WOLF TRACKS
1,000-Mile Journey Carries Montana Wolf to Colorado
It's the first confirmed wolf sighting in Colorado since 2004.By David Frey, 2-25-09
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| Wolf 314F lies under anesthesia after being fitted with a GPS collar on July 1, 2008. The collar has tracked the wolf on an epic journey from Montana to Colorado. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks photo. | |
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A gray wolf from a southwestern Montana pack has traveled to the Colorado high country on an incredible journey that carried her across 1,000 miles and five states into a place where native wolves had been wiped out some eighty years before.
A global positioning satellite collar attached to the 18-month-old female’s neck pinpointed her in Eagle County, on Colorado’s Western Slope, home to the Vail ski area. Montana wildlife officials received the information last weekend, but the data comes with a two-week time lag, meaning the wolf’s whereabouts since then are unknown.
“Two weeks from now, who knows where she’s going to be?” says Carolyn Sime, wolf program coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
Known as 314F, the wolf was a member of the Mill Creek pack, which lives north of Yellowstone National Park between the towns of Gardiner and Livingston. She was collared by state wildlife officials as part of a research program with the University of Montana to improve wolf monitoring techniques. Biologists say she strayed from her pack in late September in search of a mate.
Satellite data from her collar documents a monumental journey across some of the West’s wildest places: through Yellowstone National Park and across western Wyoming, crossing through the Bridger-Teton National Forest southeast of Pinedale. She traveled southwest into southeastern Idaho and northeastern Utah, then east into Colorado without a report of being spotted. The winding journey has brought her 450 miles from home. Researchers are waiting to see if she continues onward, stays put or heads back to her pack.
“Young wolves often cover remarkable distances looking for a mate and a new territory,” says Colorado Division of Wildlife Director Tom Remington. “If this wolf doesn’t find a pack, she’ll likely keep moving.”
The last confirmed wolf in Colorado came from a Yellowstone pack. The young female fitted with a radio collar was killed by a vehicle on Interstate 70 near Idaho Springs in June 2004. In 2007, video footage captured what appeared to be a wolf near Walden, in northern Colorado, but it was not wearing a radio collar. The DOW receives numerous more unconfirmed reports each year of sightings of what people believe are wolves.
“It raises the question of how many of the animals have been in Colorado,” says Michael Robinson, conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, which favors a Colorado recovery plan to encourage wolves’ return, including a possible reintroduction plan.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see wolf pups in the state within five years,” Robinson says. “I think that’s possible. A lot of it depends on if wolves are taken off the endangered species list in the Northern Rockies.”
The Bush administration delisted the wolf in its waning days, a move immediately reversed by Obama administration. A 2004 Colorado wolf management plan allows wolves to roam freely in the state unless they come into conflict with people or livestock, but the state has no plans to reintroduce them.
Native wolf populations in Colorado were wiped out by the late 1930s. Before 2004, the last known record of a wolf killed in Colorado was in 1943.
The wolf that wandered into Colorado weighed 68 pounds when she was caught in July. Assuming she’s still healthy, Sime says, she’s probably gained weight, feeding on deer and elk. Adult wolves may weigh up to 80 pounds.
Wolves can travel 20 to 30 miles a day, and dispersing from a pack is common. It helps create new packs. But it’s rare for them to stray more than 60 miles from their home packs, wildlife officials say. Since 1992, about 10 wolves have been documented traveling over 190 miles in search of a mate, including forays into Utah and South Dakota. The actual number may be higher, though, since fewer than 30 percent of Northern Rockies wolves are fitted with collars that allow biologists to track them. None of those far-wandering wolves succeeded in breeding or forming packs.
“There are a lot of hazards out there,” says DOW spokesman Tyler Baskfield. “Those wolves were reintroduced in that area for a reason. That’s because there’s habitat there that they can make a living on, so to speak. You start crossing roads and highways and getting into developed areas and things quickly change.”
The Montana wolf’s GPS unit only offers a broad-brush of her journey. Much more detailed information remains locked in her collar. Like a James Bond gadget, it’s fitted with an electrical charge set to blast the collar off her neck after two years, when wildlife officers can track it down and download the rest of the information.
“Wolves are pretty amazing travelers,” Sime says. “It’s pretty neat to see with some of this new technology what animals do and where they go. I wish they had a better explanation for why.”
Additional information about this wolf will be reported in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s weekly reports. Potential wolf sightings may be reported to the DOW on its Web site.
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Comments
"The last confirmed wolf in Colorado came from a Yellowstone pack. The young female fitted with a radio collar was killed by a vehicle on Interstate 70 near Idaho Springs in June 2004."
Missing proof: wolves in Idaho were resident packs.
Anecdotal evidence: "They weren't as large as the Canadian wolves. Since the Canadian wolves have been introduced the wolves we used to see have disappeared."
Undated evidence: "Frank Church brochures noted that there were wolves in the Frank Church just prior to the Canadian introduction."
Sorry, doesn't cut it. As well, since there has been absolutely no proof of resident wolves in Colorado for almost 80 years, there is no reason to believe there are any resident packs at this time. They move, and they move a lot.
Corridors work. Stop the government's professional killers, wolves will do just fine.
Any wolves in Idaho prior to reintroduction were most likly dispersers from Montana and Canada and actually joined with the reintroduced wolves to form at least two of the first documented packs post reintroduction.
Yes, the Canadian wolves are retaining their size. They are breeding with the existing population, they are cleaning the smaller wolves out. Sorry, personal observation. At least I'm on the ground and have seen them in my front yard.
"In the mid-1980’s, researchers estimated that there were less than 15 wolves remaining in central Idaho, and that lead to the classification of the wolves as endangered species."
"Yes, the Canadian wolves are retaining their size. They are breeding with the existing population, they are cleaning the smaller wolves out. Sorry, personal observation. At least I'm on the ground and have seen them in my front yard."
And you don't think I and a lot of others have been there, seen it and are working with ranchers and scientists to try to find a place for wolves and everyone else? Or do you think only YOUR observations are valid? You lack something, BeckyJ, it's called credibility, just like another anti-wolf poster running around here. Your only intent is to see the wolves gone, and you'll do anything to encourage that end, including make up facts, figures and personal anecdotal evidence.
You can lead a mind to knowledge but you can't make it think.
As soon as some one say's Canadian wolves(no such thing) I realize I am dealing with barroom biology and it just won't do any good to debate it. However sometimes I get bored and then.......
The female pioneer is leaving scent all the way. If she intersects the path of an interested male, they might start a family somewhere far from Paradise Valley. That was the objective, was it not, of wolf introduction? That she is from a family that has not been a threat to livestock makes that an even better deal. A lot of behavior is learned, and if she is like her close kin, she is not targeting livestock, either. I hope she marries well, for the pups' sake.
If the wolves are from Canada. That would make them a exotic species. They poison whole lakes and drainages for the trout purist snobs. Using their logic the introduced Canadian wolves will have to be killed too......."
Ugh. The western Canadian wolves (canus lupis occidentalis) had previously had a range in Yellowstone. Reintroducing a native subspecies is far from exotic.
As for those 250lb wolves that so many talk about they don't exist.
http://wolves.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/ynp-cole-wolf-collar-and-weight-info.pdf
Ah, but there are 200-pounders...seen 'em with me own two eyes, shot in the Northwest Territories...same subspecies as the wolves turned loose on Northern Rockies deer and elk by the idiots of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Quite hionestly, it doesn't matter if they are of the same subspecies...all wolves are of the same run it down...brutally kill it...rip it apart...each just a small portion...then go find another one culture. And it really doesn't matter if they kill their prey before eating it...or if they eat it all. One of the biggest lies about wolves is that they only kill to survive. Hogwash, they kill for the mere pleasure of killing - leaving entire animals to rot. That's why we have only about a third of the elk in Yellowstone that were there before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (yep, same idiots) reintroduced wolves into a community where they had been eradicated a hundred years ago - because they didn't mix well with humans, pets, livestock or other wildlife. And they still don't. It's time to eradicate them again, before we lose all of our wildlife to these un-needed killing machines.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Missoula, MT
I wasn't going to comment on this thread because so much of it is so stupid (get the hint?); but, I've had a second cup of coffee and you've worn me down.
Did it ever occur to you that the very fact that this wolf traveled ~1,000 miles south from Montana into Colorado is evidence that wolves in Canada, less than 1,000 miles north, were traveling into and exchanging genetic material with the local populations in Idaho and Montana in pre-European settlement times?
...and now we get comments from Lobo Watch? Give me a break! Get a job!
First, you say "It's a shame we've lost our native wolves in Idaho since the introduction of the Canadian wolves." Then, you say "I'm sure there was some genetic exchange... There's probably exchange from one area to the next." If the populations were never substantially isolated and there is clear evidence that there was always, continuously, "some genetic exchange... from one area to the next," then your native wolves in Idaho, whatever pitiful little non-sustaining group that was reduced to, were never scientifically not Canadian wolves as you call them. Do you see how your own words demonstrate the convoluted nature of your logic?
Look at it this way, I'm pretty sure, based on statistics, that the men in my family average significantly larger than the men in yours and even more sure that my daughter is statistically larger than the women in your family. That doesn't mean, regardless of how strongly I might want it to be so, that we are a different species.
I really don't know why I'm bothering. You and your kind aren't going to listen. You say "At least I'm on the ground and have seen them in my front yard." You might as well have been telling us that you can see Russia from your house.
Rarely is there crossbreeding in the wild of dogs and wolves. The few instances of all black wolves documented were wolf-dog hybrids (often found in indian settlements and semi-domesticated by them). Just to keep things straight, dogs are Canis Lupus Familiaris. Wolves belong to multiple subspecies (the ones we are dealing with are Canus Lupus Occidentalis).
"One exchange of genes doesn't change an entire population. There are genetic differences between races and even populations of people as well as animals."
That's true, exchanges of genes are actually necessary to prevent genetic bottlenecks and imbreeding. However, bring humans into the equation makes your argument less valid. What races are we talking about? European defined races? Brazilian defined races (of which over 40 are acknowledged)? By what criteria do we define race? You are confusing cultural definitions with scientific definitions. What sets of genetic peculiarities define Caucasian from, say, blacks of subSaharan Africa. Skin color? Sure. Lactose tolerance: No. Lactose tolerance is more prevalent in W. European Caucasians than W. European Caucasians. Prevalence of Sickle Cell Anemia: No, those in southern Africa do not have it unlike Central Africa.
I'm getting off topic but I do have to address the fallacy in your logic. There are no subspecies of humans. There is no way to genetically divide us because the variability of genetic combination crosses skin color boundaries.
" Populations closer to the geographic edge of their range generally share more genes."
....I've never heard this. Can you substantiate this with an article from a peer-review journal?
"One crossing between subspecies becomes diluted over time if the offspring remain a part of the old breeding population. The first European to share genes in China did not change that population. There have been many such exchanges of genes in that area, but the Chinese population still remains genetically distinct. People all share some gene sequences, but there are sufficient numbers of genes that are different from population to population to make a population distinct. The same is true in other species."
Again, you're completely full of. The Chinese do not have a genetic distinctness. It's due to your perspective. If you were from China, you would probably be making the argument that the Han were distinct from the Zhuang or Machu.
Does anybody else find it completely ridiculous that BeckyJ's race-driven worldview influences how she interprets the natural world?
If that were true, our beloved and stupid U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wouldn't have had to "renintroduce" wolves to the Northern Rockies...they would already be there...and we would have saved hundreds of millions of wasted dollars.
Toby Bridges
Misosula
You haven't been around many wolves have you? You seem to be a text book biologist.
If you think there aren't any 200 pound wolves, you haven't spent much time in the wilds of the Northwest Territories or Alaska. So much of your text book crap is just that - crap...like the b.s. that wolves kill only for survival...to eat. They are killing machines that kill for the mere pleasure of killing.
Now, if you graduated with a degee in wildlife biology...you must be the dumbest person to ever do so. But, that makes you perfectly qualified to go to work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
For the record, my degree is in wildlife biology as well.
Toby Bridges
"If that were true, our beloved and stupid U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wouldn't have had to "renintroduce" wolves to the Northern Rockies...they would already be there...and we would have saved hundreds of millions of wasted dollars."
The USFWS admits that natural reintroduction was already occuring. They sped up recovery in the interest of removing the wolves from the ESA.
Now, whether or not it was worth the money IS a valid argument.
The industry side of all this is just as important as the so-called scientific side. I did manage a large wildife area for a number of years...and even a large fish hatchery. But I enjoyed the industry side more, much more...heck, I even handled all of the conservation stuff for Bass Pro Shops for a number of years...allocating lots and lots and lots of money for conservation efforts.
And that's why the waste of the billlions of similar dollars spent over the past hundred years so wolves can freely decimate what we worked so hard to rebuild sickens me. If you condone that, you don't need a job...you need a life.
At least I'm not so cowardly as to hide behind a phoney internet name.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
What the self-serving "experts" at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were doing is nothing more than handling wildlife issues in a very bureaucratic way to carry on their own agenda, based on bad science. Ed Bangs should be ashamed of himself. America should be ashamed of itself for swallowing all of the wolf b.s. hook...line...and sinker.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Why don't you shoot one of these 200lbs wolves and claim the world record? better yet why has it not already been done multiple times??
Probably already has been...many of times. I've been in a number of hunting camps in the NW Territories, Yukon and Alaska over the years where some mighty big wolves were shot...and not once was there a college educated wolf fact finding expert or biologist in camp to weigh or verify the weight of those wolves. And, most of the time, if there had been it would have been a waste of their time...those wiolves were shot...and skinned...way out yonder in the bush.
I find it odd, that just because one time there was somebody around to do just that, the so-called wolf experts feel that one wolf was the biggest wolf ever shot. What a bunch of fools. But that already shows in their support of reintroducing an apex predator that's decimating our other native wildlife. They may be college educated, but they are as dumb as a box of rocks...and not a very big box at that!
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
There are hunters that all they do is pursue the next world record whatever. With all the publicity surrounding wolves it would seem to add even more publicity for the one to bag the world record 200 lb'er, especially to be able to rub that fact in the face of all that call horseapples.
Ahhh...but for every glory hound there are 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 who just hunt for the enjoyment of hunting.
But now that wolves are in the crosshairs (about time) maybe it will happen...I hope so...and that there are a lot of close contenders taken as well. We need a lot more wolf hunters and a lot fewer wolves.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
why has there been no entries any where in the world bigger than the 79.4 kg wolf shot in Alaska in 1939? or the one only slightly bigger in the Ukraine?? You don't find that curious? Especially with a whole plethora of 200 lb wolves running around Canada and Alaska, at least according to you.
Apparently a larger wolf may have been shot.
Still though, I think all observations point to the fact that a 200lb wolf is a far cry from realistic.
Seriously, 200 lbs?
To put this in comparison, a 1200 lb bear was shot at Hinchinbrook Island in Alaska and they were able to have the kill verified.
If me and a buddy shot a 200lb wolf, you'd bet we'd pack it out to show the record books.
With regard to the current discussion of northern wolves and in other discussions of the Mexican wolf reintroduction, we have individuals who strongly advocate the effective extirpation of a native predator as a means of artificially boosting game populations for the purpose of pumping up the market for hunting-related goods and services that these individuals manufacture or sell or from which they otherwise receive a profit. If these individuals are just run-of-the-mill rednecks and represent themselves as nothing more, then, again, we just need to tolerate them. However, when such individuals advertise themselves as having professional training and credentials in wildlife biology, demean the professional performance of other wildlife professionals in the USFWS and other agencies, and also advocate the effective extirpation of a native predator as a means of artificially boosting game populations for the purpose of pumping up the market for hunting-related goods and services that these individuals manufacture or sell or from which they otherwise receive a profit; then I am and will remain strongly concerned, even beyond my irritation with the other aspects of the situation.
I seem to remember that the Bulgarian wolf was found to be not that big. Maybe I can find that one way or another.
Another thing to keep in mind is that wolves gorge when they eat so an Adult will literally eat up to 20 or more lbs at a time so that there weight at any given time varies greatly.
Having said all that however if some one believes 200lb wolves are common much less exist at all.
Well........... time for the tinfoil hats.
Sorry for the mistake on your name. totally unintended
Do you carry a weight scale every where you hunt? I don't, and I have hunted a lot of places. In fact, of all the places I've hunted, neither did anyone else.
If there are 175 pound recorded wolves, rest assured that among the other 95% of wolves killed, there have been more than a few 200 pounders. Don't be so naive. For God sakes, be realistic.
Don't accept all the b.s. about wolves being all their is about wolves.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
If being realistic makes me redneck, than I'm damned proud to be one. But then, I'd rather be a redneck than an ignorant misguided armchair expert with all the wrong answers...who has never shared time with wolves in the wild. Like I said, you need to get a real life. And you certainly need to learn a real apprecation of the shooting and hunting industry that has donated far, far more to conservation than the likes of you ever has ever given.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
And just how far would you pack that 200 pound wolf? Get real, if you shot a wolf that big, you'd skin it out just like 95% of all other hunters - especially if you were 7...8...9...10 miles from camp.
The fact is, most of those who claim there are no 200 pound wolves have never even seen a wolf in the wild...or hunted where they may have had the opportunity.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
That is two maybe three wolves @ 175 lbs since 1939.
that is at the extreme upper limit in the species.
You're the one claiming that 200 lb wolves are common.
Put your money where your mouth is. Prove it
No one said they were common...just that they existed.
How many wild wolves have you personally actually seen in your lifetime?
Over a 40-plus year hunting career, I've had the opportunity to observe wolves at least a dozen times in Canada and Alaska...and I've had a couple of run-ins with them here in Montana and next door in Idaho. Based on the sizes of a few I've witnessed shot, which went around 140 to 150 or pounds, I feel extremely confident that I have seen a few that were in the 200-pound class.
I once helped another hunter in our camp in the NWT skin a wolf that was one of those 150-pounders...and saw the hide stretched to dry...and a few days later another hunter brought in a pelt from a wolf he had shot 6 or 7 miles from camp that was easily 25- to 30-percent bigger.
In the wild north, I would venture to say that 70- to 80-percent of the wolves shot, by native inuits or sport hunters, are skinned right where they are shot.
Don't be so foolish to accept that the "World's Largest Wolf" just happened to be shot by someone who just happened to have a weight scale along.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Prove it,
On one of your own web pages you are claiming that 200 lb wolves are running amok in the tri- state recovery area. So Toby YOU are saying they are common.
You see, Jeff E is pointing out that the average anti-wolf advocate is usually telling less than the truth in their claims. Just like you just did. Perhaps if you guys had some sort of honest claim, people might be more inclined to listen to you. As it stands, however, you're more like anti-Evolutionists and anti-Global Warming groups. Full of anecdotal unprovable evidence (lies) and misinformation.
Exactly
I'm sure you meant to say there are probably NOT wolves that weigh 200 lbs...............
Then again, it could be just like so many others that are anti-science. They go and get a degree just to try to give their claims against science just a little more credibility. The education system doesn't have a name for those people, yet, but since they are becoming more common, maybe one needs to be created.
None of you have once eluded to how many wolves you personally have seen in the wild...not the zoo mind you...in the wild. I imagine zoos and in books are the only places you have seen a wolf.
And, yes they are decimating our wildlife. Good ol' Yellowstone has only about a third of the elk that were there before idiotic college educated "wolf experts" unleashed wolves on them. If you feel that wolves are needed...and you don't care how badly they pull down our deer and elk numbers...you are the problem, and most deifinitely not the solution...not even close.
And yes, we are more common. In fact, very, very few people are in favor of the wolves. The so-called popularity theory spread by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and lame organizations like the Sierra Club and the Defenders of Wildlife is just another of the wolf lies.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Your anti-intellectual, anti-science rhetoric is damaging any bit of claim you have to facts. You appear to be making all of it up as needed. Are there fewer elk in Yellowstone, today? Yes. If you believe it is only because of wolves, well, then you are only proving your ignorance of the science and facts surrounding the populations.
I won't even go into ungulate studies that say there were far too many elk in the park.
Toby, might I suggest that in the future you keep your claims to facts and scientific data rather than anecdotal evidence and an attempt to raise yourself above others because you "see things"? You aren't making a case at that point, you're just yelling at the internet, a task that you don't even seem all that qualified for.
FYI ---came out in the news today that a " new" record was set for largest Wolf known in Yelowstone since reintroduction. Generally speaking , the Molly pack in the Pelican Valley has the largest Wolves of the 27 packs in and around the Park. They just weighed one male at 143 pounds with an estimated 5 lbs. of meat in its gullet. That's the only pack that has enough big-bodied wolves to live almost exclusively on Bison, which require a lot of strength to muscle down for that first helping of red meat. So I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say 150 lbs. would be a pretty phenomenal sized wolf . The researchers are confirming that Greater Yellowstone Wolves who subsist on smaller prey like Deer or even Antelope will downsize themselves for speed and endurance , just like my housecat who goes up and down about 30 percent of his body weight by season. Mountain Man Osborne Russell who kept a diary in the 1830's noted two sizes of Wolves...big Buffalo Wolf and medium Prairie Wolf that also tuned their bodyw eight adn structure to prey base and physical demands.
Now, on the subject of wild animals covering large distances , this is nothing new. They have the capability to range over a lot of country and a lot of different reasons to do so. There is the annals of Wyoming Game and Fish an anecdote of a bull Elk tagged in Wyoming being shot in Missouri. I seem tor ecall a story about a far ranging Cougar. A Wolverine was tracked inside a range over 500 miles from north to south in recent years, northern Utah ( Unitah Mtns) to northern Montana and all around. An acquaintance of mine who was a Grizzly researcher trapped a boar on Rattlesnake Mountain just above Cody , and radio collared it. The next day they couldn't find it anywhere near the site with the spotter plane , so being good Interagency researchers they flew on west to Yellowstone Park , and voila!---there was Dum Dum , 65 air miles from where he had been tagged the day before, over some might rough country called the North Absaorka Mountain Range .
Do not be astounded by the great distances animals can move , whether migrating or just looking for love. Rather you should be in awe of it. The Arctic Tern migrates from the North Pole country to the South Pole regions and back annually. That's a mere 11,000 miles or so , one way . That a Wolf could traipse from Yellowstone or the Big Hole down to Aspen-Vail CO isn't news to the Wolves.
Following Becky's thred the native wolves of California, lupis californicatus, prefer chardonay or a nice pinot.
You must be a student of the Ed Bangs School of Wolvery.
Toby
But I prefer my data and facts to have something behind them that I can actually show other people.
Have I ever seen light stopped inside of a gaseous supercooled medium? No, but when I read through the peer reviewed documentation I can see how the experiment might be duplicated and how to falsify the findings.
I also don't have to go to Loch Ness to say that Nelly is made up, nor do I have to go to a trailer park to say that little green men and their UFO's are fake.
But if you'd like to prove that there isn't a teapot orbiting Mars, please, post it all right here, I'd love to see it.
If you approve of the unscientific "control" methods that each of the three states have approved and the lack of scientific input into those doesn't bother you, then yes, you're all for the extermination of the Northern Rockies wolves. Scientists, those darn egg head book learned geeks, have extensive experience and knowledge that you don't, and you never will. If you think it is so easy to get peer-reviewed publications, do it. Publish your "200 pounder" in a scientific journal.
If you post lies and misinformation, however, how can you expect to have the least bit of credibility? And why shouldn't that credibility be questioned when you are trying to come across as some sort of expert?
The sad truth is this: people like Toby and BeckyJ think that their own personal evidence constitutes some sort of expertise that is greater than anything that can be learned from peer reviewed publications or official scientific reports.
In the short of it, the fight over wolves is nothing more than the fight over Creationism/Evolution or Global Warming, there are those using evidence and fact, and those using emotion and personal anecdotal experiences. In the end, science will win, you'll lose, and you'll continue to whine about it. Why should anyone engage them without just constantly pointing out that their logic is childish and their lies are transparent?
Like I said, as soon as you hear "Canadian wolves" like that is a sub-species(a la Becky and Mr. wildlife biology degree Toby) than your arguing barroom biology and you and I will never win that argument.
The only thing wolfish in this thread that weighs in a 200 lb is the pile of feces that Toby is trying to spread.
Maybe you need to venture out...go to some of the websites that really don't mind stepping across that line to see what wolves really are doing to our wildlife. Deny it all you want...but me thinkst you've been brain washed by all the pro-wolf organizations. Heck, maybe you're on the payroll...or worse yet, you could have been some of the folks who created this mess.
And Beneath...your statement..."my posts are characterized by coherence and lucidity not arrogance"...is a pretty darn arrogant statement in itself. Do you always go around bragging about yourself that way...you do seem the type.
And Jay,...Becky and I do seem to go with the obvious when it comes to wolves and wolf predation...something you might want to consider. From your description of yourself you do think very highly of yourself as well. Heck, you just might be the wolf expert of all wolf experts...and least that's what you keep telling yourself...and, oh yes, Jay too.
It's people like Beneath and Jay who are the problem...and who are dangerous when it comes to conservation. They're the ones who come off as the "know it alls"...and they'll continue to keep a blind eye toward the devastation wolves are dealing our wildlife...and if many of you follow their way, elk, deer, moose and all other wildlife in the Northern Rockies are doomed.
Just ignore them, and the two of them can just keep telling each other how great thou are.
Remember..."Save An elk Herd...Kill A Wolf!"
Maybe two for good measure.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
The elk herds are healthy and numerous. The wolves aren't "devastating them" as you attempted to misinform before. There also are no 200lb wolves. You lied and you got caught. So now you turn to standard anti-intellectual tactics and attempt to ignore everything.
Do wolves tear out the bellies of some animals? Yep. Do they do "gruesome" things? Depends on your definition of gruesome. They do what they do, they are wolves, and we are humans. Our morality and sense of right and wrong do not transpose themselves well onto animals. And yet, people like yourself keep trying the same tactics, without any proof, scientific backing or even logic.
You're nothing more than entertainment to me, Toby. To see how easy it is to humiliate you, make you lie, make you twist and turn. I love that it was so simple to get your anti-intellectualism to come out, just as it was with BeckyJ.
What you don't realize is the echo chamber is those that ignore science, and ignore the real situation in its entirety. Political, natural, scientific and more, they all get wrapped up in this, the goal being to bring about a consensus from those truly interested in one. Instead, you'll disassociate yourself from the process through your own lies, your own stubbornness, your own impulses. That's good, because the process doesn't need people like you.
It just occurred to me what toby is all about. He has started a web page which he is hoping will take off and he will start raking in the donations. He has launched a letter writing campaign and makes outrageous statements knowing that will draw in the rubes. Huh. I guess being Bass Pro Shops head stink bait salesman is going to pay dividends, at least toby hopes so. Becky is ...Well Becky is just challenged. Of course this is all just my considered opinion but I bet my horseshoe is at least a leaner if not a ringer.
Jay, Beneath and Jeff...combined you three wouldn't share a three digit IQ.
But since you Three Amigos think you have all the answers about wolves, here's a chellenge to you geniuses...
Develop a strain of vegetarian wolves and there wouldn't be a problem.
Here's a deal for you, I'll do my part to take care of the wolf problems...and you three can continue to be a part of the wolf problem.
Oh yeah, sorry Beneath, my freezer is pretty darn full...I just hope I can eat all the deer and elk in it before next season rolls around. My e-mail is - drop me a line if you get hungry, and perhaps I'll ship you some.
You boys need to get a life...seems you've borrowed the ones you have.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Can't back up a single thing you say with any proof whatsoever but can only resort to a name calling tirade. Did try to edit your web site though and totally screwed that up. But just in case you want to read it I went ahead and made copies of the original one. You know Toby the one where you was claiming that wolves weighing 200lb were common....... or as you said and I'm reading this right now" ....easily top 200lbs......" before you tried to cover your tracks. What a piece of work.
Says the same thing. You're getting a little delusional aren't you sonny?
Can't take it when someone stands up to your bullying can you? That's exactly why I jumped in on this thread. The likes of you...Beneath...and Jay think you can commandeer these comment sections by ganging up on folks...running them off...just so you can kick things around the way ONLY you want them. Me and a few of the other folks who have serious conserns about wolves have been enjoying a little private e-mailing on the side, enjoying a good laugh or two about you buffoons.
Seems that's the only way we can share our thoughts about wolves without you three Einsteins trying to take over. The three of you are the real pieces of work...the types of who that have created the wolf problem. And since you seem to thrive on "proving it"...thanks for proving that you and others like you are the problem...fighting the wrong battles for wolves to freely roam a settled West...and fighting those who also have a stake in the impact those wolves are making...which is far from positive.
You three stand as "proof positive" that wolf reintroductory by those who think they are so much more intelligent than everyone else...was the dumbest thing our Federal government has ever done. They were nothing more than a bunch of educated idiots...had everything figured out, except how to keep wolves from being wolves and killing everything in sight.
I know you are too cowardly to do so, since you won't have a grandstand to show off on, but e-mail me at and we can freely discuss each others integrity.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Your attacks on intellectuals spells out your type perfectly, Toby. It says a lot about you and about your tactics. Wolves haven't decimated wildlife, they don't get to 200 lb (or even very close) and you probably don't have a degree.
What else remains to be said? You're the lowest common denominator, right where you've set yourself.
Why would anyone read--let alone believe--- a single word on his virulent http://www.LoboWatch.com website ? Consider the source. Toby's sole purpose in life ( read: blinders worn) apparently is to destroy things. With guns. Yesterday , he blew off both his cowboy boots thinking he was peep sighting a 200 pound Wolf on the far north horizon.
It's impossible to take Toby seriously now and forever . I suggest we don't.
Read Ralph Maughan instead if you want to keep up on Wolves and wildlife issues in the American West.
http://wolves.wordpress.com
Yes, I've chased a lot of people from these forums. Marion, Craig Moore, Dave Skinner and probably a few others as well. Why? Because they lied and they were caught. All they needed to do was admit their mistake and maybe even apologize. They were incapable of that amount of maturity, just like Toby.
Wolves are a renewed part of the northwest, our ecology is flourishing, our elk herds are still healthy and numerous and our mountain lion and coyote populations are dropping to more reasonable levels. Aspens and willows are growing again, our stream beds have shown new signs of the vigor they had years and years ago. Are there a few negatives? Sure, but they are heavily outweighed by the pluses that wolves have brought.
Toby's kind will be just like the anti-gay, anti-evolution, anti-global warming people in a decade or so. They'll be historical footnotes while America and the world moves on without them.
I can tell everyone else here that at least one of them works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service...I can tell that by the timing of their posts...and where the traffic on my website came from.
So, now we know what their real agenda is...or at least one or two of 'em...job security. And if I worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I'd probably be more than a little nervous now as well...now that the American public is learning how this agency has sold us a bill of not-so-goods when it comes to wolves.
That agency has a long, long track record of relying on "bad science"...outright lies...corruption...and theft. Here is a link to a report, published in 1999 which reveals how the USFWS literally stole $45-million from sportsmen - for their own fun and games.
http://www.great-lakes.org/8-15-99.html#nz2
And for those of you on this forum/blog/or whatever you want to call it, who want to know some seldom shared facts about the wolf reintroductory program, the following link will take you to one of the best reports ever published on the subject - showing that the wolf project is riddled with bad science, lies and deception.
http://www.skinnymoose.com/dovelwolves.PDF
Yep, ol' Mike, Jeff, Jay and Beneath are more than likely working for or with the USFWS, or one of the clueless environmentalist organizations (i.e. Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, etc.), and if they are, and are true to the cut of cloth from which they came, they are probably pocketing some of those hundreds of millions being wasted to reintroduce a pestilence that we will have to eliminate in the end anyway.
Now, as the recently passed Paul Harvey used to say, we're beginning to see "The Rest Of The Story!"
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Sportsmen Against Wolves
That's a good one.
Nothing like placing one self on a pedestal...which you seem to do just a bit too frequently. I would more correctly call you an egomaniac...who thinks he know a thing or two about wolves.
Overly educated people all too often turn out to be the dumbest.
For the record, no info was removed from my website - just some added to appease cry babies. With all of that education...surely you can read...can't you boy.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
why remove the "easily tops 200lb"
They either do or they don't, which is it.
yesterdays story or todays which by the way is still BS (and that is not a degree)
You DID remove that statement Toby me boy did you not??
(remember I have hard copies with time, date, and website)
Like I said before jeff...you need to go get a life.
Hey, how are the fringe benefits with the USFWS? Do you get to keep all the cash you can cram into your pockets?
"Sure Toby Sure" looks like an admission of guilt to me.
What do you think Sure, Barry and Becky?
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
why not answer the question. yesterday you claimed that wolves "easily top 200lb" on your web page.Is that not true? It is a simple yes or no question.
did you or not remove that statement from your web page? again a simple yes or no
You say you have a hard copy print out...which is a lie if you claim it says "easily top 200 pounds". It said "can top 200 pounds". So, get it right.
Sure, I edited it to read "even 200 pounds"...so you won't have to run crying to your momma about the big bad wolf hater that's scaring the living daylight out of you. Sorry if I've been scaring you sonny boy, cuddle up with your Teddy bear and the trauma will soon pass.
If this is all you have to do...to question...to feel a sense of accomplishment...you must be the USFWS government employee who's been going to my website - who has nothing else to do.
How much are we payng you anyway? Whatever it is, you're not earning it.
Let's you and I get one thing straight right here, I'm not for the wolves. I do hate 'em...hate the very thought of them destroying our big game populations here in the West. You do live in the West, don't you Jeffie...or are you chiming in on all of this from a condo somewhere up around NY city or Washington D.C.. I'll run a check on the e-mail address and learn what time zone it's from.
Now, "Jeffie don't you cry...momma's gonna bake you a wolfie pie..."
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Sportsmen Against Wolves
If I send you a copy of the web page in question, the one that say's "easily tops 200lb" as compared with today's version would you print that?
Actual quote.
Whole paragraph:
"Typically, the adult native gray wolf of the Northern Rocky Mountain region would have weighed in at about 100 to 120 pounds. On the other hand, a mature Canadian gray wolf can easily top 200 pounds. And it takes basically twice as much "prey" to keep them fed."
And further on the same page:
"And they are decimating other "native" wildlife species - which cost American sportsmen billions over the past hundred years to get to the record numbers we "had" before the reappearance of the wolf."
Sounds like an organization that really needs some support. I think they make a new bra for men, don't they?
Can you?
If that's what it said, then maybe it did. I asked my administrator to change it to what it says now. I apologize Jeff for calling you a liar...so stop squeezing the stuffing out of your Teddy bear.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Myself, I live in Cody , Wyoming , where anti-Wolf hatred is du rigeur. Only myself and one other fellow, a retired government ecologist have the brass and the facts to speak out publically for Wolves. And we pay a mighty price for it, although we have many sympathizers who would like to speak up but would do so at their peril and under threat of retaliation , like job loss. Cody is an epicenter of Wolf upheavals; the interface between the Yellowstone Park Wolf and the Rest of Wyoming Wolf. The line dividing the protected Wolf from the Shoot On Sight Wolf under Wyoming's terrible management plan is literally two blocks down the street from me where the highway runs thru town from the Montana border towards Casper. Nowhere in Wyoming is the Wolf fire burn more fierce than Cody , with a possible exception in Sublette -Lincoln County in the Green River-Wyoming Range country. To be Pro-Wolf in Cody is to be a leper or a persecuted heretic. If murder were legal I would be at the head of the list. Death threats are common...I ignore them and nothing ever comes of them ( that alone says something ). I deal with Tobys continually , and am thankful they all do not have their own websites or the willingness to take it to the streets with virtual molotovs in hand as does our self-proclaimed Emperor.
The Tobys of the West will never be able to have a rational argument on the sound science behind Wolf Reintroduction. They will never allow themselves to see ecology at work right before their eyes. They will not see the balance between predator and prey that has existed for countless thousands of years , let alone realize that an Elk herd without a Wolf pack is an anomaly of nature; that a Wolf without an ungulate is unnatural ; that the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Rockies still have enough habitat and resource base and wildlife to make it right.
What the Tobys do believe---incorrectly and dangerously ---is that Wolves have no place or even positive value on the Wyoming-Montan-Idaho landscape. That Man is seventh down the food chain without his Winchester is anathema to the Tobys. They refuse to realize that sport hunting by Man is also a good ways down the list of tools and methods to best manage wildlife ; that wildlife management is best left to the real Professionals...Canis lupus, Ursos arctos, Canis letrans, Puma concolor, Gulo luscus , Haliaeetus leucocephalus, Aquila chrysaetos, et al, with the unconditional consent of their prey and without undue interference from Hominids or domestic Bovines , et al.
The Tobys of the West believe ---self righteously in his particular case---that the only tool for managing a Wolf is a gun. His website is a bunker . His science arguments ( if any can be upheld ) comes from as one Newwest commentor so succinctly put it , Barroom Biology 101. Unfortunately , when it comes to exclusively using rifles to manage Wolves, the Western Rubythroat is confronting only a small precinct of the situation on the ground. It's a lot larger and a lot more complicated than losing a few cows or sheep hither and yon across the northern fiefdoms of the American west. But Toby doesn't want to hear any part of it. Especially the part that it was wrong for his grandfather's ilk to nearly exterminate the Wolf in the first place.
Remember. I'm writing from Wyoming, where the Tobys of our backward province hve delayed and derailed the Delisting of the Grey Wolf for years because they insist on being able to shoot all wolves on sight basically outside of Yellowstone and its adjacent wilderness. That describes Toby to a "T", but our Tobys are actually Legislators and are the ones responsible for the pandemonium and regressive rhetoric in contemporary Wolf management.
In a very perverse but also delightful manner of thinking, I'm glad we have the Rubythroated Tobys and Microencephalatic Wyoming legislators out there. The more they obstruct and delay Wolf delisting, the longer the Alpha males and Alpha females have to den up and make more Wolf pups.
The female Wolf that made it from Paradise Valley Montana to Aspen-Vail Coloradoa and beyond ?--- the thousand mile odyssey that was keynoted in these very pages only six days ago by David Frey --- she's a pioneer. She's in Colorado today because Toby and the Wyoming Lgislature hate her. And that is not necessarily entirely a bad thing. I hope she finds a mate and starts a pack in the White River national forest of Colorado. I'll bet Toby can't even get a date. Thankfully , his personality is likely 100 percent effective birth control. But what do I know ?
You see, Tony, the biologists that you love to attempt to discredit, that you call names and that you berate? They would love to get their hands on evidence of a 200lb wolf. It would change the situation on the ground, it would provide evidence that they don't have and they would have to change their predictions. It would be a boon to the scientific industry around wolves to suddenly have to redo a bunch of their stuff, and money is what makes all those biologists and scientists work, right?
If you do, then you must work closely with Ed Bangs...who once stated that is was alright to lie to the public in order to reach the objective.
Do you "intellectuals" subscribe to that same feeling?
I thought that the idea was to reintroduce "real wolves". Ed Bangs kind of took it upon himself to change the genetic purity of the wolves to be reintroduced to include all sorts of crosses, including dog-wolf, coyote-wolf. and even coyote-dog crosses...stating something to the affect "any wolf like" creature. Now, how scientific is that?
His work back in Minnesota and Wisconsin has resulted in a wild assortment of Heinz 57 mongrels runnng around under the protection of being "wolves". Bangs has lied to congress, he has lied to those who work with the ESA, he has lied to those he is supposed to work for, he has lied to the wildlife agencies of numerous states, he has lied to the American public.
So, why would anyone ever begin to believe anything he has to say now?
He's one of those "intellectual idiots" I keep refering to.
It's the Toby's of this world that will keep questioning the idiocy of experts such as yourselves (or so you say)...because it is we who will have to go out and clean up the mess you're creating.
Now, once more, do you work with the USFWS...or one of the "defendent interveanors" such as Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, HSUS, Earth Justice, etc.????
I just want to know, so maybe I can look for you in court when the shooting and hunting industry slaps a mulit-billion dollar lawsuit against the USFWS and its partners in this crime - to recover the money spent by sportsmen to rebuild deer and elk herds over the past hundred years...which "your" wolves are now destroying. There's a few million of us who would like to be there when it happens...and we want to know exactly who our enemies are.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Sportsmen Against Wolves
You assume far too much. I'm just tickled that I can be a thorn in your side.
The vast majority of Montanans feel just as they do in Cody...that it's time for the wolf to go. Heck, in this state they're even willing to go toe-to-toe and head-to-head with the USFWS boys...with pending legislation that just might show them the door.
I'll make sure the beautiful woman I share life with gets a chance to read your lengthy ramble. She's sure to get a kick out of it.
Oh, one more question Jeff and Jay...where was it you boys said you're from?
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Sportsmen Against Wolves
Jeff, Jay, Beneath and Dewey...your hero Ed Bangs will be the main target...excuse me, I mean the leading man.
Tighten up boys, you're kind has been served. The sportsmen of this country are sick and tired of your b.s.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Sportsmen Against Wolves
Amazing when you start speaking of yourself in the third person. For a while I thought you were just a blowhard with all the name callling, anger and inability to provide any real facts but now prove yourself to be a narcissist too.
I actually feel sorry for you.
Somewhere in Asia in winter on horseback on the Steppes with not oversized Cokes, but oversized falconry....pretty interesting video...and not faked...I don't think these guys are from the Harvard Falconry Club, or at least I didn't see Bobby Kennedy Jr. in the videos...
I guess the several hundred thousand "other" hunters who hit the hills, valleys and mountains of Montana this past fall must have just imagined that they were seeing far less deer and elk than in the past...and the only thing different has been the "Invasion of the Elk Body Snatchers". Or, maybe those who come here claiming to be "Intellectuals" are really aliens - like Huey, Dewey, Louie and Jeffie. And they're sucking our game up into their Mother Ships and hauling them off to another universe.
Hey, where did those USFWS intellectuals go anyway?
You're probably right about one thing Jimbo, dead elk mauled by wolves are probably pretty darn healthy.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
When you have something constructive to add, please do. We're waiting to celebrate that moment.
Wolves are wonderful animals...where they can roam and be wolves. I had one follow me all day once in Alaska, sometimes staying within 75 yards of me...while I sat and glassed for caribou. I even spoke to the devil several times that day. And I was damned proud to share his company. And he stayed with me right up until I pulled the trigger on a decent bull. Then he ran off several hundred yards and watched as I skinned out the animal, caped it and boned out about 75-pounds of meat. I then packed it back out several miles to the boat...and when I returned that wolf was gorging itself on the gut pile. Fortunately, it hadn't fed on the skinned carcass, maybe due to the fact that I had layed a well worn rain jacket across it. I boned out another 40 or 50 pounds of meat, and left the remaining scraps to the wolf.
The next morning a friend and I returned to find bones scattered everywhere...and probably less than 5 or 6 pounds of meat left. The loss was a small price to pay for such a unique experience.
That's not what we're dealing with today here in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. We're dealing with a killing machine that's, as often as not, killing for the pure pleasure of killing, and leaving numerous carcasses to rot. The USFWS's genius Ed Bangs has unleashed a mongrel breed of wolves (accepting anything that is "wolf like" in appearance as a wolf) upon western wildlife, and despite the b.s. of those who have no clue, those "wolf like" menaces are making a serious impact on our big game herds. Maybe you can live the rest of your life playing golf, sailing, watching football, going to craft fairs, and looking at pretty deer and elk empty mountains...but I am not. And neither are the vast majority of other serious sportsmen. If it is war the wolf lovers want, then it is war they will get.
Those who continue to fight reasonable management of wolf numbers are the problem. And at the top of that list is U.S. Court Judge Don Molloy...who is right now the number one enemy of the sportsmen of this country.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
I've read this whole thread and I've witnessed your hypocrisy, your ignorance, your anger, and your disrespectful, unwarranted attacks on other people who simply disagree with your views.
One thing is abundantly clear: You're a bully. And as we all know, the only thing that ever straightened out a bully is a good, old-fashioned ass-kicking.
When it comes to making your real name known, I sure hope you're as brave in public as you are on the internet. I know a lot of folks who'd happily give you that beating.
After quite a bit of "dogged" research this week , it appears that the largest and heaviest Wolf of any subspecie ever seen by man in the past 150 years was from the Soviet Union ( eastern Ukraine) shortly after WWII , at 189 pounds , sixty years ago. The heaviest wolf recorded in the New World was killed on 70 Mile River in east-central Alaska on July 12, 1939 and weighed 79 kg (175 lb. ) including gullet contents, which was seventy years ago and considerably lighter than your mythical 200 pounder.
Thems the facts, but you went for days claiming and flaming about the 200 pounder . To date, we have no reason to believe a word you have said in the absence of a retraction and heartfelt apology for your " little grey lies" . So by extension , your defiance annulls anything you have to say here or on your bilious and dubious LoboWatch.com website as well.
Not only was your last post was an insult, it nailed your coffin shut. You are Discredited.
------
And I do personally apologize to the other more thoughtful and fact based NewWest authors and commentors for sullying the website with Toby's sworl. But dang it, I DO have a dog in this fight as a Wolf supporter in northwest Wyoming who's trying to use education , reason , science, forensics and natural history to get past the blind hatred towards a place where we can all accomodate the other's real goals and reach some common ground. There is plenty of landscape and resource in the northern Rockies to allow sustainable Wolf populations without debilitating the livestock industry or impacting sport hunting adversely. We all have to give a little. It must be constructive, not destructive. And inclusive ( at least until you discredit yourself ).
---
By the way , where is our 1,000 Mile Lady Wolf today ...last known whereabouts Colorado? You recall, the one that started all this discussion. It's about time for her regular biweekly GPS coordinate dump, isn't it ?
###
I just love to be a thorn in your sides. You wolf lovin', tree huggin' fools need a little opposition.
You like wolves, I hate 'em. You think they belong here, I think they belong back in Canada...or the kennels where Ed Bangs apparently got some of his mongrels.
You think they ought to be allowed to run freely and decimate wildlife and destroy domestic cattle and sheep, I think they ought to be shot on sight unelss they're in one of the National Parks.
You think your wolves are the cute, cuddly and loving creatures Walt Disney implanted in your head... I think they're killing machines, and enjoy killing other wildlife and livetock just for the fun of killing...maybe taking a few bites now and then...but just as often leaving all of an elk or deer they just killed to rot. (Got a few photos this morning of a mountain lion that was killed by wolves over near Sun Valley, ID and will have them on my website later today. Looked like a competing predator elimination killing.)
Dewey, I really don't give a rat's behind what you think of me, because I think even less of you and your kind. I too have a dog in this fight, and so do millions of other sportsmen, and that is to hang on to the healthy deer and elk herds that took a hunded years to rebuild. We consider them more, a while lot more, than just fresh meat for "your" wolves.
And Mr. Intellectual (Jay)...That's the beauty of this country...I can voice my opinion just as much as you intellectuals...and I consider Don Molloy an idiot for stopping the management of wolves. He is truly the sportsmen's enemy. For such a scientific kind of guy, you sure jump to conclusions a bit quickly.
But, I'm glad you're back. I kind of missed you there for a day or so. USFWS must have pried you away from the keyboard to go out and do something to try earning whatever ungodly salary they're paying you. Hopefully you had to go out and investigate a wolf killing!
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
Sportsmen Against Wolves
I still believe there are 200 pounders out there...I've seen hides that came from wolves much larger than 140 to 150 pounds. The problem is that Jay and the other wolf boys at USFWS just haven't been able to grab one by the collar and coax him onto the scale yet.
Toby
I purchase permits, costly non-resident permits, and the wolves don't.
The money I spend goes back into conservation...and the meat goes into my family's yearly food supply. (We don't pay others to do our killing for us, like many folks who apparently think that the meat they buy at the Wal-Mart Supercenter is grown on plants, and is harvested with that nice celophane packaging already on it.)
The wolves' wanton waste during their pleasure kills simply is a wasted wildlife resource.
Toby
I can't stand the way you talk about wolves. Wolves are not killing machines. Why can't you stop thinking about wolves in human and ethic-based terms? It boggles be when people think about basic science in terms of right or wrong.
Haven't you ever thought of wolves' "wastefulness" as something more complex.
1. There are several basics that you always seem to forget:
Wolf kills abondaned by wolves support populations of coyotes, bald eagles, foxes, bald eagles, magpies, ravens, carrion beetles as well as important detrivores that return nutrients to soil.
2. Elk populations in the GYE are unnaturally high and dentimental to population health. This has been noted way back by Aldo Leopold in Arizona following the extirpation of Mexican gray wolves. The elk's preferred diet has a negative impact on moose and beavers as well as willow and aspen.
3. It is very common for heavy fur to give the appearance of a larger wolf. I have seen this fact addressed time and time again in the popular media.
Do you really think wolves are going to eat themselves out of house and home? Wouldn't that lower their carrying capacity and thus population levels before killing all ungulates?
Let's see, that's a National Park, isn't it?
And that's exactly where the Feds need to keep their wolves...In Rocky Moutnain National Park, in Yellowstone National Park, in Glacier National Park, in Yosemite National Park, in Olympic National Park...and possibly a few others. And when one leaves the boundaries of these land (maybe dropping their National Park status and relabeled as a "Federal Wolf Refuge") they shoud be shot at anytime by anyone.
Now, that's wolf management.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
A basic tenet of population ecology: small population = good as dead in the long run.
I had a last point and it's that by making assumptions you only make yourself look like a jerk. I sure as hell ain't a wolf-lovin', tree huggin' fool. Wolves just ought to be treated like any other game animal. And I can tell you, there isn't anything better than getting out into the woods with a chainsaw.
I push to get the pendulum swung as far as possible to the other side for one reason...and that is because of how sportsmen were outright lied to by the USFWS and Dept. of Interior when all of this wolf reintrodcution crap was shoved down our throats.
If you recall, the plan was to begin management when the number hit 300...anyway that was the lie they touted. Now, here we are more than 2,000 wolves later (and probably 50,000 to 70,000 elk poorer)...and we're just now getting to where states are going to be allowed to manage wolf numbers...that is until another idiotic Federal judge like Don Molloy of Missoula swings with the wolf-loving environmentalists and stops it all again.
I believe in wolves too, with much smaller numbers that are easier to manage. (Hundreds instead of thousands.) But as long as the "other side" kept preventing that management, and allowing so many deer and elk to be thrown to the wolves...they were keeping the pendulum entirely on their side...I have just pushed to swing it the other way.
In today's world, you can be "pollitically correct" and nothing is accomplished, or you can be "controversial" and at least get the attention of some folks and get the message across that there's something wrong...and that not everyone agrees with every issue.
When it comes to the health of our big game herds, I choose to
take the controversial path.
With that said, like the majority of those who hunt (altogether about 25-million), when faced with either FEWER DEER/ELK AND A LOT OF WOLVES...or MORE DEER/ELK AND SIGNIFICANTLY FEWER WOLVES...I'll take the latter.
Toby Bridges
LOBO WATCH
If you claim to be a sportsman, you are the embarassment to whatever state you call home.
For the record, since this is kind of a dead blog now, I've muzzleloader hunted in 38 states and 2 Canadian provinces over the past 44 years...and I've been on a grand total of 7 outfitted hunts. Hell, I've even put in 10 years as an outfitter. Like I said, you don't know squat about a lot of things, and your comments certainly show that.
If you are a Montanan, you are certainly the first I've heard claim that there's an over population of elk anywhere this past season. Do you suffer from double-vision?
Just in case you do come back, please stop being such a coward, using a phony internet neame like "blueandgray 2007". If you want to attack someone, at least be man or woman enough to use your own real name. To make comments under disguise is like shooting someone in the back in the dark.
I've thought about your comments, and quite honestly...I don't think you are a Montanan...but probably from somewhere like Florida...or maybe even Seattle...
Again, it's hard to believe that someone who is not man enough to identify himself is a true Montanan. Sniping annonymously is a coward's way.
So, you are fourth generation rancher. That means that some of your ancestors likely played a role in the elimination of the wolf in this country in the first place. Well, they'd probably be more than a little ashamed of their great, great, great grandson "Little BlueandGray". I've shared your earilier correspondence with several "other" Montana ranchers that are close friends...and quite honestly, they say you're off your rocker if you think wolves are just fine...and ain't hurtin' a darn thing.
Do you ever get outta your pickup and spend some time in the Montana outdoors? (I'm not talking about riding around and checking cows.) I would bet that in the past 25 years, I have spent as much, if not far more, time in the Montana outdoors and back country as you have. There's far more to getting out than killing things, especially when one shoots several hundred rolls of film in the outdoors every year.
And don't be so sure that I have never hunted in Montana.
You assume far too much for someone who claims to know so much.
Wolves need managed, and if you don't think so, you're not only a coward who hides behind an internet name...you're also an idiot...and probably a wolf supporting politician to boot.