their private land use change to better suit the urban idea of how the world must be ordered. Why else would we be living under an Administration so intent on changing the society from capitalist to socialist? Hope and Change? Hope to be rid of ranchers and farmers and Change to getting our food from the proper place, the super market?
Another bit of green logic I find hard to follow is that elk will eat themselves out of house and home, but buffalo and wolves will only take enough to maintain a balance, wolves will never destroy their prey base. Thousands of buffalo tromping down the river banks and making wallows all over the place are not nearly as damaging as an elk grazing. A few years ago I posted a picture of a river bank severely eroded and trampled on all agreed the rancher should be penalized, then I posted the entire photo which included the buffs milling around in the mud.
I do not expect the park service nor FWS to count or at least release any elk numbers this year. Doug Smith is giving talks stating the elk population is now down to 10,000, that is what it was in 2004, it is barely 6000 now.
Rob, wolves cannot heal anything, they carry disease in fact. Wolves kill, eat, breed & sleep. That is all they do, anything else is a result of vivid imagination, they cannot wee wee enough to make anything grow. How people feel about the killing and the particularly viscious way they go about it is the difference between whether people like them or dislike them.
No matter how kindly they might kill I suspect whether the $1000 steer or the $10,000 cutting horse belongs to you might make a difference in how you feel. Maybe if everyone who want wolves were assigned to pay for the kills in a rotating time they might feel differently, especially if their rancher got hit tiem and again, which some have in spite of everything. A guard dog was killed recently.
The tyranny of the urban majority has ruled and continues to rule rural America
."Wolves are being used as a weapon against particular lifestyles and livelihoods, by urban terrorists, in an attempt to demonize fellow humans and to make their private land use change to better suit the urban idea of how the world must be ordered.
-bbait
Furthur evidence that bbait is a delusional, prejudiced bigot.
You an angry, delusional hate filled bigot period.
You really are a bad person bbait filled with hate, prejudice and contempt for anyone not just like you aka a right wing nutjob.
what are you talking about I support Wolf hunting, but not WY's varmint status for wolves. Bearbait calls people who think differetly from him terrorists, that is hateful bigoted behavior period.
I've never said I hate ranchers and I don't, your really displaying that delusional knee jerk reaction you extreme riht wingers are known for.
No one is buying you old attempts at labeling anyone who remotely supports wolf's presence on public lands as a human hating, rancher hating, hunter hating.
The old guards blind prejudism and bigotry is well on display, ding dong nthe witch is dead.
Out with the old.
Perhaps Baerth should take a look in the mirror, pause and read his rants and accusations, take a deep breath, and do as all the greenies of the world feel is just, necessary and proper: embrace diversity, ignore the dogma.
All, including Baerth, are entitled to opinions without the vitriol of name calling and false accusations, the personal attacks. Time to see the world for what it is, a place of differing and conflicting ideas and solutions. I just happen to believe in the historical record, which has nothing to this point about how wonderful wolves were, except that digging up a den and making pets of wolf pups became the human endeavor of dog breeding, an exercise in recognizing and breeding back to mutations. Native American geneticists. And, dogs were good to eat, as Lewis and Clark determined on their journey. I would suppose wolves are just as tasty.
and the bigot troll bearbait continues his tantrum.
you call people "urban terrorists" who remotely support wolve's presence on public lands and you have the gall to talk about personal attacks and claim your not a bigot.
Not only is that insulting, it's just not true. Most wolf haters/supporters live in rural MT, ID & WY.
Why don't you stop trolling here with your hateful, prejudiced comments and I will leave you alone, same goes for todd.
Sounds like bearbait could use some of his own advice.
Look at what you post bearbait and if you think it's not prejudiced/bigoted it just prooves how much bigoted you really are.
another right wing extremist with absolute hatred for obaama, who thinks he's a socialists hater of white people etc.
I really don't know why I bother, there is no reaching these bigots.
What are you going to do when the elk are gone and the wolves with them? Insist the government haul in more of both so you can watch the wolves kill? Some folks anticipate the wolves turning to killing buffalo when the elk are gone (and beleive it or not they are actually talking about such a thing). I believe the wolves will just leave the park and take more livestock and pets.
Our wolves had little experience with horses. I am reading a book on Crow Native American culture, and the author notes that Crows, the finest horsemen and horse capture tribe on the buffalo commons, got their first horses south of the Great Salt Lake about 1732-34. Met their first European in 1742-43, a couple of French Canadian trappers down from the Hudson Bay Company looking to expand trapping opportunity. And by the mid 19th century, surrounded on all sides by Siouian and Blackfoot people people at war with them constantly, vastly reduced in population due to small pox and other disease, they still stole half the Nez Perce horses in the early 1870s when the Nez Perce went east to hunt buffalo. And in ten years, there were few buffalo left, and fewer wolves that predated on buffalo, a learned experience with environmental ordering of the Darwinian need to be a successful bison killer. The Crow Nation was able to adapt and become very successful at their new horse culture in 150 years. I wonder if horse eating wolves would have that long.
I am blown away by the speed of recovery of wolves from the epicenter of Yellowstone, and how it all coincided with the oncoming growth of the lodgepole following the 1988 fires, and the concentration of elk in a smaller and smaller habitat. The Perfect Storm for elk eradication and wolf success. Now has to be eat bison or move on for the wolves, as elk habitat is overgrown by lodgepole thickets miles and miles on end. The elk have to move and the wolves are going with them. The resident bison are going to be all that is left of protein on the hoof in the Park. Wolves are going to have to learn to kill adult bison which is like going from high school football to the NFL. You had better be one tough, fast, agile wolf, or your life will be shorter than biologists want. I believe Natl Geographic has covered the bison wolves issue in Canada.
Of course, that all the introductions, reintroductions, preservation, protection, is done with only wolves in mind, alien wolves, sort of grates on locals who have carved out a life on the edges of public land. Wolves are not of a mind to respect fences, livestock ownership, and that evidently is just ducky with the folks in town. Urban mercenaries ridding the West of livestock in a most underhanded way is one way of looking at wolves. Those who don't share that view tend to want to shout down those that do, evidently believing name calling is the path to righteousness.
At some point in our near future, our country has to address jobs and employment, domestic production of goods, and cost of government, including debt payment. Practical people someday will carry the day, and importing perfectly happy and adapted wolves from elsewhere is not going to be a necessary and well spent budget dollar in their mind's eye. Introduced mega predators, like constrictors in the Florida swamps, have huge impacts on wildlife, and some regard wolves in that manner as they have made hard impacts on other species on the edge like the swans of Yellowstone. It how appears trumpeter swans and their population expansion is now being accomplished on ranch ponds up and down the river valleys of the GYA, and little if any in the Park. Just a case of ranchers picking up after the USFWS and the Green Lobby, correcting collateral damage from wolf reintroduction.
There is a sow grizzly and her cubs that spent much of the spring and early summer on Dunraven and who is now close to Gardiner. Plans are to capture and kill her even though she has not shown any agression....simply becaue she has been pushed out of the Yellowstoen competition by the wolves. It seems incomprehensible that consideration is being given to destroying a sow and cubs to benefit the wolves.
A guy on Yellowstoen net has some photos of a wolf with a bear cub that are psoted on his web site.
it has been documented that Wolves and Grizzlies have exchanged their pups and cubs for days on end and the cubs/pups were returned to eachother unharmed. Your photo prooves nothing. How about Bison being hazed back into the YNP simply becuase they were out of the park and near rancher's cattle lands.
Spare me your elk count in YNP, we all know the unuglates are lower since wolves, becuase they were a unaturally high levles without wolves. The ungulates will be fine, the wolves have been there for 15 years.
What amazes me is that you and bearbait have so much free time on your hands to blog your hatred wolves contnuously.
I am on my lunch break.
"it has been documented that Wolves and Grizzlies have exchanged their pups and cubs for days on end and the cubs/pups were returned to eachother unharmed."
ROTFL!!!!!!!!!
Uh Baehr, the wolf is EATING the bear cub in his photos, not babysitting it.
The issue with wolves is right with the old Russian proverb which says something like "I don't hate the wolf. I hate that he killed my plough horse and my milch cow." Wolves are hard to get into court for a tort claim, and then damnedable hard to collect from.
So you have to worry about a crack head or some other urban scum bag or their pitbull. Rural folks have other adversity to deal with. Introduction of wolves in their backyards was not in their best interest, and in this country, no matter WTF you or anyone like you wants to believe, people are still very much entitled to having opinions in the US, and can have them without being assailed in any way the causes physical harm. If they think they have been civilly damaged, they can sue. We have ways to obtain justice. Your abject name calling is just a spoiled brat acting out. Someone should have slapped you silly early on and you would not act in such a boorish fashion today. But that is water under your bridge.
So what, really, is the difference between small pox and wolves, on a biological scale? Both are population determinants. Are you in favor of reintroduction of small pox? It is, after all, for what all we know, extinct except in vials in labs in the US and in Russia, for the purpose of making vaccines if necessary. And endangered species. I am sure there is enough around to pare the human population somewhat before mass vaccination stopped it once again. That there were wolves enough elsewhere to "re" introduce is proof enough that they were not nor are not an endangered species. Wolves to Jellystone was a feel good mission for political porpoises. Flipper biology. Anthropogenic whacking off.
I have this distinct feeling that wolves are not the end all in this conversation, but that your hatred of a fellow humans in the livestock business could be. If wolves are such a good deal for the landscape, why did they not release them on the East Coast, where Lyme disease from a vastly overpopulated whitetail deer component of the biosphere surely needs more trimming than the elk in Jellystone ever needed. All that was needed for the Jellystone elk control was a more concentrated and longer cow season outside the Park where they went seeking food since the Park is now becoming a buffalo commons and a peckerpole lodgepole patch of a million or more acres, all the same age from the same fire events of 1988. Jellystone is losing ungulate habitat in thousand acre chunks, monthly. And elk are not the only critters that are being impacted. All the animals of the park are in greatly reduced numbers except bison, and there the culling and man made herd reduction has brought the bison into a better balance with their food sources. Wolves and bears did not get the job done. Only man since the last Ice Age has been a force in bison population control, and most of that occurred over a two decade period of railroad enhanced hunting. Bison were killed to make "V" belts to tie steam engine power to pulleys on shafts to run manufacturing plants before the advent of real "V" belts, roller chain, and u-jointed shafting. And it took a lot of hides to connect that power. The whole of the Spanish land grant cattle industry in California was devoted to hide production for more than a century, all to connect power to machinery. Hides were crucial to the industrial revolution. A demand met by what was thought to be an endless supply. (Did you ever think what a food supply for grizzlies that was, killed and skinned cattle not utilized except for the hide and maybe tongue and liver, along with struck but not utilized whales washing up on the beaches, as the Standard Oil whalers of New Bedford laid waste to the cetaceans of the Pacific?) Ocean fisheries have suffered in the same way. Blue collar food for a century was canned salmon. When the salmon runs dwindled, tuna became the replacement. Now it is tilapia fillets from some shit filled ditch raising that domestic fish. The person shitting in the ditch is making your Nikes, your T shirt, your designer jeans, for pennies a day. Too bad you can't buy the sweat from their brow. Maybe there is a market for their urine. In Canada, they raise Percheron cross mares, breed them, and then cage them to catch their pee to make Premarin to assuage the hormonal imbalances of menopause in women. Treats the vaginal itching, burning, dryness and abates the crankiness. Abuse a horse to keep the old lady sane enough to live with. The American Way. And for Christ's sake, don't let her get all excited about saving the noble wild horses who pee where they damn well please, and the stallions poop in three foot high territorial marker stud piles. Or at least have since that introduced exotic species showed up about 1700 AD or so, in the New West.
I still maintain we need a horse eating predator beyond mountain lions. Some fast ursine sprinters. Some really tall and dedicated wolves. That the BLM now has as many horses on pasture, not in the "wild", as there are "wild" horses wreaking hvoc on publid lands, says something about societal insanity, and where the wolf faeries are coming from. It would be an interesting discussion about what a great deal wolves are after they went through all the "wild" horses, and began to chomp through the family owned equine population.
I have not been in front of the compuker much today. Managed to nail down my fall fertilizer, spray water seal under the wood bridge, after tarping the little creek to keep spray out it. Also filled the dump trailer behind the ATV with 9 loads of gravel to fill some holes in the headlands before the fall rains hit. Did that with a square front shovel. Laid out an outline for a picker registration shack to be built this winter, and a permanent hand washing station at the farm entry from parking. Now I need to survey a little drain field for the hand washing sink (which I will have made out of galvanized and molded to fit in a wood form..).
Stuff. And we picked 3000 lbs of very late blueberries for the fresh market. Maybe two more days of that and we will be done for another year. I did not go watch the grandson practice football, which I usually do in the afternoon. They played a game yesterday, so today was just a loosen up day, with little football and no pads...I was in a special ed class 57 years ago that taught typing to 5th graders. I can type pretty fast. So it does not take me much more than a little while to dump too much stuff on paper.
My US Senator, in Oregon, Sen Ron Wyden, owns a 1000 sq foot condo in Oregon, and lives with his wife in New York City, along with his very young children with the new, much younger than he, bride from this century. He is a carpetbagger. Much of the enviro community are carpetbaggers. Own nothing where they want so much to run the local economy. All the pluses and minuses are nothing more than numbers on a chart. A scorecard in the sunday paper. But those whose animals get killed lose real money on the deal. And suffer real losses. And to many things, as you are wont to point out. But which straw breaks the camel's back? How much adversity need one have piled on them?
Again, I will say we need more common ground, more middle of the road solutions. This deal I seen all my life, where someone who has something that is working needs to give up part of it today, and then in a few years, needs to give up some more, and finally, the salami has been sliced to where it no longer is a salami. The salami all went one direction, and none stayed behind. If you don't think this is how it really works in these Yew Nited States, just go ask an Indian how much of the original rez do they still have. How many times was it pared by Congress at the behest of some constituency other than the Indians? And that is the same thing that is happening today. The land stolen from the Indians is now being stolen once again by the very same government, for another constituency. In my mind, that reveals a very corrupt underbelly to Congress, and is all the more reason to not support the populists who are no more than a Potemkin village in front of another constituency of thieves, grifters, and government layabouts, all on the take. Millionaire Senators and Congressmen who have never held a job not in government. Say what?? Who dat?? You buy your whores in Congress, and I am going to have to hold my nose and buy one for our side, I guess. Ugly deal in ugly times. Fries with that?
The latest Wyoming wolf status report , from last week , shows that so far in 2010, only 20 cattle have been confirmed taken by wolves in Wyoming. However, 33 wolves were removed for depredation.
The 33 wolves eradicated for " control" represent about 15 percent of the wolves outside Yellowstone. The 20 cattle lost to wolves are ~ 0.0015 percent of Wyoming's cattle herds. If fifteen percent of the Wyoming cattle herds were shot for whatever reason , that would be 210,000 cows. As is, 45,000 cows or their calves died from All Causes in 2009; things like disease, lightning, trauma, other predators ( mostly coyotes ) , respiratory , and Terminal stupid. I say that to give you a sense of scale.
There is one wolf for every 6000 cows in Wyoming, and one wolf for every 460 elk.
The number of wolf packs in Wyoming known or suspected to depredate on livestock has dropped from a high of 20 in 2006 to just six this year. Losses of domestic sheep to wolves this year have been close to nil. Of the ~ 240 known wolves in Wyoming outside Yellowstone , only 10 are known to have died of causes other than being shot for " control", and 5 of those ten are ' under investigation' or were found dead of Unknown causes.
Meanwhile, hunter numbers in general continue to decline. Everywhere, not just Wyoming. Hunting just ain't what it used to be. Hunting and shooting sports are losing ground to video gaming and computer kills. The next generation of American Hunter will be much much smaller.
Oh well....
Here's a tally for a recent year of Sheep Losses in Wyoming ( 2004) as a representative comparison . Wolves were responsible for less than 1 ( one) percent of losses due to All Predators, but Coyotes took 12,600
* Sheep deaths due to predators represented 59% of overall losses.
These depredation deaths included:
* coyotes: 12,600 sheep
* dogs: 400 sheep
* bears: 900 sheep
* mountain lions: 100 sheep
* wolves: 17 sheep
NOW---look at the losses of Sheep due to all causes :
* digestive problems: 1,500
* respiratory disease: 1,000
* birthing problems: 1,800
* miscellaneous health problems: 4,800
* predators (all combined): 17,000 *
* harsh weather: 1,200
* poisoning: 1,800
Again I ask. Youe xpect me to get ot and bothered about the loss of 17 , 23, or 33 sheep when put IN PERSPECTIVE f the overall losses.
Get real, Todd. Sheep ranchers need to adapt and use more modern herding and husbandry . This is not the year 1850.
Dewey, What was the value of the 20 confirmed cattle that you mentioned? What were the costs associated with these 20 cattle as far as non-confirmed cattle in these areas? What were the cost of livestock harassment & herding costs to the ranchers in those areas? What was the cost of Depredation management for the Fish & Game to come out and determine the problem? What were the cost of species management this animal? How much has this animal cost the State of Wyoming in legal fees...The USFWS?
Dewey talks about hunting being on the decline..... From where I stand the only decline I see is the support this animal is getting. As I said above, the majority of the Northern WI County Boards have passed resolution in support of no increase in the number of wolves in the state. – Erosion. This latest decision from donnie molloy certainly eroded support! We see support erode every time someone’s pet is slaughtered by wolves, which is on a record setting pace in Wisconsin this year! - erosion of support. We see county boards in Idaho declaring disaster areas! – erosion of support ! Congressman & Senators are holding meeting & with angry ranchers and sportsman. – erosion of support. The only support that may be left is Dewey (is whole state statistics) Rob & Bearh!
To say anything at all about how the people on the coasts or in cities don't understand that wolves don't "respect fences" and are a threat to ranchers misses an entire concept that anyone who took a biology class in high school understands. Namely, we (humans) are just another species living within the Earth System; and therefore we must share the water, air, and land with all the other living organisms that exist here too. This is called ecology. So while I understand the threat that free-roaming wolves and lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) pose to ranchers, I do not sympathize with them and their vendetta against nature.
Anthropocentrists, like bearbait and todd et al lead me to think they are, think only in terms of humans when they consider their relationship to the environment. But just like any other species of organism living in Wyoming or Montana or Illinois or Massachusetts or wherever else, they need to learn how to co-exist with their environment. That means with everything else living there, not just the other humans.
Someone above also mentioned that evolution is simply "survival of the fittest". It's simplistic definitions like these that not only ruin your argument, but also foment more misunderstanding. Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection is the idea that as environments change, those members of a species with advantageous traits were the only ones to survive AND reproduce. These are the "fittest" your definition speaks of, not those whose brute force enabled them to wipe out competitive species and thereby exert dominance.
In addition, biologists have essentially agreed that humans are not subject to evolutionary constraints, because we (as I mentioned above) do not exist within our environment but rather atop it. This is the root of anthropocentrism: human-centered philosophy of existence. The only way for anything to improve ecologically for the Earth System is to change the thought surrounding the way we live from one of imposition to one of co-existence.
Now, please, continue with your commentary of errors. I have more studying to do.
Yep. Man has been a dominant driver in the ecology of the New West. The issue is now whether man will continue to be here or will take himself out of the system. There are a lot of people who think we should not be here, period. I will let them drink the Kool Aid. The more militant want to be here, and not have others present. That is what the core of this whole discussion is about. Who gets to stay and who goes, and who determines who gets to stay and who goes. The thinking is that a simple majority is all that it takes. A tyrannical majority does more harm than good, over time. Thomas Jefferson noted that a revolution every once in a while was needed, to keep democracy young and vibrant. Maybe that will be the outcome of deeply polarized views on man's place in this whole deal. Not the Darwinian big brains surviving, but the cold, calculating brains with no conscience or fealty to the present order of things. That is what makes this all so interesting. Where is it headed?
I would say to you bearbait that Homo sapiens of the Cro-Magnon persuasion probably was a co-player in the vast processes of ecology back during the Late Plesitocene and glacial days. But a funny thing happened when those last glaciers receded. Man developed Technology...something no other creature has. Technology coupled with language and eventually written ( recorded) language changed the entire game. We humans are no longer a part of the world , by Old Rules. We have changed the rules, and not in a good way.
It's astounding to realize that the Folsom and Clovis people numbered so few yet did so much damage with their use of fire and projectile stone points, but most remarkably their organizational skills. They overwhelmed Nature.
We have overwhelmed Nature ever since. City-states, metals, industry , electronics , nuclear weapons , bioengineering.... your " dominant driver" has become an overlord, and totally gone off the rails of evolution and ecological balance. Why do we keep making all these Post-Apocalypse movies if we humans aren't thinking about going into the apocalypse business at some point ?
What other creature out there exists to destroy its own environment ? The bacteria that causes gangrene, perhaps? Eating dead or dying flesh . What other creature is so hellbent on destruction of its own kind of usurp all that is around it ? Planetwide ? Mob rule or organized society? Anarchy or social order? Civilization or "Mad Max" ?
Bringing back wolves to the Northern Rockies to correct a serious mistake made in eliminating them the century before is actually an act of profound wisdom and shows some genuine hope that not all Men are out to consume the world and decidedly alter Nature in a negative way . Restoring and recovering the Wolf is a good thing.
But that is a tough sell in the gun shops and saloon science seminars of my Wyoming, and your neck of the woods , too, I presume.
It took what became Man 4 million years to go from walking upright to making a stone tool and creating fire. It took a few thousand years to go from hunter gatherer to agriculture and cities and trade. It took only 180 years to go from the first practical steam engine to the Saturn V and a journey to another world to plant the flag. Now we have Moore's Law of computing power and the internet.
But are we any wiser ?
Some " service" , eh ?
That's an extraordinary claim, that the Endangered Species Act is responsible for taking away 10,000 logging jobs in Montana alone. Ten-thousand?! By your assertion, you seem to imply that the number is even more.
Would you please provide a source for your contention that can be confirmed? Thanks.
And it ignores the rise of Southeastern tree farms that came into production as the northern Rockies' mills and timber sales started slowing and shutting down.
AS important with respect to wildlife ecology and big game conservation , to take up the slack and eliminate the distortion introduced by Really Bad Hunting Policy. The so-called North American Model of Big Game Conservation is good on paper, but in practice it's gone off the rails. We should never have eliminated wolf packs in the first place. Every elk herd needs them
Any true adherent to the NAMBGC would welcome wolves.
Wolves are important, but not more important than you and me. Nor less important....
*
( Off to the mountains for five days. Don't load up my InBox with too many harangues in the interim )
This is disification at its finest....we all need to fight against these radical animal rights groups & cut off funding where ever we can! They have no right to be setting ESA policy as they have done they last decade!
Todd & Bearbait, Thanks for the great writing! I also enjoy this type of writing. I believe it is easier to write on behalf of "wolf management" , for this animal left to its own devises would cut its own throat.
Dewey, My latest edition of Wisconsin Outdoor news has an article on "Bow license sales on a steady rise" "from 2002 at 150784 to 2009 at 204,000". You keep claiming that hunting is on the decline....what a farce. Hunting has steadily increase but not at the pace of the population. Most of that is due to accessibility to hunting land & destruction of habitat. Your groups are doing their best to keep it that way..... they have RMEF working on wolf stuff instead of habitat! The money that is spent on putting this high maintenance killer into poor habit disgust me. Can you imagine the kind of habitat that could be saved with this kind of money!