Having eaten their way through over 30,000 elk since introduction, it could be that elk reproduction is now no longer sufficient to feed the former number of wolves. Therein would lie the crux of conflict that has wolf killing wolf. There is no dollar menu in Yellowstone. No garbage cans to tip over. A wolf has to go out and earn its dinner, the old fashioned way. Tooth and toenail. Wile and cunning. I just hope the USFWS is not running a Madoff Ponzi with this wolf thing. If the pantry is empty, gee, what can we do?

Now that elk are many fewer, and the sheep and deer populations are also lower, a predator that has no problem making a 1000 mile try at finding a more secure spot to obtain a good meal could have just plain left the country. Greener pastures, as it were.

My advice to wolves would be to find the weaker of the bison, and have at it. And, you had better damned well stay up to some sort of sustainable numbers because all those wolf faeries who come to howl at you and watch you through spotting scopes in winter will be sorely disappointed. Like if they can even see you anymore, now that all the greenery is taking over the countryside because no ungulates can slow down long enough to take a bite, and maybe you won't be able to be seen at all.

I forwarded this to an elk I know, and she texted me back with a smiley face. This news has delighted her. She so does want to raise at least one calf in her life. Grizz, wolves, coyotes, cougars, all have been raising holy Ned with her mothering, and she has yet to have a calf live to see November.

Perhaps those mangy wolves ought to seek the counsel of the Vice President elect. He has gained hair enough to warm a bald spot from just above his eyebrows to the nape of his neck. Hairplants for Wolves. Now that would be a great charity. Ranks right up there with the Grizzly Bear artificial insemination group from Polebridge. Making a difference.

One of the great food sources not being now accessed by introduced wolves is wild horses. And now that economic bad times have hit, those wild horses are getting new neighbors daily as no longer affordable city horses have no where to go. Not to meat as the slaughterhouses have been shuttered. Not to slaughter in Canada or Mexico because our Sunday working Senate will see to that festering national problem of first tier importance. The old horse farms are full up. So tearfully, they are driven to federal lands and let out of the horse trailer and put on the public range to fetch a living. That is pissing off the indigenous wild horses, who keep them from water holes, kick the snot out of them, and won't show them the tricks they need to know. Perfect wolf food, those naive city horses. And a lot in one package, too. Maybe that is where the wolves no longer in Yellowstone are headed. Looking for those waifs from town on the great commons. Even Little Red Riding Hood is on orange alert.

Why did this news release not talk about the condition of the prey base at all? You know that it has something to do with there being fewer wolves.

Sure barebate. Less than one thousand wolves have done in 30, 000 wapiti and thousands of deer, sheep, cattle and other ungulates!
No damned wonder you rightwingcrazies want to eradicate them again...

So less wolves. Wow, has anyone noticed the eating isn't bad in on the outside of the park as well. Ranchers do not have any say or rights over this debacle. Sure they get reimbursed for livestock losses but it isn't worth it. They are told by the Fish and Wildlife service to hire more help to monitor the movement of the wolves. What a joke. The living made by these agriculture people do not need to be complicated more by the wants of a few who think the wolf is a necessary product of Montana. They have enough to worry about with commodity prices, weather, land usage, conservation, production worries etc. If I were a wolf I would ignore the boundaries of Yellowstone and wander out in the plains and grab up and nice juicy lamb or two from the band or sheep. Or, go after the young calves in the spring calving season. What is better than beef? Not to worry about "where's the beef?" cause there are no beef in the park. Who is kidding who here? The damn wolves aren't going to stay in the boundaries of the park if there is more comfort and food on the outside.

JR: you drinking? Nowhere did I suggest or claim that wolves need to be killed. I was just pointing out the folly of THINKING that wolves would NOT eat through the low hanging fruit, live luxuriously, and then have to eat each other as making a living in a more competitive world became the norm. They are, you know, wild animals. Tooth and claw. Blood has to be spilled to maintain dominance and a spot at the top of the food chain.

If wolves kill each other, you cannot blame that on right wing crazies. Right wing crazies are people who think killing a third trimester baby is wrong. Right wing crazies are not advocating killing more wolves. Right wing crazies have ideas that there is a bureaucracy to manage wildlife for more than just to keep it off the ESA lists. Right wing crazies think left wing brilliance is their identity with priorities. Like here the world and the US is, embroiled in wars, famine, recession, world wide economic decline, and the brilliant left wing is working sundays to protect unroaded public land from development by designating it Wilderness. Eyes on the ball, those left wing thinkers and doers. Solving the world's problems, one at a time. I just hope they are smart enough not to put a banner over the front door to the USDA offices saying "Mission Accomplished."

If the same people who count wolves also count votes in Minnesota, you know the fix is in. Now that IS right wing crazy talk. Right?

Ha bearbait you are such a card. It really is a dog-eat-dog world out there.

Nature is cyclic. Years, seasons, birth/death, nitrogen/carbon/water, etc. etc. etc. AND predator/prey/rescource cycles. Unlike us highly intelligent humans, most organisms have a built-in population control. An animal population will increase and decrease and increase and decrease and so on and so forth according to the laws of nature. The more humans interfere with natural predator/prey/resource interactions, the more we F%&@ up our environment. LEAVE THE WOLVES ALONE!

Furbar, get yourself a llama. They are great a protecting sheep. If I were a wolf I stay as far away from you and your juicy lambs as possible, beleive me. I don't like people.