Wildlife Management
Public Comments on Wolf Hunts: More Pro Than Con, Still Divisive
Associated Press analysis of more than 450 comments sent to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks shows support for the hunt as well as an anti-hunt campaign by Defenders of Wildlife.By New West Editor, 6-27-11
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On July 14, the commissioners for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks will likely OK a quota of 220 gray wolves for the revival of the much-debated hunt this fall.
In advance of the hunt, FWP sought public comments. Today, the Associated Press released a report on its analysis of those comments.
Not surprisingly, the comments range from extremes, with some advocating trapping and poisoning. The story by Matthew Brown, a Billings-based reporter, includes the e-mailed comments of “Barry from California,” who referred to wolves as “hounds of hell” and said their reintroduction was instigated by subversives bent on “destroying our nation.”
That’s followed by Barbara Laxson of Mansfield, Texas, who decried the “senseless killing of God’s creation.”
“What are you crazies doing up there in the beautiful state of Montana?” Laxson wrote.
Many of the comments came from outside Montana and Idaho, which is finalizing the details of its own hunt following April’s Congressional delisting of wolves from the Endangered Species List. FWP received comments from people in the United Kingdom and South Africa.
But Montanans for and against the hunt also weighed in.
The AP reports:
“This vicious cycle will continue to allow too many wolves to prey on our remaining, already low (deer and elk) populations,” said Patrick Byrne of Anaconda.
But others said a large wolf population is needed to restore balance to the natural landscape by cutting down on overgrazing by elk and culling sick and weak animals from big game herds.
Norman Bishop of Bozeman suggested the Northern Rockies region could support up to ten times more wolves than the current population of 1,651 in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington.
“Let the wolves perform their keystone role in ecosystem recovery,” Bishop wrote.
Of those who submitted original comments either by letter or e-mail, roughly two-thirds were in favor of the hunt or wanted it expanded, according to the AP analysis. The remaining one-third wanted the hunt canceled or urged restraint in the setting of quotas.
A mass e-mail campaign generated by Defenders of Wildlife generated 215 comments in opposition.
Idaho is expected to announce its quota in late July.
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Comments
Read more: http://www.ravallirepublic.com/news/state-and-regional/article_a45c91f2-a05c-11e0-bb7a-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1QUuGAOXV
A little more truth in your headline would be nice to see.
President of Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation David Allen, I have apologies until I am blue in the face for our organization ever supporting the wolves.
We must get the wolves under control that will take 10 years and THEN ANOTHER 20 years to build the elk, moose and deer herds back up. This is not about wiping the wolves out but controlling them.
David Allen President of
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
http://yellowstone-is-dead.myshopify.com/products/yellowstone-is-dead
This article is a pack of lies and propaganda.
The Amicus and Intervenors were not allowed because Molloy will toss the case out.
http://biggameforever.org/bgfcosponsormap.pdf
The headline suggests what you're getting at: there were more commenters pro wolf hunt than against it. Not sure your point is valid in regard to that.
Not so comical, but illustrative, is Norm Bishop. Parkie naturalist, in on the introduction, public servant, now on a public pension, completely bought into the wolf-worshipper numbers of 4300 and up.
Wolves are a part of our eco systems. BLM land is my land and I prefer wolves. I dont' want cows, sheep on my land..and seems like senatros dont' want to hear that...what they hear is kill the wolves...why? is you property..prtoect it. Cows, sheep is property of ranchers so they need to watch and prtoect them instead of whinning and whinning...
Couldn't agree more! Sport hunting is a coward sport.
I don't go to your neighborhood or state and tell you how to live, and I don't go to your neighborhood or state and release murderers and thieves.
You folks have it all wrong. PEOPLE live in Montana. People like you who are trying to make a living. We don't have an industrial base. We have agriculture and tourism. Throw in a few mines and a little timber cutting. We have folks who make their living guiding hunters and raising cows. Why do others have the right to stop economics for these folks? By the way, hunting brings in way more money that wolf watching. But why not have both?
Besides, a good wolf pelt is worth about $500 in the right market. Renewable resourse! Wolves are not going away. We just want some control over the issue.
By the way, I hunt. Eat every bit of it also and would much rather see an elk in my neighbors (or my own) freezer than in a wolfs stomach anyday. Makes a big difference in the meat bill in the winter. Cowards sport? You try it. Not that easy to drum up an elk.
We will have wolves regardless of a hunting and trapping season or not.
You folks should have no say in it. Keep in mind their are tens of thousands of them in Canada and Alaska. Its not like they are gonna go extinct regardless. Now, moose in yellowstone might be extinct in another 10 years due to this reckless experiment, but it will make another good nonprofit lawsuit for another group.
Psychopaths Michael? Typical prowolfer. Namecalling and threats. Nothing new here.
Plant some candian wolves in the middle of your state, or your backyard. See how your neighbors like it.
Stay away and leave us alone. We have been managing wildlife sucessfully for 100 years. Never had this many elk, deer, antelop, or moose until the canadian wolves were imported.
Barbecue is free starts at 4:30 p.m. Sponsored by Idaho for Wildlife.
This is NOT an Animal Rights Group but a sportsmen watchdog group that uses REAL science. Dr. Charles Kay will speak to the community of Salmon, Idaho. Everybody is invited to hear the only "expert" that predicted this ecological disaster clear back in 1993!
"There are two AND ONLY TWO solutions to livestock depredations by wo...lves. Get rid of the livestock or get rid of the wolves. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. Ranchers need to understand that ALL non-lethal methods eventually fail and are not a permanent solution."--------Dr. Charles E. Kay!
Dr. Kay is speaking in Salmon July 9th.
Grant County, Oregon: The Solution To Tyranny
Has The U.S. Forest Service Locked You Out Of Favored Sections Of Public Land...Has That Agency Enacted Overly Stringent Rules & Regulations That Make It Impossible To Enjoy Publicly Owned Forests...Have USFS "Law Enforcement" Taken On A Gestapo Attitude & Disposition? The Following Is About One County In Oregon That's Said "Enough Is Enough!"
By Former Sheriff Richard Mack
On June 14, 2011, “We The People” of Grant County, Oregon, gathered together in the Union High School Gymnasium to support their Sheriff. The reason they did so, was to listen to me give my presentation on the power of sheriffs and the duty they have to uphold and defend the Constitution. But more important than coming to hear me, these good people came to express their appreciation for their sheriff. You see, their Sheriff, Glenn Palmer, actually believes it's his job to keep his Oath of Office! He actually believes that protecting the people from the enforcement of stupid laws and out of control government officials is his responsibility. So much so that he has put himself on the line, subjected himself to the scrutiny and ridicule of the mainstream establishment, as he courageously stands against the U S Forest Service! Yes, Grant County, OR, a small county of not even 7,000 people and 5,000 square miles, has set the example for the entire country as to how we restore freedom in America! A Sheriff doing his job, keeping his oath, and with the support of the people, standing together for liberty.
This did not happen overnight. The people have long endured abusive regulations by the Forest Service. The sheriff has been been working to have the USFS curtail their whimsical enforcement for years. Lately, it has fallen on deaf ears. So he was forced to take stronger action. Finally, he wrote the Forest Service a letter. Here is the letter in its entirety:
Teresa Raaf, Supervisor
Malheur National Forest
Patterson Bridge Road
John Day, Oregon 97845
Ms. Raaf, March 31, 2011
Regarding the pending cooperative policing agreement between the US Forest Service and the Grant County Sheriff, I am advising you in writing that I will not be signing the agreement. I do not believe that it is in the best interest of the people I serve or the Grant County Sheriff’s Office to continue with the agreement.
There are several issues that I will bring to your attention that at this point I will not go into detail about.
The issues include, but are not limited to, how US Forest Service LEO’s treated citizens of this county in October and November of 2010, Travel Management Plan, illegal road closures, grazing, logging, wood permits, prescribed burns, unemployment and other socio-economic issues this community faces today. There is a general mistrust of the federal government by the people of this County, State and Nation.
You are aware that I had sent at least two requests to the US Forest Service asking for information that pertains to where the US Forest Service gets its Constitutional authority to have law enforcement officers within Grant County.
One response that I have received in writing is that their authority is given through the Cooperative Policing Agreement that this agency has signed in the past. Upon asking for clarification and a second request, the response was that I needed to check with my District Attorney. Neither response in my opinion is adequate.
Under Article 1 Section 8 of the United States Constitution, the federal government is limited in its powers and authority. Your jurisdiction as I see it is limited in nature to the Federal Building in John Day.
Within the confines of Grant County, Oregon, the duties and responsibility of law enforcement will rest with the County Sheriff and his designees.
Sincerely,
Glenn E. Palmer
Sheriff for Grant County
So, here we have a small-town sheriff standing against the Federal Government on behalf of his citizens. You know, the people the sheriff actually promised in solemn oath to protect and defend? Well, this Sheriff meant it. He takes his oath seriously and intends to keep his word. He has been ridiculed and sharply assailed for his stance. The local newspaper has been part of this criticism and some other local officials who would never have the courage to do such a thing, certainly have the courage to complain about Palmer. One such coward actually criticized the sheriff, not because he was wrong, but because his stance could cost the county federal funds! In other words, don't stand for what's right, do not try to keep your oath, become a political prostitute and grab the federal money! Is this not the political correctness of the day? Don't do whatever it takes to keep your oath of office, do whatever it takes to bring in the money! Thank goodness there are those with the honor and integrity to stay out of the corrupt mainstream.
There is one other fantastic part of this entire situation. The people have taken it upon themselves to stand with their sheriff. The newspaper, The Blue Mountain Eagle, has on its June 1, 2011 issue, a full-page ad with approximately 600 names on it from citizens of Grant County. The ad has as its headline: SUPPORT OUR SHERIFF. Then the subtitle reads: The following citizens stand behind our County Sheriff Glenn Palmer, his oath of office and the constitutions. This is an example to all Americans, to all leaders of this great country, a small county in eastern Oregon just demonstrated how we preserve our Constitutional Republic; we have sheriffs, who keep their oaths, who stand for liberty, and then you have the people, yes, how the entire Constitution starts, We The People, stand with their Sheriff!
I am honored to have seen all this in person, to have shaken the hand of this good Sheriff and his good wife, and to meet the people of this great county. I spoke to this crowd and in the middle of my presentation I announced proudly that it was an amazing experience to be in a place in America where the County Sheriff actually has the courage to just do his job! The crowd of about 500 went wild with applause, standing and cheering for several moments.
This is the answer, this is the solution. Grant County and Sheriff Palmer have shown us the way! As sheriffs and other local leaders stand for freedom, we take America back county by county and state by state! And of course, don't forget the key ingredient, “We The People.”
Please send me a letter "pony express" and just put my name on it and my town, Potlatch, Idaho 83855; and I will will receive it. lol
Mike
I encourage everybody to take the time to look over this website and it's credentials, and vast library of Dr. Charles Kay's research work, as well as other top leading wildlife experts.
Ken Cullings
Who's writing for you now, Bruce? You're actually almost literate. But, that doesn't change the fact that we send you data with actual causes and mechanisms, you send back stories with a focus on only your favorite herds. Nothing new sin...ks in because your head is made of stone. The only reason you even care about elk is because you think you're going to lose some ability to kill them. All you want them there is for sport, not for any love of wildlife. You just make that shit up in a childish attempt to divert from the fact that you're nothing more than a hypocritical douche bag, Bruce. A semi literate, hypocritical douche bag.
Ken Cullings BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! You just make stuff up as you go along don't you. Oh man, you're fun to read. It's late, thanks for the good laugh and once again exhibiting your intellectual short comings. Have fun at your anti wolf cult and butt sniffing meeting in Salmon.
The elk herd on the West Fork of the Bitterroot, in western Montana, had only seven calves for every 100 cow elk, alarming biologists who say the herd won't survive without at least 25 calves per 100 cows. Idaho's long-declining Lolo elk herd was down to 2,000 from a record 16,000 in 1988.
This is the documented facts that Kenny could not handle. When you have to play childish game Ken you lose I am dealing in facts not you looking up at the Stars LOL
Nasa Scientist Accused of Using Celeb Status among Environmental Groups to Enrich Himself.
· Location: Lemhi County Fairgrounds
Address: Fairgrounds Rd off of Hwy 93N, Salmon, Idaho
Date: Saturday, July 9th
Time: Free Barbecue dinner at 4:30, Dr. Kay Speech at
6:00 p.m.
Directions: At the intersection of Courthouse Drive and U.S. Highway 93 North; leaving Salmon on U.S. Highway 93 North
you will travel 3.5 miles. Turn left onto Diamond Creek Road. The Lemhi County Fairgrounds main entrance is located to the left
For a map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&xhr=t&cp=21&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=571&bih=264&wrapid=tljp1309452312500020&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=lemhi+county+fairgrounds&fb=1&gl=us&hq=fairgrounds&hnear=0x535827a17476bfd3:0x3a50dae98e70aff6,Lemhi,+Idaho&ei=IqgMTuK5G4fCsAOqr8SLDg&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=image&sqi=2&ved=0CAQQtgM
"In the final analysis, wolf recovery has nothing to do with wolves. Instead, ,it is all about the elimination of livestock grazing/ranching and the banning of hunting. Just look at the stated agendas of the groups that sued to keep wolves under federal protection."
"There are two AND ONLY TWO solutions to livestock depredations by wolves. Get rid of the livestock or get rid of the wolves. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. Ranchers need to understand that ALL non-lethal methods eventually fail and are not a permanent solution."--------Dr. Charles E. Kay!
"Hunters claim that they pay for "conservation" by buying hunting licenses, duck stamps, etc. But the relatively small amount each hunter pays does not cover the cost of hunting programs or game warden salaries. The public lands many hunters use are supported by taxpayers. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service programs, which benefit hunters, get most of their funds from general tax revenues, not hunting fees. Funds benefiting "non-game" species are scarce. Hunters kill more animals than recorded tallies indicate. It is estimated that, for every animal a hunter kills and recovers, at least two wounded but unrecovered animals die slowly and painfully of blood loss, infection, or starvation. Those who don't die often suffer from disabling injuries. Because of carelessness or the effects of alcohol, scores of horses, cows, dogs, cats, hikers, and others are wounded or killed each year by hunters. In 1988, 177 people were killed and 1,719 injured by hunters while walking through the woods or on their own property.
Hunters say that they are "ethical" and follow the concept of "fair chase." What is fair about a chase in which the hunter uses a powerful weapon from ambush and the victim has no defense except luck? Furthermore, despite the hunting community's repeated rhetoric of "hunting ethics," many hunting groups have refused to end repugnant practices that go above and beyond the cruelty inherent in all sport hunting. There is clearly no "fair chase" in many of the activities sanctioned by the hunting community, such as: "canned hunts," in which tame, exotic animals - from African lions to European boars - are unfair game for fee-paying hunters at private fenced-in shooting preserves; "contest kills," in which shooters use live animals as targets while competing for money and prizes in front of a cheering crowd; "wing shooting," in which hunters lure gentle mourning doves to sunflower fields and blast the birds into pieces for nothing more than target practice, leaving more than 20 percent of the birds they shoot crippled and un-retrieved; "baiting," in which trophy hunters litter public lands with piles of rotten food so they can attract unwitting bears or deer and shoot the feeding animals at point-blank range; 'hounding," in which trophy hunters unleash packs of radio-collared dogs to chase and tree bears, cougars, raccoons, foxes, bobcats, lynx, and other animals in a high-tech search and destroy mission, and then follow the radio signal on a handheld receptor and shoot the trapped animal off the tree branch."
http://www.adn.com/2009/10/07/965401/hunter-cited-after-bear-killed.html
http://www.adn.com/2009/10/07/965401/hunter-cited-after-bear-killed.html
No other group of people are responsible for killing more wildlife than hunters themselves. The destroyers of wildlife have to resort to name calling when the facts and truth are thrown at them.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351877,00.html
So tell us what life is like as a herion addict and how many lives you destroyed and ruined with your addiction????
“Who wants a wildland project here in American the NAZI WOLF LOVING LUNATICS.”
“the Nazi are still here in America supporting the wolves.”
“That the Nazi wanted a wildland project no differences between the NAZI’S then and you wolf loving lunatics here in America”
“Just like the NAZI that study was buried and the public not allow to see it. Kind of sounds like NAZI propaganda doesn’t it. Or should we talk about the NAZI way the anti American wolf lover so called expert that flew up 6 weeks after Kenton Carnegie was killed and said he saw a bear track in a picture. That sound like NAZI propaganda but then truth on the wolf issue is precious and hard to find I wonder why. Oh that right the NAZI propaganda hiding all the wolf attacks on people.”
” Wolves never balance nature that is propaganda ploy to convince people to accept Nazi thinking. ”
“Nope you far left wing extremist can’t handle the truth that you are in the NAZI wolf cult it is documented fact and you hate the truth.”
“NAZI THAT SUPPORT WOLVES IS A FACT LIVE IN DENIAL ALL YOU WANT YOU ARE FOLLOWING NAZI WOLF PROPAGANDA”
“So all the wolf lovers are supporting the whole Nazi thinking here in America.”
“Hitler called all hunters poachers. Wolf lovers call all hunters poachers wonder where they got that connection LMAO”
“All wolf lovers are anti American Eco Nazi’s Hitler played the same game on the German people about saving the wildlife and worshipping the wolves.”
The Moose population in Yellowstone National Park trend count shows a
decrease to almost zero.
(Source: 2009 Wolf-Ungulate Study Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks)
Moose haters should get more wolves in American maybe you can help wipe out
all the moose in the lower 48 good job.
That is the problem with the truth soon or later you all have to grow up
and face the facts.
The Gallatin Canyon elk herd trend count between Bozeman and Big Sky has
dropped from around 1,048 to 338 in 2008.
(Source: Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks)
• The Madison Firehole elk herd trend count has dropped from 700 to 108 in
2008.
(Source: Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks)
• The calf survival rate for those same elk herds mentioned above, where
wolves (and bears) are present, is extremely low amounting to as little as
10% or less recruitment or survival rate. Nearly any wildlife professional
will tell you this is an unacceptable recruitment or survival rate.
Acceptable wildlife science tells us that a 25-40% survival rate is
necessary for herd sustainability. Studies show that each wolf kills up to
23 elk from November through April; that equates to up to 40,000 elk killed in six months. This number does not include those elk killed for food by wolves from May through October. While the number of elk killed per wolf from May through October is less than the number from November through April, it is still considerable; and that is just the elk killed for food. These numbers do not account for those elk simply killed by wolves (surplus killing) and yes, that does happen. Nowhere near the majority of these elk kills are simply the sick and the old.
"'Natural regulation' is a failed ecological hypothesis that must be
rejected as a valid scientific interpretation of the real world." -Dr.
Charles Kay
Do some research. One of them is a wacko (Bruce Hemming) that is obsessed with Nazis. This is what one of these anti-wolf wackos believe.
“Who wants a wildland project here in American the NAZI WOLF LOVING LUNATICS.”
“the Nazi are still here in America supporting the wolves.”
“That the Nazi wanted a wildland project no differences between the NAZI’S then and you wolf loving lunatics here in America”
“Just like the NAZI that study was buried and the public not allow to see it. Kind of sounds like NAZI propaganda doesn’t it. Or should we talk about the NAZI way the anti American wolf lover so called expert that flew up 6 weeks after Kenton Carnegie was killed and said he saw a bear track in a picture. That sound like NAZI propaganda but then truth on the wolf issue is precious and hard to find I wonder why. Oh that right the NAZI propaganda hiding all the wolf attacks on people.”
” Wolves never balance nature that is propaganda ploy to convince people to accept Nazi thinking. ”
“Nope you far left wing extremist can’t handle the truth that you are in the NAZI wolf cult it is documented fact and you hate the truth.”
“NAZI THAT SUPPORT WOLVES IS A FACT LIVE IN DENIAL ALL YOU WANT YOU ARE FOLLOWING NAZI WOLF PROPAGANDA”
“So all the wolf lovers are supporting the whole Nazi thinking here in America.”
Hitler called all hunters poachers. Wolf lovers call all hunters poachers wonder where they got that connection LMAO”
“All wolf lovers are anti American Eco Nazi’s Hitler played the same game on the German people about saving the wildlife and worshipping the wolves.”
When you point out to Bruce that he's a loon, he gets very angry. He doesn't want others to know that he's a loon.
"In the final analysis, wolf recovery has nothing to do with wolves. Instead, ,it is all about the elimination of livestock grazing/ranching and the banning of hunting. Just look at the stated agendas of the groups that sued to keep wolves under federal protection."
"There are two AND ONLY TWO solutions to livestock depredations by wolves. Get rid of the livestock or get rid of the wolves. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. Ranchers need to understand that ALL non-lethal methods eventually fail and are not a permanent solution."--------Dr. Charles E. Kay!
Dr. Kay is Speaking in Salmon Idaho July 9th.
did you read my article on psychotic pervert that threaten to kill the Senator? Did you know him? Why is it your crazy wolf cult has so many lunatics that want to kill people. Does your cult teach hate of humans what is it Loon?
“Who wants a wildland project here in American the NAZI WOLF LOVING LUNATICS.”
“the Nazi are still here in America supporting the wolves.”
“That the Nazi wanted a wildland project no differences between the NAZI’S then and you wolf loving lunatics here in America”
“Just like the NAZI that study was buried and the public not allow to see it. Kind of sounds like NAZI propaganda doesn’t it. Or should we talk about the NAZI way the anti American wolf lover so called expert that flew up 6 weeks after Kenton Carnegie was killed and said he saw a bear track in a picture. That sound like NAZI propaganda but then truth on the wolf issue is precious and hard to find I wonder why. Oh that right the NAZI propaganda hiding all the wolf attacks on people.”
” Wolves never balance nature that is propaganda ploy to convince people to accept Nazi thinking. ”
“Nope you far left wing extremist can’t handle the truth that you are in the NAZI wolf cult it is documented fact and you hate the truth.”
“NAZI THAT SUPPORT WOLVES IS A FACT LIVE IN DENIAL ALL YOU WANT YOU ARE FOLLOWING NAZI WOLF PROPAGANDA”
“So all the wolf lovers are supporting the whole Nazi thinking here in America.”
Hitler called all hunters poachers. Wolf lovers call all hunters poachers wonder where they got that connection LMAO”
“All wolf lovers are anti American Eco Nazi’s Hitler played the same game on the German people about saving the wildlife and worshipping the wolves.”
You are the biggest loon of them all.
http://destroyersofwildlife.blogspot.com/2011/03/wolf-cult-threatening-to-kill-senator.html
Straight from the loons in the wolf cult. Have plenty more Timmy unlike you that is so dumb you can only post over and over again the same thing. LMAO weak tiny nobody the exposed coward hiding behind a fake name.
Let's take a look a few more lone nuts in the destructive wolf cult.
YouTube user that's another lone wolf cult nut----wolf7586 "You must be a fuckin' HICK! Makes me sick and makes me want to hunt the rednecks down, chop their dicks off, tie their sorry asses up, skin 'em alive, throw their skinless asses in the dumpster to get infection and use their skin as a lampshade for my trophy."
YouTube user that's another lone wolf cult nut----whitewolfyofohu "humans need to be managed. they over populated"
YouTube user that's another lone wolf cult nut----Cool Power 77 "God, I can't wait to shoot down some girly hunters well I have to go, get my rifle ready to kill myself some weak humans, because there 2 many uncompassioned and stupid once around."
YouTube user that's another lone wolf cult nut----TheStrangeRanger "Hunters are psychopaths. They are vile, deplorable and evil."
YouTube user that's another lone wolf cult nut----childofspring100 "WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT KEEPING YOUR DISGUSTING SHIT TO YOURSELF!?? MY HUSBAND WILL FIND YOU AND BREAK YOUR TWIGGY ASS NECK YOU FUCKEN LOSER!"
YouTube user that's another lone wolf cult nut----Anonymous931 "Oh so you support the hunting of wolves? You motherfucker,i support the killing of you!!!"
YouTube user that's another lone wolf cult nut----JohnMuise "Ignorant my fucking ass Although i would gladly shoot you on site for the fun :P"
YouTube user that's another lone wolf cult nut----sunkawakanska "im going to start building a F E M E CAMP FOR YOU AND YOUR HUNTERS. AND THEN ONE BY ONE IM GOING TO LET ONE OF YOU OUT TO BE HUNTED"
below objectives, tag opportunity has been reduced by 60% for controlled elk hunts, general season hunt tags are now quota, first come first served. It is not in IDFGs best interests to come forth and admit those elk herd ESTIMATIONS are in error. They only co...unt sections of the state every five years, and those counts are estimates. So anyone claiming the consistent 100K give or take a few thousand elk are wrong, if Idaho is maintaining 100K in average elk herd numbers why cut hunting tags for elk, over the last five years now. Why have thousands of hunters refused to hunt Idaho?
And the other thing is this, I travel to all known winter ranges and look for elk herds, now those herds are reduced to bands of elk. I've done this for 35 years for various reasons, antler hunting, scoring bulls on the hoof, watching for trophy mule deer bucks, and more recently to compare herd size to what is standing in those places now, compared to elk herd numbers I have known to be in those locations historically. Idaho is suffering in a predator pit. PERIOD
Idaho hunters and outfitters have been telling anyone who would listen that wolves are “decimating” the state’s game herds.
Wolves are taking their share in some areas like the Lolo, but there are still a lot to go around, Moore said.
“We have ample elk in most of our zones,” Moore said."
In its August newsletter, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game summarized recent elk studies and found only a minority of elk populations are declining and wolves are culprits in few.
A third of elk populations are increasing even though wolves have been in Idaho since 1995. Though statewide numbers have dropped some, claims that wolves are wholly responsible for declining elk populations aren’t holding up.
Craig White of Fish and Game said the agency’s wildlife division conducted elk studies in 11 of the 29 state elk management areas between 2005 and 2008. The sample included five of the six areas in the state with declining populations. White said biologists tried to collar approximately 30 female elk in each area, but didn’t provide exact numbers.
“We selected areas we thought would be representative for a snapshot of what was happening across the state,” White said.
Biologists found that wolves killed significant numbers of collared elk in only one area, the Lolo zone along U.S. Highway 12 in north Idaho. Over the three years, the report claims wolves killed 20 percent of the Lolo sample, or about six elk. Three-quarters of the collared elk survived, less than Fish and Game’s survival goal of 88 percent.
White said deteriorating habitat in the Lolo zone has contributed to declining elk numbers since at least 1988, before wolves entered the picture. The population dropped by 40 percent during the severe winter of 1996-97 alone. Bears and cougars also kill many elk. Just across the border, Montana biologists are starting a similar collaring study in Ravalli County, where one factor of elk decline may be high human population growth.
The report said wolves caused the highest number of deaths in two other areas with declining populations. But in the Smoky Mountain zone west of Ketchum, where wolves were said to have killed 5 percent of about 30 collared elk, other predators and hunters together killed 7 percent. The Sawtooth zone, west of Stanley, had similar results.
Conversely, the report showed that hunters were the biggest cause of elk kills in two other areas with declining populations: the Pioneer zone east of Ketchum, and Island Park near Rexburg. In the Island Park zone, hunters killed 17 percent of collared elk while wolves killed none.
White said Fish and Game ran a shorter study starting in 2008, collaring 6-month-old calves in just the Lolo and Sawtooth zones. In both areas, wolves killed around a third of the calves. But in the Sawtooth area, only one-third of calves survived, meaning other factors were also to blame.
The conclusion that wolves don’t have a greater effect on elk runs counter to the expectations of many. In July 2009, an informal Fish and Game survey of 2,500 out-of-state hunters found that three in 10 didn’t plan to visit Idaho because of the perceived effect of wolves on elk populations.
In the late ’90s, even ecologists like Scott Creel of Montana State University expected wolves to kill a lot of elk. But after eight years studying the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem where wolves are numerous, he’s learned that other factors are more likely to reduce elk populations.
Before wolves were reintroduced, elk populations were larger and elk stayed in the open, which is what hunters got used to, Creel said. Now, he said, elk may be acting like they did before wolves were eliminated.
Given time, Creel said, he thinks both populations would stabilize. He noted population sizes are only considered “good” or “bad” based upon arbitrary ideas of what the size should be.
“No predator has ever eliminated its food,” Creel said. “Change is always the most dramatic at the beginning, then population numbers settle.”
Hunters do all this and more because we do also care about those animals we hunt. Wolves have to be controlled otherwise the elk and deer are not going to be there for our grandchildren to see better yet hunt. Idaho for Wildlife is trying to save the elk and deer from this demise so ya they are absolutly for wildlife. Please get true facts not emotions when looking into what hunters are about.
Uhm no, Idaho for killing wildlife is trying to save the elk so them themselves can kill the elk.
Paul
POMPOSITY RUN AMOK
What is Hal Herring smoking? His mindless diatribe (“Wolf Blowback and Wolf Fatigue”) to conclude “wolves are here to stay” totally ignores how they got here and how that same precedent will eliminate hunting and fishing soon on the remaining “woods and waters” he is so fond of. But that is just ignorance gone to seed.
The biggest faux pas of this armchair composer is his either naïve or purposely misleading statement that “wolves are no longer under the protection of the feds”. Hello, is anyone in there? Try reducing their numbers below FEDERAL numbers. Try eliminating them North of some highway or East of some River. Try excluding them from some big game habitat in the winter of some calving or lambing (bighorns) grounds in early spring. The federal “gubmint” and those radicals you guys have been rolling around with for the past few decades (as you posed as hunting and fishing advocates) will stop you and your state in a New York second.
If you and such writers don’t see how the next step of the new USFWS Director and his supporters is to use “Listing” Prairie Chickens and Sage Grouse to eliminate bird hunting, you belong in the Ladies Magazine Business. Your silence on federal Invasive Species legislation and blind support for federal “Buy/Ease” everything out there to burn it and close it and then “restore” the plants and animals they want is criminal given your public persona. By the way and FYI those plants and animals they want are NOT the ones old Hal et al get paid to wax so poetic about.
If you and Hal are “fatigued” go see a doctor and find a profession you can handle. These days, this one needs a few good men – girlie men need not apply.
Jim Beers
30 June 2011
If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.
Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist,
Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting at
See you in Salmon. I will look you up.
"Shoot a wolf, save 15 elk, 20 deer, a few moose (iif any are left), and a couple of the neighbors cows"
Looking forward to the event, and meeting the ranchers and citizens of Lemhi that lived this this federal experiment.
I will have my camera as well, but will be asking permission to film as I hear this event is being well recorded and covered all ready.
That's what happens when politics take over, and common/horse sense is buried.
Happened the last time, and will happen again humans are a creature of habit, instead of smarts.
The livestock owners will be jumping from legal to illegal to protect what is theirs, and the rest get to make the decision. "Houston we have a problem"
Confirmed: Wolves killed a teacher in Alaska
“We’re confident this is a wolf attack,” Holloway said in an interview Thursday. “To be extremely precise, it’s an animal attack of some sort. But we think that all probability and the preponderance of all the information we have is that it was wolves.”
“The tracks alongside the drag marks, and the fact that the drag marks had blood in them probably means that she was alive as they were moving her,” Holloway said.
I thought the wolf cult told everyone that wolves are safe around people.
The wolf lovers in and out of State overstep their bounds and stepped right into big ol' pile of poo. As a long shooter I look forward to reaching out and touching lobo from a far.
Great hunting everyone.
The number one illusion they all have is that wolves are absolutely no threat to humans, and rarely will come on to a person's private property and kill livestock. They actually believe that flaggery propaganda is effective, as they think wolves are so shy, they will avoid any human scent.
It is really frightening to still hear these women and even young men without any real-life skills in the outdoors still believing in the "Balance of Nature Myth," taught by Dr. David Mech. They all believe that wolves kill only the weak, sick, deformed, or old elk or moose, as well as other prey.
They believe entirely the myth of the "Alpha Male mating the Alpha Female for life," and they are the only fertile pair in a pack of wolves.
The illusion that "elk" need wolves is interesting as these naive Easterners or Californians really believe that Idaho was one big elk farm, prior to wolves.
Isle Royal and Yellowstone Park research studies by Durward Allen, David Mech, Craigheads, Maurice Hornacker, Jim Peek, Mark Boyce, are studies and articles that have used "artificial ecosystems" without one main "factor" man! The students from different states and cities, have no concept of this.
Somebody mentioned, "Houston We Have A Problem," above in one of the posts....yes we do, and it's with our Universities Natural Resource Departments. Everything at the University now is being taught as Ecosystem Management, even Range Livestock Management Courses are being cut out of the curriculum, like Timber Management courses in the College of Forestry.
It's now referred to as Range Ecosystem Management. Hands off and list every plant and species for protection.
If you want to receive a good grade, you have to complete written assignments within the perimeters of "politically correct answers," not based on fact, science, accuracy, but what the professor wants to hear.
If you write a term paper, you better write on a subject that is approved by the Professor, and with a premeditated outcome for approval, or you will lose a grade or two.
Until we get real biologists teaching these courses, you are not going to have real wildlife managers in your state agencies.
1. That all wolves are seeking your children and grand children so they can eat them up before they get to grandma's house, to eat her. 2. That wolves will eat livestock only. Wolves are horrendous/bloodthirsty killers.
these illusions come from right here smack dab in the Gallatin Madison Yellowstone area.
Ann, The statement you made above is so-far from reality, that this is why the non-essential political experiment is a failure, because it started as a social modification experiment to "force the Western people of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming to co-exist with wolves, even on their own private property, and allowing the federal wolves to destroy private property without just compensation."
Secondly, as Dr. Charles E. Kay stated above, the wolf experiment had nothing to do with restoring an endangered species, because (they were never endangered) but had everything to do with ending hunting and grazing on our State lands, and National Forest Service lands. Look up the Wildlands Project and Agenda 21, and you will see that wolves are being used as a "tool" to get people to move into cities, and off the land.
Question. "Where did you get the idea sportsmen can easily kill wolves?" IDFG couldn't kill wolves with helicopters aerial gunning them.
I have the opportunity to meet locals off campus, and obtain on the ground field observations from these communities. I think you are doing the people in the WEST a huge disservice when you marginalize ranchers, and "mothers" that live in highly infested, areas with dense populations of wolves. If you made the "Little Red Riding Hood" remark in Elk City last winter, or even now, I can guarantee you not one mother would let you leave that town, "without having their fist raised in the "air" after you said this publically. They had wolves killing elk right by the school, behind the dumpsters, right in town all winter. Not to mentioning their dogs, horses, and livestock which belong to "famlies" with children.
There are wolves living in areas of these states, where wolves historically have never been seen or documented. They will also tell you these artificially high-density numbers of wolves have created a predator pit, and a disease infested zone states, and communities are now experiencing people with hydatid disease, something the "experts" were warned about, but chose to lie to the public.
Why isn't Dr. Charles E. Kay invited to University Classrooms to speak to Wildlife Biology students? Why did Ed Bangs try to have Dr. Charles E. Kay fired from the Utah State University? It sure didn't have anything to do with Science or the Truth!
Thirdly, I have never heard ONE person say wolves eat only livestock. Idahoans and Westerners have seen with their own eyes how these wolves eat and sport kill our elk, moose, deer, mule deer, and big horn sheep. The reason this is such a scientific disaster, is because it started off as a corrupt political scheme, and has been a profitable one for all the plaintiffs.
Why do you think Friends of the Clearwater are suing again, along with two other groups. Greg McFarlene was overheard at a Lochsa Land Swap Meet, of telling a local that, "We have made mistakes, and we didn't realize "balance" was needed." This person was very excited he actually admitted they were wrong, but I reminded her then why are they suing again, it's about money.
So let's stick to facts............or is that impossible with the "w" word?
I live it, I know if I want to protect my livestock, half the time it's legal and half the time it isn't. Humans have not got the ability to 'police' themselves so they depend on others to do it for them. tell that to your Dr.s and scientists.
How would you eat meat, if all you had to kill it with was what you were born with? and how fast could you kill it? Don't try the 'they are blood thirsty killers' crap on me any more than they won't eat domestic animals, and attack humans. We all know it's possible.
So get out from the desks and classrooms and get out here. Buy some livestock, tend it like your supposed to and take notes.
Tree huggers and wolf haters wear the same clothing on this, leaving livestock owners screwed coming and going.
I think these ranchers have a different story to tell about wolves. Terri Tew, who with her husband, Tim, manages the LF Ranch near Augusta, Mont., - known for its wildlife and tolerance of predators - once told me, "We're not always sure why we should go through all this with losing calves and staying up all night, just so somebody from back East can come out here for a week and listen to a wolf howl."
Kathy Konen of Dillon, Mont., probably felt the same way when she arrived in her family's sheep pasture on private land to find that wolves had killed 120 rams in one night in August 2009. Some ranchers lost priceless breeding stock they'd built up through generations of careful genetic management.
I agree Wtih the Ranchers, but because of wolf haters we can't shoot to protect our own, they have to bring some other idiot in to do what we should have the RIGHT to do without all the red tape tree huggfers and wolf haters produce.
Kathy had a terrible loss the first time and if this is the same one that allowed it to happen twice in the same pasture should have learned the first time it was a dumb place to put them without someone having a good rifle, and good shovel.
So many wolves were killed they stopped the hunt??? Ann are we talking about one little quota area, or the entire state? Do you know how many wolves are in Montana or Idaho?
You get out from behind the desk and get in the woods. Sounds like you are another government employee working for the park.
I would like to see a place like this. lol You live by Yellowstone Park, and NEVER have been cognizant of a cow or horse, pet or human dieing because of wolves in this area.
There hasn't been a human killed yet, because the park is armed heavier than a war zone. We had a Yellowstone Park Ranger come visit our class, and he was telling the students how regularly shot wolves with rubber bullets to deter the from campgrounds, hikers, chasing tourists on bikes. He also said that the wolves started killing cattle and sheep including stock dogs with in the first weeks of being transplanted.
Are you new to the area?
I don't make the rules, I'm a livestock owner that suffers from the extremes on both sides of the damn fence. Don't you see, I'm in the middle, and you guys keep changing the tightness of the wire.
One time I have the complete legal right to drop one of those wolves, to protect my livestock, the next I have some idiot telling me ooh no there aren't enough of them you can't shoot them, Then we have another a$$ come and tell me I have to pay some other idiot to come and trap/kill/relocate or whatever you want to politically correctly call it. In the mean time, I lose animals, the wolf gets away with 'murder' and you guys are bytching back and forth in some court room. Or Office.
I'm a RESPONSIBLE livestock owner, I tend my animals, and I will protect them, whether the one in CA likes it or not, and I don't give a rat's south end about the keyboard puncher in Montana either. I will deal with it when it happens.
All I have to do is open a window and squeeze off a round. Doesn't mean I'm out to kill the dumb thing, but that is not off the table either. Do you guys get it now? it's people like you that make this hard on people like ME!
Can't say we haven't lost to cats, coyotes, and grizzly. Can't say it won't happen. but wolves are not stalking the forests looking for children and pets.
You must know Bill Hoppe then, his family has lived near Yellowstone longer than any ranch family down there.
I'm confused now, are you saying you are a pro-wolf rancher?
give me a break. Just today I found a pack of the stupid things without even have trying. And they have not been Id'd by IFANG.
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. but I know where they are.
Either getting a little money on the side to say such gibberish, or is a "hobby rancher" if a rancher at all.
Don't take these nuts to seriously.
We know we don't have a chance of getting rid of all this wolf vermin, but we want some control.
One young lady WAS killed by wolves in Alaska. How long before we lose one of the collegiate joggers from Bozeman?
Make up your mind Ann. One minute you saying all the wolves are going to be hunted down in one feller swoop, and the next you are the "model" rancher, tending your stock and that's why you haven't lost a cow. Sounds like the phoney ass sportsmen excuse we'll hear. Lazy hunters they need to work harder to get their elk.
I smell a phony ass rancher.
I'm not a lawyer. I agree with Sheey-it something doesn't smell right.
Your not another fake wimen are ya?
Bunch of sick cult member.
Ann, the fake rancher, 10 acres does not a rancher make. It is pretty easy to identify a fraud when they spew such lunacy. Hunters killed to many wolves? Really? I think they were relisted because of a greenie judge and a legal loophole in the dysfunctional ESA. But, hell, what do I know?
The fully devolved Ken Cullings, sitting in Cali, bilking off the public coffers, pushing his anti-human agenda. Just another non-impacted cull thinking everyone else should live under his opinion. No thanks Ken, bring the dogs to your state if you want the mutts so bad.
And of course the bias author, who you can sense his disdain for the fact the lies have finally ran out and their dog is going to be brought into the management is was suppose to be in 2002.
You have to give DoW credit though, they are holding on to this cash cow to the bitter end. Just tell more lies to the emotionally intoxicated and guilt them into another 25 bucks to "save" the wolves from persecution.
I hate to break it to you folks, but the science is in........and the wolves need thinned. And thinned they are going to be. But, it will be okay, Ed Bangs had to prove they weren't endangered before he was even allowed to take any for his little non-essential project.
How big is this centennial spread of yours?
WEST side of the park is a hell of along way from where Hoppe lives have you ever looked at a map?
So take your 'pot' shots all you want. I want to be able to kill or not, ANY THING if it is after my livestock without having to look over my shoulder because it might be against the law, or some kill hungry jerk gets 'buck-fever' and kills one of my dogs or injures a horse.
What the hell difference is size, of the property, I don't owe anyone for it can you say the same about your 'holdings'? I don't have an apartment or house sitting in some incorporated town, I have horses and rescues that are my responsibility, I border the National Forest, which Borders the National Park.
. Anything else you want to know? Yes we still have outhouses on the property, and propane for lights in case the power goes out. And yes we cut wood for the fireplace, and wood stoves. yet we are modern enough to have other 'conveniences'. For instance the Ice-box holds towels instead of ice now. Is that proper enough for you? The homestead cabin is still livable. Although there is no indoor plumbing over there. Anything else?
Make it good and natural, so only the california backpacking croud can use it.
As staqted, it is not about wolves. Its about controlling land and eliminating hunting.
Yeah, I can be pretty disgusting. It could be worse.
Bob"south side chicken little " Fanning,
"Pencil neck" Hemming,
"little" Barry Coe,
altered reality,
'Honey-wagon' Dickinson,
"truck-stop" Chandie,
bj beck,
et alia.
What a crew of butt-nuggets
People go to jail for crimes. We can do something about that.
Until now, we had to sit back and wait for a federal officer to come and have a look. Now we are opening the door to a new look. After the wolf season experiment fails, they will be labeled predators. Then we can call them and hunt em and control them. There will still be wolves regardless, Ann. Let em eat your cows. Use the deterrents, do whatever. Nice thing for you that you won't have to worry about the elk eating your grass. To bad they can't wack the buffalo. Guess you will have to put up with them.
BillieJoe, same ol, same ol. You are dealing with a bunch of city slickers who don't understand economics, hunting, or predator control.
As usual, Jeffy boy comes back with slanders and insults. Typical wolf hugger.
Hey boy quit picking on these Idaho ladies! You want to pick on somebody your own size give me a holler. You need slapped around a little for manners, we don't cotton to transplants picking on our wimen up here.
Tim-Jeff, I'm baptized Catholic, and I am praying for you.
A Poll in Upper Michigan a full 83% said delist and get these wolves under control. In hearings held in every Wisconsin county on April 11, 2011 a question of support on federal delisting was favored 4,402 to 526, passing in all 72 counties.
What is left a radical tiny far left wing fringe group spreading hate. They worship the wolves like a craze wild eye cult and attack anyone that does not worship the wolves. Talk about lunatic fringe. Just a cult of hate they hate hunters they hate cowboys they hate ranchers they hate dogs they hate deer they hate elk just an all around cult of hate.
Protecting ones livelihood or providing for your family sometimes requires such measures, so when it comes to wolves meat hunters don't mind a little help from the sport hunters.
I heard him give the same number in late 2009 to an audience at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Dr. David Mech became persona non grata in the "more wolves are good community" when he said the wolves needed to be controlled and if they counted 1700, there were easily twice that many.
On the other hand when Smith finally admitted that there were only a little over 4000 head of elk left in the northern herd, he assured us there was nothing to be concerned about, he's not worried. Probably because he is getting big $$$$$ research grants to figure out why the elk are disappearing.
What transplants do you have??
Once again, Free loaders bitching about the people who pay the bill. When is the last time one of you "Bird Watchers" actually supported the wildlife in Idaho. Let me remind you that unless you buy a hunting license and tag, You have contributed NOTHING.......And your little Fluffy harmless wolf in 15 years have Destroyed the Last 80 years of Conservation in Idaho, MT, and Wy.
But, That really is a mood point now. Season will be set on July 27,28. And by Aug we will be killing wolves. By air, By trapping, and by hunting. All the while benefiting not just the Elk that is Left in this state, but by buy Wolf tags, Once again Paying for conservation. And by benefiting the Local economy that count on Non resident hunters.
The North American Wildlife Conservation Model
Triumph For Man and Nature
by Shane Mahoney
The North American Model of Hunting
Henry David Thoreau once said, “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.“
Nothing could better describe the pattern and process of creating the most successful wildlife conservation program in the world, the North American Wildlife Conservation Model. Begun well over a century ago, this guiding philosophical framework rescued wildlife from slaughter and restored to this continent an astounding natural abundance. Its achievements can only be understood against the backdrop of the destruction that took 40 million buffalo to the brink of doom and 5 billion passenger pigeons beyond it.
Without the revolution in values and the entirely new approach to wildlife use that first emerged in the 1830s, we would today face a continent without white-tailed deer, pronghorn antelope, elk, wild turkeys, wood ducks and hundreds of other cherished life forms. This history is entirely lost to the great majority, not well known by many, and well understood by far too few. What is most regrettable is that modern society, energized as it is for the conservation of nature, has no understanding that hunters and anglers led the revolution to save wildlife on the North American continent and remain today the most stalwart legion of support.
This series of essays is dedicated to bringing a better understanding of this history and of the North American model of wildlife conservation to Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation members. In turn, I hope you will help your fellow hunters and anglers better appreciate our history of achievement, and encourage all of us to the level of commitment delivered by our earliest leaders. The model, and the rescue and recovery of wildlife it engendered, succeeded against all odds. In so doing it preserved the cherished traditions of hunting and angling that remain the spur to our passion for conservation. May it always be so.
The Formative Years
As human kind wanders beyond the frontier of the 20th century, we look ahead to a time of uncertainty and enormous challenge. On diverse fronts—economic, political and social—there is an arresting escarpment of deep-set realities that collectively threaten the future of us all. At the same time those challenges call upon the unstaunchable flow of human creativity and our nearly perverse capacity to rise beyond defeat and turn aside what appear to be the inevitable outcomes of history. These truths collide with clarion force at the edge of humanity’s greatest challenge; namely, how to sustain ourselves in a natural world that only we can protect. Nature and wildness, we know, must be maintained if civilized society, indeed our very humanness, is to survive. Yet it is our humanness—embodied in successful reproduction and a constant demand for finite resources—that imperils all of wild nature. We dance on the head of a pin. Yet we have faced such challenge before, and out of our deliberations created the most successful conservation strategy of all time.
In 1871 a new monthly newspaper appeared in the United States. It was called the American Sportsman. In hindsight, what may have seemed just another example of American entrepreneurial effort represented, in fact, an amazing shift in social and civic conscience that would ordain the rescue and support of wildlife for generations to come. Although clearly not consistent with the prevailing notions of conquering wild nature in the name of civilized progress, there was emerging in the United States (and to a lesser degree in Canada) a minority who considered the aristocratic “hunter nobility” of Europe an alluring model in the new post-Civil War society. In the New World everyone could be an achieving capitalist, after all, but someone had to take responsibility for establishing and preserving traditions.
Emerging simultaneously was a powerful and growing recognition that animal populations once considered limitless were, in fact, exhaustible, and that the commercial exploitation of these resources was rapidly leading to local depletions and even national extinctions. Bison, elk and pronghorn were tumbling to scarcity for their meat, bone, hides and teeth; egrets and other shorebirds for their plumage. Beaver were moving toward extirpation east of the Rocky Mountains and wild turkeys and white-tailed deer were clinging perilously to the swamps and cane brakes of the South. The concerns of sportsmen grew in scale and scope as their favored haunts were laid bare of wild nature and their passionate experience with it was forfeited to those who viewed the financial value of the dead animal as the only goal worth pursuing. In the glazed eyes of fallen nature was foreshadowed the end of a way of life, of something precious and irreplaceable. The personal relevance of both man and wild nature were now at issue.
Suddenly there was both a cause and a concern. Sportsmen’s voices echoed across the continent, engendering new publications such as Forest and Stream (1873), Field and Stream (1874), and American Angler (1881), and demanding that a codified approach to the taking of wildlife be established, a prescription for both human conduct and motivation. Wild beasts and fishes were to be taken only in the measure of what a man could use, and not by what he could sell. The rhetoric may have been better than the practice of course, but there can be no doubt that this fledgling philosophy was just that, a new way of seeing wildlife in the New World. Indeed it was a new way of seeing it even by world standards, for while the European gentleman hunter was an elite by right, the North American democracies of Canada and the United States demanded that he be one by conviction. North American hunters and anglers thus began a crusade for wildlife and hunting both, not just as a means of preserving their own access to wild nature in the manner they chose, but also as a means of preserving wild nature in such abundance that permitted future generations their own prerogatives and positions.
Thus did the hunter-naturalists of mid-19th century America launch both an intellectual and social revolution. Their concerns for preserving traditions and for embellishing their physical undertakings in the field with an awareness that they stood for something greater than themselves represented a classic incarnation. Suddenly wildlife, for a growing number of people, was becoming tied to their personal identity, their sense of nationhood and civic responsibility. Conserving nature was becoming a matter of national importance. Hunters and anglers were not yet certain of how they would make it so, but their unrelenting passion for recreation afield and for the new conservation ethic meant that inevitably it would infiltrate the ranks of the political elites. Through their magazines and hunting clubs, they spread the gospel of personal restraint and thoughtful consideration in the taking of wildlife. They were more than just meat hunters and far more than the despised market hunters—they were the protectors of the resource. Yes, they clearly had a vested interest, but one that was in the best interest of all. Hunters and anglers could, and would, do right by doing what they loved. It really was a New World, and the frontier of citizen leadership was to be nowhere more decisively delivered than in the arena of wildlife conservation.
By the 1860s, and for the three decades that followed, the efforts of hunters and anglers in the United States were not only pervasive, they were well organized. The passionate commitment to resource conservation was matched by an enduring pragmatism that saw grassroots political establishments as a key to long-term success. Given the time and conditions for communication and coalition building, we can only marvel at what sportsmen achieved in this period. It seems incongruous, but by the time of Custer’s defeat at Little Bighorn, hunters and anglers had already established nearly 500 associations of various kinds dedicated to resisting further loss of wildlife populations and restoring those that had been depleted.
And hunters and anglers did not intend to wait for the perfect circumstances. True, it would have been advantageous for infrastructures to have been in place at federal or state levels, where the responsibility for wildlife resided; but the reality was that no such framework existed. It was up to the individual—organized in groups of diverse persons but of common purpose—to force social awareness in the right direction. And sportsmen led this charge by what Mark Twain called the “hardest thing in life to put up with,“ namely, the setting of a good example. Sports-men’s groups lobbied everywhere for new legislation and for enforcement of existing laws. They urged restraint, not only upon others but upon themselves. The significance of such efforts can hardly be overestimated and remains the most striking evidence for something truly new and revolutionary in the emerging hunter-conservationist code.
Consider the irony, the sheer contrariness of this agenda of “measured take.“ In the absence of any social mores or local, regional or national laws to the contrary—and yet in the presence of nationalistic doctrines espousing personal freedom, entrepreneurism and the moral imperative of subduing nature—hunters and anglers, out of passion for nature and their engagements with it, hounded legislators to enact and enforce laws that restricted the very activities hunters and anglers were so passionate about! No more precise exemplar exists of how the common good could be served by conscientious individualism. Equally profound is that this doctrine relied on the taking of nature, not on simply viewing it. Somehow the freewheeling utilitarianism of America found deep expression in a model of near religious empathy for nature that was no ephemeral fashion. Well over a century later, this phenomenal revolution rolls on, and many of its diverse doctrines can be traced to the founding years of mid-19th century America.
Hunters also initiated early perspectives on landscape diversity, valuing systems for their wildlife production and not just their aesthetics. Hunters understood the importance of wetlands long before it became hip to preserve swamps, bogs and potholes. To these practicing naturalists, an ecological perspective came . . . naturally. They appreciated the “seasonality“ of wildlife and fish production, and were thus led to acknowledge the connectedness of landscapes and the importance of life history sequences. It made little sense to protect winter habitat of an animal but suffer the loss of its birthing or rearing sites. Furthermore, the limits of nature were understood in terms any wildlife manager of today would immediately grasp. Those who spent time pursuing wild things learned the challenge of doing so and, along the way, observed their competitors in action. The forces of weather, food and predation were not abstract or foreign to the hunter and angler; rather they were the everyday realities encountered by living creatures. Man’s access to wild nature had to be prescribed within this framework and had to be calibrated by an ever-changing formula of production and decline. Change was constant and only by careful study could the measured, sustainable use of wildlife be undertaken. Around this conceptual corner lay the field of wildlife science, the forerunner of ecology and conservation biology.
Hunters were also the first to draw attention to the escalating effects of industrialization. These effects were particularly evident in the continent’s waterways, where dams and pollutants of all sorts were drastically degrading water quality and where fish populations were declining at a calamitous pace due to commercial netters. The response of sportsmen to this crisis was direct and practical. They launched a restoration blitzkrieg that saw fish hatcheries emerge across the country in a seemingly contagious spasm. They poured letters and articles to the various sporting journals, forcing an awareness onto the public and political consciousness that for the first time in North America would translate into a coordinated national effort to deal with an environmental concern. The program and debate were so intense that in 1871, the same year that Henry M. Stanley found Dr. Livingstone, and a year before Yellowstone National Park was set aside, the United States Fish Commission was established.
This federal initiative was designed to evaluate the status of fish populations across the United States and along its coasts, as well as to assist in coordinating restoration efforts. Working with state commissions and private hatcheries, the new federal agency declared that restoring wild nature was a mandate of national government, and, just as important, that it could be effectively undertaken. While it is true that many releases of exotic fish species injured native stocks, it is also true that, once more, American hunters and anglers had moved beyond complaint to action and had, in fact, done something of greater significance. They had jarred the country’s very notion of itself, launching an engagement with a future that few could imagine. Somewhere between arriving and becoming, American society was moving—at least in its understanding of wild nature’s value—from conqueror toward custodian.
Hunters and anglers for conservation! The movement was underway. Having discovered how the long limb of passionate opinion works leverage in the halls of power, sportsmen nurtured their coalition of clubs, hatcheries, journals and gatherings into a movement with political force. While protecting their clubs’ streams and hunting lands were regional undertakings designed to ensure hunters access to naturally abundant fish and game, their progress in securing wildlife legislation, in drawing attention to the trail of unfettered industrial progress, and in spurring the nation to responsible action over declining fish and wildlife populations identified hunters and anglers as champions of a wider, less selfish cause.
Hunters of wild nature had linked their notions of personal achievement to a sense of duty to the land and set forth an embryonic philosophy bursting with potential. Sportsmen, even if they are sometimes reluctant to admit it, were the very first environmentalists in North America. By the last decades of the 19th century, they were already a force to be reckoned with. All that was required to drive their fervor for nature into the nation’s marrow was that essential ingredient without which no revolution can succeed: the hunter conservationists needed leaders larger than life. Essentially they required a move to power.
It's a beautiful day! Transplants, we got some great Oregon Spring and Early Girl tomatoes this year.
I wanted to highlight that point in the article I posted! It's very important for everybody to understand that sportsmen and anglers led the revolution to preserve and protect our wildlife for ourselves and future generations.
Dr. Charles E. Kay is speaking at 6:00 p.m., in Salmon, Idaho, July 9, 2011. This event begins with a free barbecue at 4:30 p.m., and Dr. Charles E. Kay will give his presentation after wards.
The event was transferred to the Lemhi County Fairgrounds, directions are posted above, and come see what IFW is all about, and meet the only "expert" that couldn't be bought off by the feds to lie about wolf introduction.
This is going to be a historical event, already there has been attempts to stop this meeting from taking place by "false" rumors that IFW was another anti-hunting, animal rights group! You would be surprised to find out who "started" this rumor. lol
truckstop chandie with the bad back, what time is your shift at the truckstop today?
Tim Jeffery Eagen and friends from Ralph Maughan's blog, Wildlife News, you are a credit to this non-essential experiment, thanks for falling for the bait.
Thank you for serving our country, I am very grateful to all our servicemen that served in all branches of the military, in the past and the present. Like Memorial Day, we should be honoring those that fought so valiantly this weekend, so we could live in freedom.
Yes, I do pray for those people like Tim Jeffery Eagen, who attends a Catholic Church, and others as well, because being a Christian also means forgiveness of our fellow-man.
Have a great Fourth of July, and see you in Salmon, ID on July 9th!
Oh..that's right, it isn't regrowing. Why you ask? Well, because just as was shown in past studies, drought was more to blame than grazing. It should start taking off soon though as the natural drought cycle is now moving to the wet end. Of course, as this happens the greenies will claim wolf success even though an 85% drop in elk showed no recovery of aspens. It is the great thing about fraud, you just change the story enough and eventually you will find something to claim success on.
The truth of the matter is, we no longer have a need for biologists, science no longer matters. Now that the lunatics seem to think 'natural regulation' is the end all of end alls, we should just walk away from all habitat, fire all the scientists whom buy into this garbage and see how it works out in another 15 years. Perhaps one day, when the truth is finally exposed, people will once again realize humans have a part in nature. Although I wouldn't hold my breath with the current crowd of human hating lunatics.
It is probably a good thing these wolf lovers have no idea of how many wolves in ID and MT are having a very, very, bad spring. Although IFANGS may not be able to find them, word has it, plenty of people are. You can tie things up in a bureaucratic quagmire for as long as you want, but eventually the people affected will just do what needs done.
Lemhi County tested I believe 67% infestation of hydatid tapeworms in samplings of wolves, and Custer 84% infestation of hydatid. Is somebody going to cover this issue at the Salmon Meeting?
The simple truth is that ungulate populations will not internally self-regulate before having had a serious impact on vegetation. Elk and bison never historically overgrazed Yellowstone or other national parks because hunting by Native Americans kept ungulate numbers low, promoting biodiversity. Giving Yellowstone's bison additional areas to roam outside the park, for instance, will never solve the bison problem. For under "natural regulation," bison numbers will simply increase until the animals are again forced by starvation to move beyond whatever boundary has been set.-Dr. Charles Kay
The problem is your choosing research that focused on "unnatural ecosystems," like National Parks, where hunting and human development such as farming, ranching, and communities don't exist!
Isle Royal and Yellowstone Park should of never been used as a basis or a geographic source as laboratories to push the false theory of "Natural Regulation," due to no humans living on Isle Royal, or the National Park Grounds, except for the "staff," under strict guidelines, or hunting allowed. There are no humans participating in these ecosystems, other than as researcher biologists, or park officials. There is no hunting allowed!
Idaho has never been above carrying compacity for our elk herds. If people were allowed to hunt elk in the park, for example disabled veterans or disadvantaged children, (youth hunts) with incurable diseases or other handicaps, that would of been a great way to reduce the elk population in Yellowstone, without polluting the Park with wolf borne diseases. The Park and the Rocky Mountain states have had their wildlife decimated for an "elitist few," who are socialists using "behavioral modification" to force people, condition them, if you will, to co-exist with wolves. It's not about wolves, saving an endangered species, as they are not and never were endangered, or aspen trees, it's about the land, and deciding who gets to control the land, including private property, and manipulating the humans, especially the rural families to adjust their American way of life, guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States, to accept socialism, and make that transition to hard-core socialism.
There were many alternatives to reducing the elk population in Yellowstone with out losing the genetics of the greatest Rocky Mountain migratory elk herd in the world. Like I suggested special hunts for disabled vets, handicapped youths, fresh-air kid hunts, and even the Park selling Rocky Mountain Elk to other states so they could enjoy the economic benefit of hunting in their state.
It would of been a great solution and alternative, but guess what it wouldn't of achieved their agenda to end hunting, ranching, and force rural communities into economic depression.
Answer this question please...The Modern Wildlife Biologist and Conservationist have been indoctrinated to believe many false and biased studies about wolves, and their interaction with their prey base, and secondary prey base, for example bottom up studies, or top-down.
Professors have taught their students, like in our IDFG agency that predator/prey relationships are habitat driven, bottom-top, not predator driven. This is completely false, and there are many studies that are out, great ones in Canada and Alaska that demonstrate that predator/prey relationships are predator driven, and not habitat driven.
The other false theory, is that wolves are needed to sanitize our ecosystems. Right now we have an outbreak of Hydatid tapeworms infesting wolves, and the sampling of these populations is alarmingly high in several counties that were tested, including the state of Idaho, in addition areas of Montana and Yellowstone Park.
That just kicks the lynch pin right out of wolves are necessary for "healthy ecosystems." They spread disease, that are and can be fatal to humans. There is already a woman who had half her liver removed from Custer County.
Why do you think this is so "hushed up?" Why do you think the people on this forum try so hard to kick us off, and marginalize us with "silly remarks" like me working at a cafe as a college student. These attacks are being monitored, and we are recording them from one group, that specifically blog on Ralph Maughan's Wildlife News. Jeff E is a full-grown married adult with children, attends the Catholic Church in his town, and enjoys a double life of being the good "Christian" on Sunday, but is being "hateful" to his fellow-man as soon as he participates in mass.
Why do you think they do this?
Andy, Key into that term, "naturally regulated" elk. At the time of this study by Dr. Charles E. Kay, he was providing the "data" for Yellowstone Park and the USFWS on the Aspen growth. However, the term "naturally regulated" is incorrect.
In a "natural ecosystem" you have to INCLUDE man. There was NO hunting in Yellowstone Park, or any National Park, or Isle Royal for that matter. Isle Royal didn't have any people on it, or secondary prey populations, other than fish for C.l nublius.
The tapeworm is transmitted to the dogs when they eat an infected animal’s organs. In Alaska, caribou and moose carried the tapeworm. Once the dogs are infected, they can transmit the eggs of the tapeworm through their feces. In humans, digestion of the eggs can lead to cysts in the lungs and liver, called hydatid disease.
According to FWP’s fact sheet, developed by FWP’s wildlife laboratory supervisor and wildlife veterinarian, “Eggs could be ingested while consuming vegetation or drinking water that has been contaminated with feces. Humans could also become infected by not washing their hands before eating if they’ve handled canine scats or contaminated canine fur.”
The fact sheet goes on to state that in the United States, Utah has had the highest number of surgical human cases — 45 —of a domestic biotype of E. granulosus considered to be more dangerous. This other biotype is more typically found in sheep and dogs, not elk and wolves.
Rausch’s work documented 300 cases of hydatid disease in people in Alaska. Of those, only one person died of what he said was anaphylactic shock. Surgeons with the U.S. Public Health Service were initially removing the cysts, Rausch said, but stopped since the infected people showed no ill effects.
When Rausch first started his work, the number of dogs in a village was twice the number of people, he said. As snowmobiles became more popular and fewer people kept large dog teams, the incidence of E. granulosus infection dropped significantly.
“People were infected by dogs, wolves had nothing to do with it,” he said, except to keep the tapeworm alive for part of its life cycle.
In a study on St. Lawrence Island, Rausch found that 100 percent of the arctic foxes on the island were infected with echinococcus. Although island residents commonly trapped the animals and skinned them, there was no incidence of transmission from the foxes to people."
Dr. Rausch is currently 90 years old and still working. He is regarded as the most well respected and knowledgable parasitologist in the usa perhaps the world having studied echinococcus granulosus since 1949. He knows more about it than anyone else.
"I talked briefly with William Foreyt, the Washington State University wildlife disease expert who led the study. He said chances wolves will pass the tapeworm on to people and livestock is low. It was around before the wolves got here and is an issue that has long been managed."
"Transmission of the tapeworm to humans or livestock is unlikely, Foreyt said.
“It’s primarily a wild-ungulate, wolf or coyote cycle,” he said. “If it would occur in domestic stock I think we would have seen it already.”
For humans to contract the tapeworm, they would have to somehow come into oral contact with a wolf’s feces, Foreyt said. Poking around in dried wolf feces might release the eggs into the air, but he said the person would have to ingest the eggs, not just inhale them, for the tapeworm to take root.
Even if a hunter were to eat an infected elk or deer, Foreyt said the chance of infection is “no problem at all.”
“You could even eat the cyst and it will not infect you,” he said. “You’d have to eat the eggs in the feces. You have to swallow them.”
Incidence of the tapeworm in humans is most prevalent in Inuit people because of their close proximity to wolves and constant interaction with sled dogs, Drew said. There has never been an instance of human echinococcosis, called hydatidosis or hydatid disease, documented in Montana, according to the state Department of Public Health and Human Services."
The whole wolf fiasco has been troubling on many sides, one of which is the spread of brucellosis after they were brought in. The disease was pretty well confined to animals in Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP, now there are cattle outbreaks virtually every year. I have asked if there are any studies on the carcasses and the bloody tissue that is carried around by predators and scavengers as well as being carried down stream when an animal is killed in or on the edge of a waterway. I've been told there is no reason to. Why? It seems logical that there would be a lot more infected tissue lying around from year around predation and the resulting tons of bloody tissue than there would be from aborted fetuses or even birthing tissue (which the mother eats).
Andy, I have articles by Dr. Delaine Kritsky, that demonstrates we did NOT have Echinoccocus granulosus prior to wolf introduction.
In addition, there are three people in Custer County with Hydatid Disease now, and this article is about the woman that had half her liver removed.
Remember, even Dr. Mark Drew of IDFG said, negligibly that you have to eat "wolf scat" to contact hydatid disease, and just use kindergarten hygiene and everything is fine. What he left out was you can inhale or ingest the tiny E.G. eggs, as well as the main method of contacting this dreaded disease is mechanical, for example your dogs role or sniff wolf scat and transfer the E.G. eggs on their fur into your home, children are especially vulnerable.
P.S. Dr. Delaine Kritsky did NOT find Echinoccocus granulosus tapeworms in coyotes or foxes in Idaho in studies he did in the 70's and 80's.
Second known case of Hydatid Disease in a humans in Idaho. This man lives in Northern Idaho, unlike the three other known victims in Custer County.
Andy, It has already been transmitted to humans in Idaho. Like all the USFWS, and State Agency "data" on wolf introduction, it's not based on science, it's based on politically convenient biology.
The wolves in Idaho and Montana came from British Columbia where E. granulosus is also prevalent, and according to the public health people from B.C., they are not aware of any human cases in recent memory."
Except it's extremely unlikely that the translocated wolves were carriers when they were released in the NRM, since they were all wormed during their period of captivity.
"E. granulosus occurs practically worldwide, and more frequently in rural, grazing areas where dogs ingest organs from infected animals."
Not exactly a smoking gun pointing to wolves - in fact there were human cases of hydatid disease in sheepherders in Idaho before wolves were reintroduced.
"E. granulosus is distributed throughout most of the world, especially in areas where sheep are raised, and is endemic in Asia, North Africa, South and Central America, the USA, Canada, and the Mediterranean region. It is common throughout Europe, and in the UK there are well-documented 'hotspots' of infection in Wales and the Western Isles of Scotland."
I worked (conducted research) for seven years on E. multilocularis in North Dakota during the 1970′s and indeed as you state it is a very dangerous parasite to human beings. However, the species Echinococcus occurring in the wolves and ungulates in Idaho is Echinococcus granulosus, a close relative of E. multilocularis. E. granulosus is, in my opinion, more dangerous that the strain of E. multilocularis that occurs in the upper Midwest (North Dakota, Eastern Montana, South Dakota and points southeast.
The strain of E. multilocularis in the northcentral states appears to be relatively non-infective to human beings. However, E. granulosus is more dangerous because it’s highly infective to man and also is a parasite of sheep and domestic dogs which much more easily brings the parasite into the homes in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming where human beings can be exposed.
Utah had a focus E. granulosus, during the 1970′s and 1980′s, during which time, people were dying or undergoing dangerous surgery for the parasitic cyst. The Utah focus occurred primarily in rural areas where sheep were raised. My friend and colleague, Dr. Ferron Anderson at BYU, was on a conducting search on E. granulosus in Utah and developed an educational program that primarily included the burying of sheep carcasses and de-worming of dogs, and which eventually eliminated the parasite in central Utah.
The parasite in Idaho will not be dealt with as easily (and I doubt that it can ever be eliminated as long as wolves are present) because wolves and ungulates (deer and elk) will maintain a sylvatic (wild) cycle, which did not occur in Utah during the 70s and 80s. The elimination of the parasite from sheep and dogs, (as occurred in Utah) will not be successful as it was in Utah because the (wild) cycle will continuously provide eggs of the parasite for infection of man and his domestic stock and animals in the future. The only way the parasite will be eliminated from our area it elimination of the wolf.
By the way, you should know that I have examined coyotes, ( which can carry both species of Echinococcus), and foxes from southeastern Idaho since 1974 and never found either Echinococcus
multilocularis nor E. granulosus; Ferron Anderson never found the latter species in Idaho either when he examined canines in Idaho during the 70s and 80s. THAT IS E. GRANULOSUS WAS NOT IN IDAHO UNTIL THE INTRODUCTION OF THE WOLF.
Finally, I asked the Fish and Wildlife Service during one of their public meetings concerning the introduction of the wolf, (prior to wolf introduction) and was “brushed off” by their “promise” that the wolves introduced to Idaho would be “de-wormed” which everyone (and especially they) should have known that such actions are never 100% effective.
WE SHOULD BE ASKING WHO (THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. THE FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE, THE WOLF ADVOCATES WILL BE PAYING FOR THE HEALTH BILLS AND FUNERAL EXPENSES FOR THOSE WHO WILL ULTIMATELY BECOME INFECTED AS A RESULT OF WOLF INTRODUCTION INTO IDAHO, MONTANA, AND WYOMING?
Delaine C. Kritsky, Professor emeritus, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho
I have fished several backcountry areas in the park and guess what? I fish BEAVER DAMS!
There have been beavers in the park for 100 years. There will be beavers in the park for the next 100.
Who ever wrote that nonsense obviously was a prowolfer with an agenda.
In fact, I once ran into some park employes who were breaking apart a beaver dam next to a road because it was getting close to flooding it. I remember it because they were mad about not being able to trap the little buggers and move them.
Aspens or not, beavers can live without them. Go to eastern montana sometime. No trees anywhere, but beaver dams and beavers in the creeks.
northern range because overgrazing by an unnaturally large elk population has eliminated the aspen,
willows, and cottonwoods beaver need for food and dam building materials. Without beaver in the system,
park streams have down cut, which has lowered water tables and destroyed more riparian vegetation. Beaver
is also a critical keystone species whose loss has seriously reduced park biodiversity.
The roots of willows, aspen, and cottonwoods are also critical in maintaining streambank stability, and as
elk have eliminated these woody species, this has produced major hydrologic changes. Dr. David Rosgen,
one of North America's leading hydrologists, for instance, reported 100 times more bank erosion on
Yellowstone's denuded streams than on the same willow-lined streams outside the park.
Last summer, I took Dr. William Platts, one of the West's leading riparian experts, and Dr. Robert Beschta,
a hydrologist at Oregon State University on a three-day field tour of sites inside and outside Yellowstone
Park. What they saw shocked them. After looking at one stream that had blown out and eroded down to
Pleistocene gravels, something that has not happened in 12,000 years- -all because the elk had destroyed the
woody vegetation that once protected the stream banks, these experts declared that if you gave them a
billion dollars they could not put the system back together again. This then is the type of resource damage
that has occurred under "natural regulation" management."
Dr. Charles Kay
I enjoyed your passage by him, but I didn't appreciate you taking it out of context. Here is a PDF file, an article written by Dr. Charles Kay that I think you should thoroughly read. You are missing out some key points in your discussion, and whether it is on purpose or not I am not sure but I am about to explain them right now:
#1 Dr. Charles Kay first mentions that the Native Americans were the real keystone predators in the GYA, not wolves or bears (et. al). Many people dismiss this without a second thought, but that is known as the "Noble Savage" myth.
#2 Studies of the northern elk winter range began in the 1960s and revealed no clear evidence of range overuse (Houston 1982). More recent studies conclude that sagebrush grasslands of Yellowstone's northern winter range are not overgrazed (Singer and Bishop 1990). In fact, plant production was enhanced by ungulate grazing in all but drought years. Dr. Charles Kay did his own studies and concluded that Yellowstone was overgrazed, but there was a reason for his conclusion, which leads me to my third and final point:
#3 Wolves were always rare in Yellowstone. "The information available does not support the belief that wolves were common in Yellowstone at any point in recorded history. There is no historical support for the belief that restoring 10 wolf packs to the park would reestablish the conditions that existed prior to European influences, commonly reffered to as 'natural' or 'pristine' conditions. The data, in fact, suggests that wolves were ALWAYS rare in Yellowstone. (Kay 1994)"
Dr. Charles Kay thoroughly explains how and why ungulates were rare as well, and this is due to point number one; the natives being the keystone predator. Over time, as the Park became a "hands-off" experiment (albeit a terribly failed one), the population increased, and the range became overgrazed (as Dr. Kay explains). However, the point still remains that all evidence points to wolves being a RARE sight in Yellowstone.
"The modern western concept of wilderness as areas without human influences is a myth (Gornez-Pompa and Kaus 1992)."
"The Park Service has never said that wolves must be restored to Yellowstone to prevent elk and other ungulate numbers from becoming so large that those herbivores would overuse their range. So if you believe that wolves need to be reintroduced in Yellowstone to restore a 'balance of nature,' control ungulate numbers, or prevent range abuse, logic dictates that you also have to be opposed to 'natural regulation.' You cannot have it both ways. (Kay 1994)"
Once again, please read it all. :)
This is a great educational video that explains the ESA, how it started out as a way to save endangered species like the Bald Eagle, until the bureaucracy have written laws, that the Congress didn't even write.
Now it's "habitat" and ecosystem management where the whole earth needs to be saved, and they have to create buffer zones, and buffer zones on top of buffer zones, until this nonsense is regulating your own back yard. Congress needs to put a stop to this!
That is what the wolf introduction was all about, they were never endangered from Canada, they dumped them on top of resident wolves in Idaho, for "control" to achieve an agenda, control of the land, ecosystem management.
"In the final analysis, wolf recovery has nothing to do with wolves. Instead, ,it is all about the elimination of livestock grazing/ranching and the banning of hunting. Just look at the stated agendas of the groups that sued to keep wolves under federal protection."
"There are two AND ONLY TWO solutions to livestock depredations by wolves. Get rid of the livestock or get rid of the wolves. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. Ranchers need to understand that ALL non-lethal methods eventually fail and are not a permanent solution."--------Dr. Charles E. Kay!
So, You can Either, Get rid of your cows Ann or get rid of the Wolves.
This is My Favorite...Read his first Comments, He's not For or against. He is However for the REAL Facts and SCIENCE about wolves. And he says in here that the Pro Wolf crowd is NOT using Science when it comes to this debate.
The word is REAL SCIENCE....One of My Favorites from Dr. Kay.
So, I will TRY this again.
http://www.idahoforwildlife.com/CharlesKay/6-1993-wolvesinthewest-WhattheGovernmentdoesnotwantyoutoknowaboutwolfrecovery.pdf
http://www.idahoforwildlife.com/
I have been there and seen it.
All this talk about no willows. Take a trip to west yellowstone and stop by the creek along the way that goes into Hebken lake. WILLOWS every where. You have to fight 50 yards of willows to get to the creek!
I fished the interior of the park and found beaver sign (ponds, bank dens, cuttings, etc) in many places. To say there are no beaver or very few in the park is ridiculous. Beaver are not found anywhere on every bend of a creek. They colonize an area, use it for a few years and colonize another area. Thats why you see so many old beaver ponds along creeks.
All this talk about wolves saving aspen. 20 years ago 90% of the people who claim this did not even know what an aspen tree looked like.
Well, you don't have to worry about elk eating to many aspens now. Moose are pretty much gone, so thats out the window also.
I spent a bit of time during college going on "field trips" with various professors collecting insects, sampling rocks, etc. I am not saying this is not a good thing but what drives that machine? GRANTS. Wanna keep your cushy job at the university and get tenured? You better bring in twice your salary in grant money or you will be looking for a job. A little controversy can go a long way.
You gotta watch these university guys trying to make decisions for everyone else. Its good to have input, but maybe we need a bit more input from the people who have to live the nightmare.
The elk did not need to be "thinned" down, at least, not by wolves. Dr. Charles Kay EXPLAINS THIS in the link I gave you. Those who believe in the (myth) "theory of natural of regulation" must also be opposed to wolves "regulating" the elk overbrowsing on aspen. Since, of course, the "theory of natural regulation" claims that wolves only eat the sick, elderly, or young to leave the healthiest and fittest, there would ALWAYS be healthy and strong elk to continue overbrowsing on aspen.
Here are the quotes from last night again for you since hopefully you'll be paying more attention now:
"The belief that elk grazing was damaging to northern range vegetation and that grazing accelerates erosion, although not supported by research data and analysis, has continued to the present. Studies of the northern elk winter range began in the 1960s and revealed no clear evidence of range overuse (Houston 1982). More recent studies conclude that sagebrush grasslands of Yellowstone's northern winter range are not overgrazed (Singer and Bishop 1990). In fact, plant production was enhanced by ungulate grazing in all but drought years."
"Not only are claims that wolves would lower ungulate populations and restore a balance with the plant communities logically inconsistent with assertions that wolves would not limit ungulates or hunting opportunities, but proponents of reintroduction, who all support 'natural regulation,' apparently do not realize that their concept of the wolf's place in the natural scheme of things is contrary to one of the major assumptions of the 'natural regulation' paradigm. According to 'natural regulation,' predation is an assisting, but nonessential, adjunct to the regulation of ungulate populations. Ungulates are limited by resources (food). If wolves were present, they would kill only the animals slated by nature to die from other causes, primarily starvation, so, wolves would not lower Yellowstone's ungulate populations (Kay 1990)."
"The Park Service has never said that wolves must be restored to Yellowstone to prevent elk and other ungulate numbers from becoming so large that those herbivores would overuse their range. So if you believe that wolves need to be reintroduced in Yellowstone to restore a 'balance of nature,' control ungulate numbers, or prevent range abuse, logic dictates that you also have to be opposed to 'natural regulation.' You cannot have it both ways. (Kay 1994)"
by Thomas A. Lewis
The point of contact between the world's largest herd of migratory elk and 20th-century human development is frequently Yoshi Neff.
Neff lives in Gardiner, Montana, a village of about 500 people located just outside the northern boundary of Yellowstone National Park. Around mid-December, when winter snows cover their food sources high in the mountains of the park, thousands of elk migrate down the Yellowstone River valley in search of lush river-bottom grass. As soon as they step across the park boundary, they confront Gardiner. A barrier to the elks' movement? The elk don't seem to think so.
"You know the opening scene of [the TV series] Northern Exposure [in which a moose wanders through an Alaskan village]?" asked Neff one December afternoon last year just before the annual arrival of the elk. "That's nothing! We had two old bull elk, they were enormous, that for years spent most of the winter walking up and down Main Street. We called them 'Bones' and 'Tines.' Bones got all tangled up in my neighbor's Christmas lights one year and went around for weeks with the lights and wires dangling from his rack."
Bones and Tines have not been around for a few years, but in the winter of 1996-97 Neff had a close encounter of another kind. His relationship with his next-door neighbors was deteriorating because, says Neff, "they wouldn't keep their dogs out of my trash. Day after day I'd find my garbage spread all over the back yard, and they just insisted their dogs weren't doing it. Then one morning I started to go out early and there was this big old cow elk with a plastic garbage bag half pulled out of the can."
For all his problems with them, Neff remains an enthusiastic watcher of the elks' migration: "You ought to see them swimming the Yellowstone, the whole herd grunting and squealing and complaining, the cows swimming upstream from their calves to shield them from the current. It is spectacular."
Others are less sanguine about the presence of the elk. The northern Yellowstone herd has increased from fewer than 5,000 animals in 1968 -- a number that was maintained at that low level by savage culling -- to some 20,000 today, and the expansion has brought accusations of increasing conflict with human settlements, domestic animals and even the environment of the herd's National Park home.
The American elk, or wapiti, is not an easy animal to ignore; indeed, it has been the subject of heated debate since Yellowstone became the country's first National Park in 1872. The elk is the largest member of the deer family except for the moose -- standing five feet at the shoulder, weighing up to nearly 800 pounds and boasting antlers that spread more than five feet. Almost all American elk are found in the Rocky Mountains, where most -- eight herds in all -- spend at least some of their time in Yellowstone National Park. A few herds reside in Banff National Park in the western Canadian province of Alberta; the larger Roosevelt elk is found on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington and California's Redwood National Park, and there are smaller tule elk in central California.
Wapiti have large needs for food and territory. They will eat twigs and leaves, but usually prefer grass and spend most of their time in the open, ranging each day up to 4 miles from their daytime bedding areas to find good grass. Because of their relatively small rumens, elk need to eat frequently and take periodic rests to digest what they have consumed. A mature elk consumes 10 to 15 pounds of forage daily, which means that the northern Yellowstone herd requires around 100 tons of plant material every day.
This expansive size -- of the animal, its appetites, and the Northern Yellowstone herd -- is the basis for a steady drumbeat of controversy, with charges that the elk are devastating the environment both inside and outside the national park. From Gardiner north, a narrow wedge of mostly private land brackets the Yellowstone River between two enormous blocks of the Galatin National Forest. Here the elk are no longer treated as untouchable national treasures. In the National Forest they are just another resource, sharing the grass with domestic cattle and attracting hunters by the thousands every year.
While few elk are tolerated on privately owned grazing land, and no cattle graze within the national park, in the national forest elk and cattle share resources. Cattlemen with permits may graze their cattle on forest land from June to September, while the migratory elk herd uses the land from December to May. "We manage the cattle-grazing to leave about 50 per cent of the forage, and maintain all grass species, for the elk," explained forest service biologist Marion Cherry. "We are not particularly worried" about the state of the grazing lands in the national forest, biologist Cherry said last winter. The animals "generally are not overgrazing the land."
The grazing of cattle on the elks' range has an impact that goes beyond competition for the grass; there is a social problem here. A 15-year study in Montana found that by a two-to-one margin, elk prefer not to share their habitat with cattle. Even after livestock have been removed from grazing allotments, elk seem reluctant to make use of areas that have been grazed and trampled by cattle.
The disdain is returned by cattlemen, who regard the elk as little more than pests. The Montana Farm Bureau has "concerns" about the northern elk herd, according to information director Lorna Frank Karn. "The numbers of animals inside the park needs to be managed, reduced. They're overgrazing the park." And when they come north onto private property, they "get into hay piles, get over fences." Asked what should be done about that, she had a ready answer: "Our members should be compensated for damages." By whom? "Whoever owns the elk."
If the elk are an annoyance to one sector of the area's economy, they are vitally important to another -- hunting. There are two elk-hunting seasons every year in southwest Montana, one in November and another in January and February. The hunts attract sportsmen from all over the world who spend substantial amounts of money for lodging, meals, transportation, guide services and equipment.
The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks sets the hunting seasons and limits with a view to the maximum sustainable harvest of the herd, taking into account a variety of factors including the elk population and the condition of the animals and their range. The state agency is not worried about the condition of the winter range -- "it is not necessarily overgrazed," said Tom Lemke, area wildlife biologist for Region 3. But it is concerned about "the trend to increasing numbers and to expanding distribution. The animals are using and extending the northern extreme of their range more and more." Lemke said the permitted harvest of northern-herd elk during the late season (which affects migratory, as opposed to resident, elk) had been increased every year since it was started in 1976, to an all-time high of 3100 in 1997.
The animals themselves seem to know there the boundary is and what it means. "Inside the park, in the summertime, I've seen a cow walk through a group of people to get to a patch of grass," said Don Despain, a research biologist at the park for 25 years and now an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "Elk outside the park run from humans."
>However, it is the effect of the elk herd on its home environment, within the park, that has drawn the fire of its most persistent accuser, Charles Kay of Logan, Utah. Kay, an adjunct assistant professor of political science at Utah State University, calls the National Park Service's stewardship of the elk (in the title of a forthcoming book) "Ecological Malpractice." >Kay insists that the burgeoning elk population has destroyed thick stands of aspen and willow that grace old photographs of the park, with consequences that include severe streambank erosion and severe declines in the numbers of beaver and deer. Other critics maintain that the park's grasslands are overgrazed.<
Any appraisal of these charges must begin with the events of 30 years ago, when the park service charted a new and fateful course for the elk. Scientific advisors had concluded that the habitat of the northern elk herd could support no more than 5,000 animals, but the herd did not know that, and every year increased its numbers prodigiously. For decades the excess animals had been shipped to other elk ranges to establish herds there, but the method had worked so well that by the late 1950s there was no further demand for emigrant elk.
According to John Varley, who has been the Yellowstone park's chief scientist for 15 years, "the creed of the herd managers of the 60s became, 'We've got to kill 'em to save 'em.'" For the good of the herd, park rangers "killed them by the thousands every year. It got pretty ugly, and it got on television. The public was outraged and the Congress reacted. The country made what you might call a bio-political decision not to do this any more."
But if the rangers couldn't shoot the elk, someone else had to do it. A new park superintendent (Jack Anderson) and a new chief scientist, Glen Cole, were brought in, Varley explained, "to open up the park to hunting. But it didn't work out that way." Don Despain, who was recalled that "Glen Cole asked to see the data showing that the park had been overgrazed before the culling started. There wasn't any data."
What Cole found, Despain explained, were assessments done by commercial range managers, using the standards of managed pasture for fenced cattle, that in Cole's view had nothing to do with the health of wild rangelands, which grow and are grazed in completely different ways. Park scientists have since determined that elk stimulate the growth of the grasses on which they graze, tilling and aerating the ground with their hoofs and fertilizing growth with excreted nutrients.
Furthermore, Cole knew about some important experiments on animal populations that had been done in the 1950s. As Varley described the procedures, researchers put a breeding pair of rats in a cage with a huge supply of food. Every day they gave the rats the same amount of food, expanding the cage but not the food supply as the rats propagated. "What they found," explained Varley, "was that as the rats approached the limits of the food supply they controlled their own numbers." Not by starving or fighting, but in more subtle ways: "lowered reproductive performance -- fewer pregnancies, fewer live births -- and a slightly increased rate of mortality among the very young and the very old. A whole array of biofeedback mechanisms kicked in to stabilize the population."
It was called natural regulation, and Cole thought it might work for the elk. "Maybe we don't need to shoot them," he said, "maybe they will reach dynamic equilibrium." The herd managers backed off, no hunting was permitted in the park, and in ten years the herd reached 12,000 animals and stabilized.
Then, in the 1980s, things got much better for the elk. For a full decade the winters were dry and mild, the summers wet; forage was abundant and death rates low. Where there had been no public land north of the park except for the Gallatin National Forest, ten thousand acres of grazing land was bought and set aside for wildlife. Hunting pressures on the herd were eased: Montana Fish and Wildlife eliminated the "firing line" at the edge of the park where hunters had opened fire as the elk stepped across the boundary, establishing a buffer area and moving the hunters back; and they changed the late hunting season to a series of four-day shooting periods, replacing the former six-day-a-week pressure. The population of the northern herd increased to 20,000, where it has remained since (except for 1988-89, which saw severe fires in the park and a savage winter).
For more than 15 years, Charles Kay has campaigned against the Park Service's elk management policy as not just a mistake, but a conspiratorial heresy. "They take the view," he said recently from his Utah office, "that when the park was established it was a pristine wilderness untouched by man, teeming with wildlife. They regard the coming of Europeans as evil, and insist they have to remove human influence from their ecosystem."
The result, in Kay's view, is an elk population burgeoning out of control at the expense of the ecosystem. For evidence he turns to 19th-century pictures showing abundant stands of aspen and willow where none can be found today because, Kay says, the elk have nibbled the shoots by which these trees propagate. He also points to a series of fenced experimental plots called exclosures scattered throughout the park.
One of them, located a thousand yards or so from park headquarters at Mammoth Hot Springs, is an 8-foot-high woven wire fence that encloses five acres of 12-foot aspen trees, widespread willows and underbrush so thick a person cannot walk through it. The contrast between the so-called Mammoth Exclosure and its surroundings is stark. Outside the fence the conifers are widely spaced and it is hard to find an aspen, willow tree or a woody shrub. According to Kay, the exclosure demonstrates what Yellowstone would look like today if it were not for the elk.
One day last winter, in a book-littered office in the former cavalry outpost that houses park headquarters at Mammoth Hot Springs, John Varley gazed through tall old windows at the snowswept ranges of Yellowstone and considered the elk controversy. "You can make something theological and dogmatic out of natural regulation," he said, "but that's not what it is." You can also oversimplify complex biological situations, and that's what he thinks Charles Kay has done.
For one thing, Varley said, "the exclosures are among the more unnatural things in the park," and make a point about biological diversity that Kay has missed. "Plants, including aspens and willows, occur with about the same frequency inside and outside the exclosures, the differences are in the size of the crown." Moreover, Varley added, "We are losing native plant diversity inside the exclosures. Charles Kay published the data and we spotted the trend."
"Something is going on with the park's woody riparian vegetation and aspen," Varley admitted. But there is more to it than overgrazing. When the 19th-century pictures showing the lush willow and aspen growth were taken, the Northern hemisphere was emerging from the 350-year-long Little Ice Age, during which the Yellowstone climate was much wetter and cooler than normal. In the century since, annual rainfall in the park has dropped from more than 20 inches to as little as eight inches. "This is a semi-arid climate now, and aspen and willow are water-loving plants." You can still find them flourishing, he insisted, but at higher elevations where there is more rainfall.
"If these animals have outgrown their resources, then where are the malnourished animals?" asked Varley. "The fact is these animals are in fine condition." Moreover, should they find food supplies growing short, the response would not necessarily be starvation, but a form of birth control. "Cows with a lower than average amount of body fat do not become pregnant."
All is well with Yellowstone and its elk herds, Varley and his scientists believe, because they are adjusting to each other in ways far more complex and subtle than humans yet fully understand. Under constant criticism, and threat of official review, they retain a sunny confidence in the ability of natural regulation to handle almost anything. What will happen if wolves are successfully reintroduced? A slight reduction in the elk herd. What would happen if there were no longer a hunting season? "Nothing," Varley insisted, natural regulation would take its place.
What would happen to the elk if there were no longer a Yellowstone National Park? To that scenario Varley has a different response. "That," he said flatly, " is unthinkable."
"It is unknown whether the parasite was introduced into Idaho, USA, and southwestern Montana, USA, with the importation of wolves from Alberta, Canada, or British Columbia, Canada, into Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA, and central Idaho, USA, in 1995 and 1996, or whether the parasite has always been present in other carnivore hosts, and wolves became a new definitive host."
Except it's extremely unlikely that the translocated wolves were carriers when they were released in the NRM, since they were all wormed during their period of captivity.
"E. granulosus occurs practically worldwide, and more frequently in rural, grazing areas where dogs ingest organs from infected animals."
Not exactly a smoking gun pointing to wolves - in fact there were human cases of hydatid disease in sheepherders in Idaho before wolves were reintroduced.
"E. granulosus is distributed throughout most of the world, especially in areas where sheep are raised, and is endemic in Asia, North Africa, South and Central America, the USA, Canada, and the Mediterranean region. It is common throughout Europe, and in the UK there are well-documented 'hotspots' of infection in Wales and the Western Isles of Scotland."
"The tapeworm issue has caused quite a stir, mostly on the Internet, said Jim Williams, Region One wildlife manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
“We are getting lots of phone calls and it’s because of the Internet,” said Williams, adding that the department has posted considerable information on its website about protecting oneself from potential exposure.
But Williams and Tutvedt say some perspective is in order regarding the dangers of the tapeworm.
“There are lots of wildlife diseases and parasites, including this tapeworm,” Williams said. “You’ve got to put this thing in perspective.”
Williams noted that coyotes and foxes are known to carry a different type of tapeworm that is “just as bad, if not worse” and deer and other wildlife can carry a variety of parasites and diseases.
That’s why hunters are urged to wear protective gloves when field-dressing game animals, and the state recommends that dog owners have their pets de-wormed.
“It’s a risk but there are a lot of other risks,” said Tutvedt, a rancher who sits on the Legislature’s Environmental Quality Council. Tutvedt said the tapeworm issue came up at one of the council’s recent hearings on wolves. “Livestock and game animals by their very nature come with risks.”
A recent to the letter to the editor in the Inter Lake claimed that wolves were illegally introduced to Montana despite officials knowing about the dangers of the tapeworm.
Williams refutes that, saying that Canadian wolves migrated on their own into the North Fork Flathead drainage in the mid-1980s and have naturally proliferated since then under the protection of the Endangered Species Act."
It's been proposed by disease expert Dr. Foreyt that naturally migratory wolves from Canada might have brought the tapeworm in as these wolves were not treated for parasites. All wild animal carry diseases and sometimes pose risks to people with the diseases they carry. The wilderness is not this place that is free of diseases like some may think.
I would also like to add that gents such as Mr. Jim Beers and Dr. Geist from Canada are also believers that a wolf is a wolf.
It seems interesting that this is yet another story that keeps changing in the wolf introduction. And, exactly how many introduced wolves were there? I would love to see that documentation also.
Or do we just have more undocumented, undated and changing claims?
The only documented cased of HD in Idaho were limited to people who were shown to have been exposed elsewhere. Outside of one group of penned sheep, this tapeworm was never found in Idaho. those sheep were never free ranged or in contact with wild animals. Now, 16 years after introduction, larger percentages of your 'treated' wolves are spreading this disease across Idaho at alarming rates. 5 documented cases in the last two years in humans, but, hell, don't worry about that. The smoking gun of logic is being denied also.
Whether or not they came infected or not, the reality is they are now, and in the name of human health and safety, this needs addressed. Period.
"'Natural regulation' is a failed ecological hypothesis that must be
rejected as a valid scientific interpretation of the real world." -Dr.
Charles Kay
Time to come to reality children and accept the facts the science is real and you are all exposed frauds. LOL
~*~*~*THE NATIVES WERE KEYSTONE PREDATORS. THERE WAS ALWAYS MAN IN THE EQUATION.*~*~*~
When Yellowstone National Park became established and turned into a "hands off" experiment, then -- and only then -- did the elk population grow to a size never before seen in recorded history. Dr. Charles Kay writes about this in his articles, if only you would TAKE THE TIME TO READ IT. Once more, the Native Americans were ALWAYS AROUND to hunt the elk, deer and moose. Wolves were also a scarce predator. He comments on this as well. Because the natives kept the elk population in check, the aspens were doing fine. It was only until we decided to take ourselves out of the equation and make Yellowstone a fake "natural regulation" Park did everything go haywire. Dr. Charles Kay in fact PROVES that "natural regulation" is a bogus hypothesis.
THAT is the proof of his document. The reason that the elk have gotten out of control is not because the lack of wolves, but because the lack of human predators.
I will say this again - read the article.
Talking to the wall is a tiring experience isn't it? The truth is these people are so thoroughly devolved they refuse to admit to mans role in nature, both in the past and in the present. Their belief that man has no functional role on this planet is yet another one of their failed theories that is preached by the likes of Mr. Cullings and his academic colleagues.
The truth is, the only places we consistently see 'balance' problems in our modern ecosystems are those places where they practice their anti-hunting, anti-human failed beliefs. Their insistence of using uncontrollable predators as opposed to using a controllable one is rife with failure, yet they will continue to deny the fact they are wrong. Science be damned, history be damned, logic be damned. The one thing about emotional based opinions is that it makes it very easy to just deny both reality and fact.
The reality is....man is THE apex predator on this planet, man is the only controllable predator with the ability to act outside of raw instinct. And their much maligned "sport hunting" is really nothing more than predator control based on science, using that controllable predator.
Hydatid Disease tapeworms are spread by "canids" therefore if the indigenous wolves C.l. irremotus, had Echinoccocus granulosus coyotes and foxes, would of too.
You might say I am sick of university people pretending to be something they are not. I am sure not saying that some of them are honest and bring forth facts, but I am also saying that what drives the machine is grants.....in other words, MONEY.
I will have to get back to you on all those points in your last post. It's the Fourth of July, so I'm going to be outside most of the day and with friends. Beautiful day!
Happy Birthday America!
You are correct. The seven steps of Propaganda, one of the first steps are pictures. In this case the pro-wolf bias is painfully obvious, they chose a mother wolf with pups, "not a wild litter and female."
They can "push" subjectively a lot of "emotional hooks" here: 1. The poor mother and her pups in regards to the hunting season. 2. They show a family, OMG people will worry about breaking up the family of wolves. Didn't IDFG, USFWS, and DOW teach everyone wolves were like people, they have families like you and I? They forgot to mention the Alpha Male will breed all females in the pack, including his own daughters, and wolves KILL each other it's not uncommon.
So yes this picture is all about pulling at the "emotional heart-strings," of the anti-hunting groups like Ralph Maughan, Jeff Eagen, Robert Hoskins, Ken Cole, etc.
The picture above is definitely a "HOOK" to play to the Anti hunters. My guess would be "More Money" for the cause...(The cause of a new car), due to that ONLY if someone buys a hunting license and tag does it actually help conservation. But, the "Emotionally Intoxicated City folk" don't realize that and Give anyways.
When it comes to Wolves, The IDFG has actually said that they are Now EATING each other. Nice huh..It's ok if a Female wolf kills another female and kills it's pups, but heaven for bid if a Hunter Shoots 1 animal. Talk about hypocrites.
Good job on handling the bait and switch tactic they were attempting with you, to take the readers attention away from Dr. Charles E. Kay's work, and more importantly his presentation on the wolf fraud, this coming Saturday, July 9, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. at the Lemhi County Fairgrounds.
You got them worried!
Did you know that in the 1980's hundreds of Indian babies and children were being killed and eaten, or lifted and disappeared forever by wolves?
You never hear that mentioned do you? Now if I wanted to google the internet like the lazy Ron S., who tried to marginalize me with the "endangered tiger" attempt, I could find all sorts of NGO groups, like DOW claiming tigers are endangered or threatened.
However, similar to the wolf issue, there are different subspecies of tigers. I do know the species are not endangered. In India specifically, the tigers are creating dangerous situations for the peasant communities similar to the over one hundred children being eaten by wolves in India.
The man that called me was from India, and he called me himself. I thought it was a prank phone call at first, and he said, code word, "Dirty Dozen." He said, General Siebles. And I knew I could trust him.
All tiger subspecies are endangered. Do a little research and stop talking about things you clearly know nothing about. The internet is your friend when it comes to information.
Andy, This is a false statement. No wormer is 100% effective in removing tapeworms. Also I have e-mailed Will Graves in regards to this matter and he sent me detailed information on the procedure necessary for worming the wolves or any canid to kill Echinoccocus granulosus tapeworms, and you have to treat them using a specific protocol.
Like I said before, I will go through these points and update them with information and "data" I have been given. Right now I have a lot of company, and it's hard to concentrate with people in the house, and getting involved with the questions themselves like Karen here. So we want to get off the computer, have a good fourth of July.
As for the "tiger' question like in my statement above, not (Karen's), she was on the computer before me...I haven't looked at the "tiger" situation in depth, I don't have time. However, I would hesitate to make a statement about populations of tigers, sub-species unless I studied them. I know from the Spotted Owl, and C.l. occidentalius, that occidentalius is not endangered, and wolves as a species are not endangered, but the indigenous Rocky Mountain Wolf we had living in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana C.l. irremotus was truly endangered, and the sub-species C.l. occidentalius was not the correct fit for our fragile ecosystem. There are over 60,000 of them in Canada.
However, the experts the corrupt USFWS magically practiced politically applied biology, and with a swift wave of the "wand" changed the definition of sub-species themselves, without any peer-review! Even Ronald M. Nowak, disagreed with the original EIS, and was in favor of conserving the resident wolves of Yellowstone and Central Idaho if they could be found. He also defined the sub-species in to five groups, and made a definition between the northern and southern groups of populations using the Canadian border as a reference point.
There was proof C.l. irremotus was living in Central Idaho as well as Wyoming and in the park. They had different characteristics that were unique, when compared to C.l. occidentalius.
Anyways, I got to go, in regards to tigers, I don't have time to study the sub-species and there are several. I'm not an expert on tigers. As far as wolves go, I like many other people that are wanting Science to be used instead of (politically convenient biology to promote ecosystem management), have had to unfortunately without pay... mind-you become C.l. experts, but we get our information from other sources than IDFG and the USFWS, who corrupted this program in the first place.
I would like to remind you that Ed Bangs, the leader of the Wolf Recovery Program in the Rockies, even admitted that lying was appropriate or even condoned, if the end justified the means.
The elitist attitude by Ron S. aka a Wildlife Biologist or Ph.D doctorate himself possibly, maybe even the great Dr.Ken Cullings himself, never seize to amaze me.
The last reference I would rely on for information would be the internet. Talk about hypocritical advice!
Enjoy this celebration of the birth of our nation, and all people participating on these forums or debates have a "right" to speak in America...Ken. There are plenty of Ph.D biologists that are directly responsible for creating a situation that requires Dr. Charles E. Kay's presence in Salmon, Idaho-immediately! Should of been requested or demanded by our legislatures years ago.
By the way wolves don't eat only the sick, old, and weak, and yes they do sport kill. I have a killing field behind my house of carcasses from last winter that were never consumed of elk and deer.
Pay close attention to the introduction, the rest of the preamble and the list of grievances. Make no mistake, history does repeat itself.
It is completely understandable that you would resort to logical fallacies since you have nothing to contribute to this conversation. Henceforth I will not be taking your bait (Red Herring), but instead wish everyone a Happy 4th of July.
Dr. Kay’s address on the 9th will deal with the problems associated with attempts at wolf recovery, mostly in dealing with the truth that wolves have long since been recovered and now the problems are associated with what to do with too many wolves. In attempts to clear up any misconception that Idaho for Wildlife is some animal rights group and that Dr. Kay perpetuates this nonsense, he has offered the following statement:
“In the final analysis, wolf recovery has nothing to do with wolves. Instead, it is all about the elimination of livestock grazing/ranching and the banning of hunting. Just look at the stated agendas of the groups that sued to keep wolves under federal protection.
“There are two AND ONLY TWO solutions to livestock depredations by wolves. Get rid of the livestock or get rid of the wolves. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. Ranchers need to understand that ALL non-lethal methods eventually fail and are not a permanent solution.”——–Dr. Charles E. Kay!
I also talked with people who said these things were not happening. The people who say it isn't happening, couldn't give me any factual information and were clearly basing their facts as an emotional opinion and their love for this one predator species.
I have based my opinion on facts presented by the good people who actually live with wolves in their back yard. You seem intelligent and open minded. Just talk and ask questions because there are so many aspects and agenda's involved with wolves that it's just hard to type them all out in one post or comment thread.
Sportsmen are now seriously questioning how USFWS chose to bring in an entirely different wolf to repopulate one of the richest wildlife ecosystems in the U.S. They tend to feel that bringing in that subspecies would be no different than if the agency arbitrarily chose to truck a few thousand pronghorns from the plains of Wyoming down to Mexico to supplement the endangered Sonoran pronghorn, or to help out the endangered Florida Keys Deer by transplanting noticeably larger whitetails from the Midwest. Then there are Idaho's extremely endangered woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), will USFWS come to their rescue and transplant Central barren ground caribou (Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus) from the Canadian Arctic? Is this science...or playing God?
Tax exempt law firms hiding under the guise of 501(c)3 bilking the taxpayer for their abuse of the ESA and the emotions of the unaffected urbanite willing to send in their 25 bucks to save some faux endangered species. Academics applying the outcome based science in whatever way necessary to insure the continued flow of grant money to keep their fraud rolling along.
You can bet your last dollar, if you took away the grant money, the ESA and the Equal Access To Justice Act, these caring people would all show their true lack of concern for species and wildlife. It's just about money and control folks, nothing more, nothing less.
The truth hurts.
Many have viewed or had to live with the destruction these wolves are causing.
Lets hope that at least a hunting season will attempt to bring things back into a real prospective.
I doubt it will, but we can try it anyway.
Better than the alternative.
go away for a few days and it looks like this has turned in to a daisy chain of haters. Even Little Red Riding Hood showed up. How is your old boss the convicted poacher doing red?
The amount of misinformation, half-truths, no truths, propaganda, and self-approbation being shoveled out is amazing.
What I like best of all is when "little" Barry Coe tries to use big words that he clearly has no clue of the meaning. That by it self is worth the price of admission. The rest of the claptrap put out by you bunch of butt-nuggets is just icing on the cake.
On July 9, 2011, Dr. Charles Kay will be a guest speaker at a “Free Barbecue Dinner” event in City Park in Salmon, Idaho, sponsored by Idaho for Wildlife.
The barbecue dinner has been moved to:
Lemhi County Fairgrounds in Salmon, Idaho. It is NOT at the City Park. Same time: 4:30 p.m. and Dr. Charles Kay speaks at 6:00 p.m.
in most states in the United States,
including Idaho. Because of this, the
incidence of human infection in the
United States is unknown. According
to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), most documented
cases in North America are diagnosed in
immigrants or travelers returning from
endemic countries, rather than in persons
with no such history. Autochthonous
transmission of E. granulosus, primarily
of the sylvatic strain, has been reported
rarely in Alaska5,6. Rare reports of locallyacquired
human illness have also come
from Arizona, California, New Mexico and
Utah and were primarily of the sheep-associated
pastoral strain and associated with
cultural practices allowing working dogs to
feed on sheep carcasses. E. granulosus has
been present in Minnesota wolves for over thirty years. Surveillance data collected
there have revealed no evidence of E.
granulosus infection in humans or livestock
(Dr. J. Scheftel, MN State Public Health
Veterinarian, personal communication).
In Idaho, human cases of hydatidosis are
rarely reported.
hmmmm
http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12150_12220-117400--,00.html
I always say "it is your story, tell it any way you want"
To get a court ruling that all the wolves would be illegal means you would have to start over with a tiny tiny tiny "pure" population which pretty much doesn't exist anywhere.
Imagine 10 Charolais put in a pasture with 100 Angus for 16 years....how many black cows and white cows would you have after such a period of time? And would any of the survivors be pure Charolais, or pure enough? Nah.
So, even though I resent wolves, wolf policy, wolf activists, I'm gonna focus on the fact they aren't endangered AND are miserable pathetic varmints no better than the nastiest human poachers in terms of their impacts on other wildlife.
Delist, bang, flop.
that's 30 minutes I'll never have back...
As you may know it was Young and Goldman that went about "identifying " all these different subspecies including c.l. irremotus, including the "boundaries" there of. Now here is what you can do. Take the boundaries identified by Young and Goldman in the book Wolves of North America and Photo copy that to a 11x17 Clear overlay. Then take a map of Alberta, Canada and photocopy that to the same scale . Put the clear overlay on the map of Alberta and Keeping in mind that the majority of wolves were trapped in the Hinton, Alberta area;tell us what you find.
Wolves were never extirpated. This was the law:
DEIS, FWS proposed, "Wolves would be reintroduced into either or both the Yellowstone National Park or Central Idaho recovery areas, UNLESS a wolf population (defined as two breeding pairs, each successfully raising two or more young for two consecutive years in a recovery area had been documented."
I know of several people that reported wolf activity to the wolf hotline, including the IDFG Conservation Data Base. Than information, in one report was of 18 individual wolves in the Middlefork. Dr. Craig Groves took that information, handed it to Dr. George Stephens of the IDFG, and entered it into the data base. When this citizen asked about his maps after the introduction was going to go forward regardless, they were missing. As a matter of fact those maps were purged.
"If there were actually a surviving population of the original Yellowstone wolf, every effort should be made to maintain its purity and to avoid bringing in other wolves...In any case, the document (DEIS) improperly suggests that the original Yellowstone wolf is NOT substantially different from wolves that would be reintroduced. *My own work indicates subspecific distinctions." Ronald M. Nowak
That is exactly what I am saying. Not only were there "resident" wolves, but there were packs of these pre-introductory wolves, including producing litters of pups.
Care to prove it? There is one of these wolves stuffed in the IDFG headquarters office in Boise, Idaho, one of the 18 wolves that was mapped and documented in the Middlefork, by the name of Whitesox. Remember he was 1 out of 18 resident wolves that was mapped, and the information was delivered to the Conservation Data Base at IDFG, by the man that was asked by the IDFG in the first place to help them, the agency find resident wolves.
This does not include other reports that were submitted along with evidence of sightings in different areas of Idaho.
The law stated that the introduction could not take place if two breeding pairs were located. How can you find breeding pairs when your sightings aren't followed through, when your maps are purged out of the "Conservation Data Base," along with all other attempts to destroy evidence of their existence. Makes you wonder doesn't it?
There is nothing conspiratorial about trying to report the fact we had wolves. There is nothing conspiratorial about refusing to accept the many "lies" and inaccuracies that the USFWS has brainwashed the public with. One of those lies is that wolves were extirpated, extinct, and eliminated.
Ed Bangs even said, that finding Big Foot would be more likely to happen than confirming the sighting of the original wolf.
On Sept. 30th, 1992, John Kysar did just that, he shot a "wolf" a dinosaur as the Casper Tribune stated. He shot an animal that everyone thought, because our "government told us" an animal that was extinct." That wolf was mistaken for a coyote, but was in a pack of five other wolves. If John Kysar hadn't reported this incident to the "right" people, we still wouldn't know about it.
The one "fact" your friend Jeffery E. and others with fake names refuse to accept is this:
l. We had remnant populations of wolves. They were NOT extinct.
2.Why did the USFWS and our own IDFG ignore these reports?
3.Why hasn't this been an issue with "conservationists over at Ralph Maughan's site for example?" or DOW for that matter? OR all the plaintiffs.
4 Were they the same wolves as the ones brought down. Genotype or phonotype? They had very different characteristics from the people I have spoken to that grew up with them and observed them.
Was this a characteristic that is behavioral? I think definitely.
Was this a characteristic that was genetic? Possibly.
Irremotus had an abnormality, that was found in John Kysar's wolf that he shot in 1992.
Dr. Charles Kay- I'll find out what he thinks after he meets some of the people that saw these wolves in person.
Dr. Val Geist-He was lied to his entire life about wolves, and even admitted as a professor he taught all these misconceptions to his students, until he had his awakening on Vancouver Island, his wife even was attacked by a wolf. I think he will be easier to convince when he is made aware of all the facts.
The wolf that was mistaken for a coyote and shot jsut outside of the park was one of a 5 pack. They spent an incredible amount of time trying to determine whether it was or was not a wolf, first they released info it was not a wolf, then later they decided it was, but the DNA matched nothing. I understand NPS personel had seen the pack and reported it inside of the park, no one really cared about saving a population thought to be extinct, more money and power in the import.
You don't get out much do you or research?
Talk to the ranchers and trappers who's families lived with these wolves from the early 20th century to now, and they will tell you the wolves were never extirpated-ever. So are you ignorant enough to believe every C.l. irremotus was killed? Not one survived? This is in a time before modern travel, roadways, and telemetry equipment?
There are definite differences in pictures of the original wolf compared to the Canadian grey wolf. One example is a pack of 4 wolves I was shown that lived in the Middlefork of the Salmon, by an elderly couple. They took pictures of these wolves every year, as well as watched and observed them.
After the illegal introduction, "because we had wolves" so that was a violation of the EIS, this couple reported that the Canadian wolves were killing elk calves all night long in there creek. They could hear the baby elk calves bawling. They would wake up to several elk calves dead and not eaten. They had lived in the summer at this place every year, but the resident wolves would come in and not kill one of their elk or moose, not even the calves. These wolves weren't afraid of these people, they harassed the elk for fun, and killed their babies and never ate them.
They also tried to report the wolves they had on their property to and even showed the pictures pre-introduction.
Oh, and by the way the man was a purple heart veteran, that landed on the beaches of Normandy, D-Day. That is they type of "ilk" I prefer to get my facts from.
My relatives all on my mother's, mother and father's from three branches all settled in Latah County, which didn't have wolves not even in the 19th century records. They were farmers. Growing up listening to them the never once mentioned seeing, hearing wolves. They did not live on the Palouse, therefore they did not have a hand in extirpating them, not even one!
They did mention coyotes, but no more than we have now, and a few mountain lions. That's it. As a matter of fact you speak to elderly people around here, and they can't believe where you see wolves that never existed before. Remember they dumped these wolves all over us with helicopters and trucked them in.
Ed Bangs admitted trucking in wolves from South Idaho to the Yaak Mountain range, and that was over 100. So looks to me like this migration was a northern migration from southern Idaho, instead of Canada.
Todd, That wolf was the John Kysar, 1992 wolf that was shot in the Teton Wilderness out of a pack of 5. Yes the USFWS and Ed Bangs tried to cover it up well. It also had the same taxon type, and Ronald M. Nowak, examined it and found the same cranial skeletal abnormalities that Goldman & Young reported that C.l irremotus had. Ronald M. Nowak, said it resembled irremtous. This was 1992.
And how do they know that those wolves they took pictures of was the native wolf irremotus? Answer, THEY DON'T. You or anyone else that cames that wolf sightings of wolves prior to wolf reintroduction were that of irremotus is not basing anything on fact, it's only speculation and their opinion. You can continue to believe whatever you want to believe Chandie, but it's still your opinion. You or anyone else who claims those wolves were irremotus could never prove it. The fact is that elderly couple has no idea at all what subspecies of wolves they were and neither do those who claim the wolf sightings were of irremotus, the so called "native" wolf. Another myth you spread Chandie is that the "native" wolves never bothered anyone and never attacked livestock which is a lie. Chandie, why do you think there was an extermination campaign on the "native" wolf to wipe them out if they didn't cause any problems and didn't kill any livestock like you claim? You can continue to claim those wolves seen prior to wolf reintroduction were of irremotus, but you know that is only your opinion and not based on proof or fact. If the "native" wolf didn't cause any problems, I doubt there would be an extermination campaign launched on them that involved bounties and poison.
Millions in research grants and funding for teh "reintroduction" was on the line so they stonewalled, ignored them and went right ahead. If we ever have proof the government wiped out a presumed extinct population to feed their own egos and purses, then what?
Your experts: Ed Bangs, Carter Niemeyer, for example all say a wolf is a wolf. C. l. irregardless, as Carter joked in Billings, MT a few months ago.
If we don't recognize subspecies of Canis lupus anymore, that a wolf is a wolf is a wolf. Well, they federal government forgot to tell the people down in the southwest who are trying to introduce a particular subspecies of Mexican wolf, which is Canis lupus baileyi, and they forgot to tell the people in Minnesota who have a recovery plan for the eastern timber wolf, Canis lupus lycaon.
So in fact, it's YOUR experts, the federal governments that recognize subspecies.
They're just not recognized where the government chooses to ignore it.
That is why this debate will continue. Cheers!
The fact the USFWS ignored this native population of wolves, whether it was C.l. irremotus or not, is the real issue. Under the EIS you weren't allowed to introduce a non-native population, if the "original Native population of that same species" was present.
Therefore, if we had wolves, under the EIS they were not allowed to continue with the introduction, it would of been halted.
My opinion, as you so eloquently put it, is not mine. It's what I've researched speaking to the people that saw our original wolves. What they have told me about them. Yes, they said there were differences in their behavioral characteristics.
It was your federal biologist experts that said, "All wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains were exterminated, extinct, extirpated.
Not the experts I have learned to trust.
Fred, Fred, Fred,
Why do you people have to be so rude! Wrong again, I have somebody that's going to bring up this very subject to Dr. Charles Kay in person, this Saturday.
February 20, 1997, Phyllis Mayo called the WGF game warden Dennis Almquist to report that a wolf had been killing sheep on their ranch. The game warden called Agent Roy Brown of Lander, WY to meet at the Mayo Ranch the next day.
The rancher said he didn't want the wolf killed, but wanted it out of there.
Ed Bangs was not happy when he heard a "wild wolf" not of the collared population of introduced wolves was at the Landers vet clinic being treated for a bad foot.
Before FWS officials examined the wolf, Ed Bangs started putting his spin, on the incident. Bangs said the wolf is probably a hybrid or transient from Montana, but could NOT, absolutely could NOT be a native population, the chances of that would be "ZERO."
Ed Bangs did admit it wasn't one of the Canadian populations that were introduced, and not one of their offspring.
The wolf was removed and taken to YNP and kept in a holding pen. This was to observe her behavior, and DNA samples would be taken.
Suddenly the FWS had several wolves it could not make sense of the Boulder wolf, the female wolf spotted by Dubois, WY, that Ed Bangs ordered shot, and a pair of wolves on the South Fork of the Shoshone River near Cody. Ed Bangs, acknowledged that none of these wolves were of the introduced population.
Cody wolf was quickly shipped out of Yellowstone National Park to a place in Texas where it died.
Bangs asserted the DNA tests indicated the Cody wolf was not related to the Boulder wolf he ordered shot on the spot, March 4, 1997.
In reality, the DNA report concluded the Cody wolf and the Boulder wolf were not siblings, after Cat Urbigkit requested the information in the serology report.
Ed Bangs also noted the wolf was much smaller than the wolves introduced, had shorter legs and longer body.
The serology report (DNA) of the Cody wolf-"Although it was most similar to the mtDNA of gray wolves, it was not represented among the gray wolf reference standards in our data base."
Conclusion, the animals physical appearance was similar to irremotus, and most certainly might have represented a remnant population of C.l. irremotus.
Are you ever going to admit on here, yourself that the USFWS lied about wolves being extirpated, and broke one of many laws and that was introduce a non-native population of wolves, far from being endangered, and dropped them onto an existing population of wolves native to the region.
I have received plenty of e-mails by Dr. Charles E. Kay on this very subject, all forwarded to me. I respect the man and his work. I know exactly his position on this subject, and it doesn't hinder me one bit to rely on his research that has all been proven very accurate.
So far you haven't answered one of my questions, and under a "fake" name that is real brave of you to challenge me like this on a liberal blog.
I'm not going to Salmon, Idaho. So I won't be speaking to Dr. Charles E. Kay in person.
Does this stop me from trying to find out the truth from people on the ground. Nope not at all.
Answer: The Rocky Mountain Wolves that were reintroduced from Canada in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park are the same subspecies of Gray Wolf that previously lived in the Northern Rockies. Stories of 180-pound Canadian super-wolves aren’t true. Of the 188 wolves killed in Idaho last wolf hunting season, the largest wolf killed weighed 127 pounds. The average dead wolf was less than 95 pounds. This claim of a larger and different type of wolf is often used in attempts to discredit the species' reintroduction and has no basis in reality.
The scientific name for the wolf is Canis Lupus, and within that species there are several subspecies. Subspecies emerge because distinct populations evolve separately from other populations, developing slightly different characteristics. One example of these subtle differences is size.
Averaging around 100 lbs, wolves in the Northern Rockies, including the Canadian Rockies, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, primarily feed on elk, moose, deer, bison and, further north, caribou. Though still capable of taking down big game, the wolf that lives in the Western Great Lakes region is smaller (around 90 lbs) because they mainly feed on smaller game like white tailed deer. There are exceptions, such as Isle Royale where these smaller wolves feed primarily on moose. However, generally, as wolves evolve to hunt and take down big game, added size offers a real advantage. Wolves grow to be larger where they are feeding on larger game, and smaller where they feed on smaller game. Over generations, nature dictates size through survival.
However, wolf populations intermix, bringing new genes into new areas. “Disperser” wolves are lone wolves that leave their packs in search of other wolves. Often they are young males who choose to explore other options rather than challenge the alpha make of their birth pack. These “dispersers” are capable of traveling great distances, even 500 miles or more. When this happens, they often interbreed with new populations, and members of different subspecies. As a result, these populations gradually intermix, and the finer lines distinguishing subspecies are constantly blurred.
The wolves that were brought to the Western United States from Canada were feeding on elk, mule deer, moose and other prey just like they are here. They are the same wolves that lived here before. The Northern Rockies ecosystem does not stop at the U.S. – Canada boundary, and animals, neither prey, nor predator, stop and turn around at international borders.
We have smaller moose (Siris I think). This may be why are moose are being killed at an unprecidented rate. (114 left in yellowstone ecosystem 2010, 1200 in 1995). My own moose area in Montana, about 80 miles from the park, now has one token moose tag given out, and my brother who lives in that area has seen exactly 3 moose (one cow and calf, one young bull in the last 3 years. During my first moose permit experience in 1986, we watched 12 moose from one mountain side. I saw over 30 moose before shooting one. Which by the way, fit in the freezer nicely and fed the family the whole winter. Back then, I beleive we had 10 cow tags and 4 bulls. Now we have one bull tag. Nothing more. The habitat has not changed much. Global warming in certainly not a problem....hmmmm
I wonder about the size of other prey species compared to what is found in Canada. Regardless of the DNA studies, many species obviously adapt to differing conditions through natural selection. That may be the reason why wolves seem to deciminate the prey species in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.
Then put in the fact that many more people live here, livestock and other animals, and we wind up with a mess.
Your reasoning on distribution is exactly the reason we can control the species and not affect diversity. I live in eastern montana and have pictures of a wolf in a tree row......400 miles from the mountains. Whether he came from Canada or western Montana we don"t know. I do know you won't get those things established here. To much open ground, to many livestock operations, and no tolerance for the wolves destorying peoples livihoods.
Not only no, but absolutely no! After John Kysar shot the extinct wolf, on Sept. 30th, 1992, the press went wild.
Steve Fritts even urged his agency to "use every opportunity" to explain that "one wolf does not equal recovery. We especially need to minimize the significance of this incidence to the EIS process, while avoiding creating the perception that we do not want to find wolves in the Yellowstone area--as a Time Life reporter concluded.
Steve Fritts included nearly a full page of "similar words for the media when similar incidents occur in the future," adding, "and they will."
Renee Askins of Wolf Fund went as far as claiming the Kysar wolf was a wolf hybrid released, not a wild wolf.
FWS Director Turner, in the Jackson Hole Guide press conference, which they ran a headline said the dead wolf is insignificant. He also criticized the media, and particularly the Jackson Hole Guide, for insinuating that the many delays in issuing test results for the Kysar Wolf, might have amounted to the agency's trying to hide information.
In mid-December 1992, FWS announced that the tests were inconclusive, it could not determine whether the animal was a full-blooded wolf, and that they would not pursue a civil suit against Kysar.
January 1993, FWS changed their report, and announced finally that the animal was in fact a wolf. The FWS didn't close the case against Kysar until September 7, 1993, over eleven months after the incident occurred.
George Gruell had worked as a wildlife biologist on the Bridger Teton National Forest south of Yellowstone from 1967-1978, and had documented over fifty wolf sightings in the area by people he viewed as very credible sources. Both Gruell and Bridger National Forest Supervisor Reid Jackson had heard wolf howls on the forest and both men maintained that a remnant population of wolves had persisted in the Gros Ventre area south of Yellowstone National Park at least through the 1970s. Gruell's editorial was scathing in its criticize of the FWS contention that northwestern Wyoming contained NO wolves.
Gruell worte, "Until I see evidence of the contrary, I'm convinced that the FWS personnel will continue to discount the presence of wolves. Once an agency is committed to a cause, it is extremely difficult to steer a new course. You don't question established policy.
After all personnel of Yellowstone Park and FWS have been telling the public for the past 20 years that the only way to have wolves is to reintroduce them.
I've been asked to prove not only did we have wolves, but they were a different subspecies or population of wolves than the ones brought down from Canada, pre-introduction.
I challenge you to prove, that the wolves brought down, as Ronald M. Nowak, USFWS World Authority on Canid Taxonomy, to prove that the subspecies C.l. occidentalius is the same wolf we had pre-release.
All these characteristics have to be taken into account, because they were a unique special population, native to his area and existed in numbers that would of prevented the introduction and transplanting of non-native subspecies from up North, the second largest subspecies in North America, C.l. occidentalius.
Also please address the illegal activities of the laws that were broken by the EIS, starting with the "burying" of information of remnant wolf populations and wolf activity, right here in Idaho and Yellowstone.
Not to mention the stolen Pittman Robertson funds of a minimum of 65 Million dollars excise taxes.
How can you justify these two first laws that were broken?
*Editor’s Note* – There has always been discussion about whether there existed a population of native wolves in the Montana, Idaho and Wyoming area before Canadian gray wolves were introduced into Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho. Most will concur that “native” wolves, those that migrated down from Canada, had taken up residence in Northwestern Montana. Fewer would agree or acknowledge Idaho already had a population of “native” wolves and was well on its way toward recovery. It has also been widely discussed that there are major differences in size and habits between Idaho’s “native” wolf and the introduced Canadian gray wolf.
Below is an email I received today that was initially sent to someone whose name I have “Xed” out. The email is from Tim Kemery who was involved from the mid-1980 to the mid-1990s, in tracking and mapping native wolves in Idaho. He claims that his work was delivered to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before introduction of Canadian wolves. (Note: In the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) before the actual wolf introduction, claims were made that any wolves found in the Northern Rocky Mountains Distinct Population Segment (NRMDPS) were loner wolves or just passing through with no established packs. This same information has been used repeatedly in subsequent lawsuits about wolves and the Endangered Species Act. Please note that it is a violation of the ESA to introduce a non native species where a native species already exists.)
It has often been discussed at to whether this documented information was deliberately hidden or overlooked in order that introduction take place. Mr. Kemery alludes to that in this email.
However, the importance of this email is that, 1.) It provides more proof that a native population of wolves was habituating Idaho, and 2.) There is a disturbing difference in habits as has been observed by Mr. Kemery and documented below.
Comparison of Wolf Varieties
January 3, 2011
Dear Mrs. XXXXX,
In response to your questions regarding the great disparity in levels of wolf depredation between our former Resident Wolves and the introduced Canadian Grey Wolf, let me attempt to clarify some of the historical issues that surround the work done by several counties in Idaho to document the Resident Wolves in the late 1980′s. Starting in the early 1980′s attempts were being made by several Wildlife Agencies including Idaho Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to locate and monitor large predator species that were considered “threatened” or “endangered.”
A program was started to send questionnaires to trappers and hunters asking for help in locating these animals, and signs were posted in public offices around the state seeking input from the public to determine if any of these species remained in the state, and if so how many individuals were there. These programs came to be known as “The Wolf and Wolverine Hot Lines.” In reality there was a phone number to call that put you in contact with members of Idaho Fish and Game who would take the details of the public’s sightings of these rare animals. It was in response to these efforts that counties in Central Idaho began to respond by sending correspondence and sightings to the Agencies involved.
As the years passed in the 1980′s a significant amount of data was collected by trappers, hunters, and Fish and Game officers to warrant full time research and monitoring of these species. As criterion to use for observing these species county residents were asked to look for numbers of individuals: sex, age, size of territory, and behavioral qualities such as secretiveness and recruitment numbers of young etc.
During approximately eleven years time (1984-1995), much data using these criteria for observing Resident Wolves was collected and maps of the wolves territories and packs were created. During these
years of observation, very consistent and definitive behavioral and social traits became evident as this
variety of wolf was observed. These traits would become all important in determining what the habitat and prey base this variety of wolf would require, and the impacts it would have on our ungulate populations. A very important contribution to our ability to compare our variety of wolf to the introduced Canadian Grey Wolf was also a result of these years of observing the Pre-Introduction Resident Wolves in their preferred habitats.
I will list the criterion used by the individuals involved in collecting data on the Pre-Introduction Resident
Wolves, and then I will give a brief comparison to the same criterion as observed by all of us in the field as particular to the Canadian Grey Wolf. Remember that really the most important issue to all of us now is the resulting impacts to our fragile ecosystems of one variety of wolf as compared to the other and its portent when deciding on effective wolf control measures.
PRE-INTRODUCTION RESIDENT WOLVES: WOLVES OBSERVED THREW “1995″ IN IDAHO.
* Highly secretive behavior. Very sensitive to roads and highways. Largely nocturnal.
* Usually found either as dispersed individuals or pairs.
* Packing activity was very rare except during the months of January-February.
* Pack size at breeding time was usually 4-7 individuals.
* Females (breeding bitches) retained pups for an average of 18 months.
* Pack dispersal was very consistent after breeding season.
* Litter size consistently was 1-3 pups. Bitch bred at 2-year old stage.
* Extremely selective as to food source. Rarely fed on old carcasses or kills of other species, except in the most harsh winter conditions.
* Very much an opportunist when different prey was available. Spent great percentage of hunting effort on rodent acquisition, (moles to rabbits).
* Sport-Reflex Killing almost negligible. Most ungulate depredation was consumptive, not surplus. Typical kill had hams and shoulders consumed.
* Territory of individual or pairs was quite large. Average 2 week return cycle.
* Wolf body size: Female 55 lbs.-70 lbs. Male 85 lbs.-105 lbs.
* Competition with other predator species including coyote and fox was low. Other canine species co-existed and thrived in presence of Resident Wolves.
* Habitat utilized consistently: Mid to high elevation, with forest and mixed forest. Resident Wolves were very resistive to utilizing large areas of open range land with grass or sagebrush cover.
* Older mature males almost always solitary except at breeding intervals.
* Conflict with domestic dogs very minimal except in rare cases.
* Livestock depredations extremely rare but do occur in remote areas.
* Consistent avoidance of man made structures, roads, vehicles, and humans.
NOTE: This data as well as maps locating individual wolves, as well as breeding pairs was hand delivered to Craig Groves in 1992, and entered into the Idaho Fish and Game’s Conservation Data Base by George Stephens.
Craig Groves was at the time in charge of oversight of the Conservation Data Base for Idaho Fish and Game, and was an Idaho Fish and Game employee.
NON NATIVE WOLF Observed Criterion: Introduced Canadian Grey Wolf, 1996 to present.
* Exhibits low level of fear of humans. Non-secretive behavior. Minimal avoidance of humans, vehicles, domestic animals. Will cross large open terrain at will even when other options for cover are available.
* Canadian Grey Wolf is found in small to very large pack sizes. Small packs of 5 individuals are common as are large packs with over 20 members.
* Pack merging, the condition of 2 or more packs combining is being observed in many areas in the west and is not uncommon. Merged packs of over 40 wolves have been observed in the Central Idaho Wilderness.
* Females (breeding bitches) can be bred even at 1-year of age, and produce from 5-9 pups per season. The pups usually remain with the pack but can disperse or be driven off by other pack members.
* All females of breeding potential in the pack are usually bred. There is absolutely no indication that any females are kept from breeding by the theoretical “Alpha-female.” Large packs are quickly produced and can disperse and merge several times within a week.
* Canadian Grey Wolves show a diet preference for elk but will switch at will to a secondary prey species. Low preference is shown for rodent species, but wolves do sporadically hunt rodents.
* Sport-Reflex Killing is highly developed in Canadian Grey packs. From observations in the field, 3-5 ungulates are killed for each ungulate consumed. This surplus killing is greatly increased if the pack size is large or packs have merged. Often small wintering herds of deer or elk are completely extirpated in one hunting event.
* Body Size: Females 60 lbs.-85 lbs. Males 90 lbs.-120 lbs.
* Competition with other predatory species is extreme and often fatal. Both mountain lion and bear have been impacted by attacks and from reduced available prey. Other Canines such as Coyotes and Fox have been severely impacted in most of their habitats. Fox are only able to survive in habitats that include lots of willow or dense underbrush. Coyote populations have been reduced by are persisting at lower than historic levels.
* Canadian Grey Wolves have been found to utilize all available habitats, from high elevation alpine to sagebrush deserts. This has allowed this variety of wolf to be opportunistic in all ecosystems available to it.
* Large mature male wolves remain with the pack threw out the year, sometimes dispersing for short periods of time.
* The Canadian Grey Wolf is highly predatory on all domestic canines. Hunting hounds are especially vulnerable to attacks and are usually killed outright in a confrontation by wolves.
* Canadian Grey Wolves have shown a preference for predating on domestic livestock even with abundant natural prey present. Beef calves are the most common victims of wolf depredation.
* Canadian Grey Wolves show a high level of habituation to humans, and man-made structures. It is not uncommon to find Canadian Grey Wolves in very remote areas eating out of dog dishes and coming onto porches of homes when the owners are present.
It is clear from a comparison of the two varieties of wolves that control efforts will have to take into account the realities of dealing with a wolf as different as the Canadian Grey Wolf is from wolves found in other parts of the continent. Both the high fecundity of the Canadian Grey Wolf and its depredating qualities ensures that control efforts will have to be highly organized and long term if we are to protect our magnificent wildlife from the debacle that is ongoing in Canada and in our western states.
Mrs. XXXXX, I will not in this email go into the fraud and corruption that brought us to this wildlife disaster, but suffice it to say that had the Federal Agencies not been corrupt in dealing with the information given them by Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming citizens we would by now have had a recovered Resident wolf population that would still need to be managed, but we would not have what we have now with the very existence of our ungulates hanging in the balance, and wolf borne diseases threatening our way of life. If possible and time permits I will fill you in later on how our investigation turned out, and who
was responsible for purging our maps and data from the Conservation Data Base, and carrying out the introduction of the Canadian Grey Wolf, in direct violation of the Endangered Species Act. It is a very tragic story, but God willing we will turn this aroun
Many town residents, for YEARS prior to the illegal introduction of the Canadian gray wolf had seen, heard and PHOTOGRAPHED the native rocky mountain wolf. I myself had seen these smaller wolves all throughout the mid 1980s and early 1990s, even after the Canadians were introduced into the Frank Church in 1991-1992.
Today, you WILL NOT see the smaller rocky mountain wolf in ANY of the wilderness areas. Nor will you see many coyotes, FAR below their pre-wolf introduction levels. The Canadians are more than twice the size of the rocky mountain wolves or coyotes. I’ve seen packs as large as 10 or more Canadians. The rocky mountain native wolves never had more than 4-5 in a pack. It is obvious that the Canadian gray wolves are killing off all other competition, to include people’s pets in their yards right in town. A newly-wed couple’s rottweiler was killed just inside the flap of their tent, at the feet of their sleeping backs with the terrified couple watching in AWE and TERROR!!
One more stipulation, after you provide your proof that the Canadian wolves are the same subspecies as the ones that lived here pre-introduction, your report and findings need to be made public using your real name and identity, which have to be verified.
Thanks for the input. Very informative.
Adult females averaged 86 pounds, according to Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials, who also included the weights of wolves struck by vehicles in the survey. For adult males, 101 pounds was the average.
The exception was a 130-pound adult male killed in Boundary County that was weighed after its stomach had been removed.
It’s not surprising that wolf weights get exaggerated, said Jim Hayden, Fish and Game’s regional wildlife manager in Coeur d’Alene.
“They look huge,” he said. “They’ve got long legs, big heads and lots of fur.”
Wolves have 2- to 4-inch-long guard hairs around their necks, reinforcing the impression of a bulky body, said Jason Husseman, a Fish and Game wolf biologist in Salmon, Idaho. People see wolves, compare them to their dogs, and estimate that the wolves weigh 150 pounds.
“It’s a human tendency to overestimate. You see the same thing with bear sightings,” Husseman said.
In actuality, wolves have the lean, rangy build of distance runners – an adaption that helps them chase down prey, he said.
Some opponents of wolf reintroduction claim that the Canadian gray wolves released in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in the mid-1990s are a larger, more aggressive subspecies than native wolves, which were extinct by the 1930s. Biologists say there’s little or no evidence to back up that assertion.
“I’m curious that they throw out those numbers – that the Canadian wolves are 50 to 100 pounds bigger than the native Idaho wolves,” Husseman said. “I don’t know where those numbers come from.”
Hayden said the most authoritative research on wolf subspecies comes from a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service zoologist, Ronald Nowak, who studied 580 historic skulls of full-grown male wolves. Nowak concluded that North America had five subspecies of gray wolves. Two subspecies had historic ranges in Idaho – the Rocky Mountain wolf and the Great Plains wolf.
The Rocky Mountain subspecies outweighed the Great Plains wolf by about 20 pounds, Hayden said. But their ranges overlapped in the Idaho Panhandle, according to Nowak’s research.
“Realistically, there’s no difference between the subspecies. They interbreed,” Hayden said.
In addition, “we’ve got wolves that are walking here from Canada,” he said. “They’re the same species that would have been here in the past.”
"This claim of a larger and different type of wolf is often used in attempts to discredit the species' reintroduction and has no basis in reality."
GEIST: It may be worth mentioning that the wolves were actually well on the way from coming all on their own from Canada into the western states. There were wolves killed already south of Yellowstone and that was well before the re-introduction ever took place into Yellowstone. So they were coming on their own and the re-introduction just simply speeded things up.
By Ray....Are you telling me, you could weigh by Sight only, A 80 pound wolf and a 85 pound wolf? LMAO....
Let me ask you this BY Ray...How OLD was the Average Wolf shot in 2009 of Idaho?
The early park managers who killed of the 56 adult and 80 wolf pups were exactly what today's managers are political pay back appointees. And both did and do manage the park to benefit the politicians who must have votes to maintain their power. As a result we now have unelected, self selected environmental groups who pay no taxes and are destroying our economy for their own ends. Those early mangers did what most of today's managers will do, once the destruction of the states and Yellowstone are complete they will go back to where ever they came from and cuss those rednecks that actually believe in private property rights.
The Yellowstone biologists recently put out an article stating that Yellowstone is now changing from an elk based ecosystem to a bison based ecosystem as the elk are disappearing. Sadly they seem quite proud of themselves.
http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/upload/YS_19_1_sm.pdf
By the way there is one important reason that we cannot prove that the wolves seen and even killed prior to the imp[ortation of wolves from Canada and that is the fact that the feds refused to do DNA testing on any animals after the one shot in '92 proved to have DNA not matching any of the other known wolves. It was a 2 year old and certainly would have been of great interest to anyone wanting to know true genetics and the possibility of an animal thought extinct instead of a political power play.
Something must be done. The elk capable of having calves will be gone here shortly. What will we do with 2-3000 wolves with nothing to eat? Open season on wolves. Mark 2-300 that are (or were) wanted by the environmentalists (who don't live anywhere NEAR a wolf) and take care of the rest. It has to be done.
Interesting, you left out what else Dr. Charles Kay would say in his e-mail to you. Every e-mail I have read on this subject is exactly the same. So tell us what else he said.
In addition, Fred there were wolves in Idaho prior to the illegal release-FACT.
The EIS was broken due to these remnant populations of wolves. FACT.
All that was required was to find two breeding pairs, collar them, and study them for two years. FACT
So answer this: Where is your proof there weren't any remnant wolves, that survived the bounty era? THEY WERE HERE.
Where is your proof those remnant populations were the EXACT same population of wolves from Canada, right down to the (mtDNA) of what group of wolves?
If this was such a legitimate legal-regal experiment, why is Dr. Charles Kay speaking in Salmon, Idaho about the fraud of wolf introduction this weekend?
Fred, You should meet Tim Kemery sometime. He called the wolf hotline 22 times and the last time he called, the person on the other end said, "I'm not coming." This is when he had the pack howling right by him.
We lost a unique population of wolves, very possibly C.l. irremotus and you don't care? That surprises me that you are not a true conservationist.
The age of the wolves that were shot in the first legal wolf hunt in 2009.
That is very important to know.
Mike, good post and you are right on. People like Chandie use this lame wrong wolf argument as a way to discredit wolf reintroduction. Even her own experts disagree with her.
Wrong, Tim Kemery did not call the hotline and say, "I saw the Native Wolf, Canis Lupus Irremotus," come!
Tim Kemery, never uses the word Native Wolf, or the word Irremotus. He uses the terms resident wolves or pre-introductory wolves.
That is completely incorrect. Read his observations again he doesn't say this IS, Canis lupus irremotus. What he does record are the unique behavioral characteristics of a distinct population of remnant wolves that survived and adapted, and were not part of the Canadian introduced population.
The one word in this article he wrote to tell the "truth" which I would think you would be interested in as a conservationist is this, Difference in Varieties of Wolves the title of the article.
There were two changes made to this article without his approval, that should of been corrected. Tom Remmington added the title Canadian Wolves vs Native Wolves. Tim Kemery did not put that title in.
Secondly, at the beginning of the description of Canadian wolves, I added Non-Native. This was done without Mr. Kemery's approval, prior to sending it to Tom Remmington.
Mr. Kemery has never said these were C.l. irremotus in his article. He does publish the behavioral characteristics that made this distinct population of surviving wolves unique due to their behavioral adaptation. These were the characteristics along with morphology, fecundity, pack merging habits, he was documenting.
I disagree, that you have acknowledged we had resident wolf populations in Central Idaho, including other areas of Idaho, and even in Yellowstone. Everything I have read until just recently all of Ralph Maughan's students recite the same USFWS and state agency propaganda that wolves were extirpated or extinct.
So answer this question, now that you acknowledge we had remnant populations of wolves, why do you condone the illegal introduction of Canadian wolves?
Also do you know how those telemetry studies were done on wolves on the Canadian U.S. border, prior to wolf introduction? Do you have the "data" with dates and names of the biologists that conducted the research? I'm speaking or prior to the illegal introduction, Fred not afterwards. Dates are very important.
What do you have to say about all the laws that were broken by the USFWS/DOW and the plaintiffs?
You haven't answered one of my questions, Fred???? Why???
I usually refer to the wolves that lived here as resident wolves, the original wolf, and I do use the term C.l. irremotus, as Cat Urbigkit did, as she believed the Yellowstone wolves were irremotus. She tried very hard to save this unique "population." I"m not a biologist, working for the USFWS, USFS, BLM, or IDFG, I am a private citizen like Cat Urbigkit, therefore if I use the "term" C.l. irremotus in a historical context, it's because that was the recognized subspecies of wolf living in Central Idaho and Yellowstone, right up to the "release," when the definition of wolves was conveniently changed prior to 1995, that is called "politically convenient biology."
I'm a private citizen, I'm not USFWS Ed Bangs, leading the Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery, who said there were no Native Wolves! Even after the Cody wolf was roped, Ed Bangs should of kept that wolf, and at least had it's skull removed for research to identify it. Instead he shipped the wolf down to Texas, for a certain death. The only reason (mtDNA) was extracted out of that wolf is because of the publicity, and the fact the rancher called the WFG and they took pictures to document that wolf. Otherwise it would of disappeared like all the other indigenous "wild" wolves.
Ronald M. Nowak, the World Authority in Canid Taxonomy, identified the Teton Wolf shot by John Kysar, as most likely belonging to the subspecies Irremotus. Do you know why?
So Fred do you have proof C.l. irremotus wasn't living in Idaho? You said there were no C.l. irremotus living in Idaho, and ALL wolves came from Canada. Prove it.
Then logic dictates you do not support the Mexican gray wolf recovery program. You cannot have it both ways. :)
"In response to your questions regarding the great disparity in levels of wolf depredation between our former Resident Wolves and the introduced Canadian Grey Wolf, let me attempt to clarify some of the historical issues that surround the work done by several counties in Idaho to document the Resident Wolves in the late 1980′s. Starting in the early 1980′s attempts were being made by several Wildlife Agencies including Idaho Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to locate and monitor large predator species that were considered “threatened” or “endangered.”
Tim Kimery believes that your resident wolves were different than the "canadian" gray wolves. He uses the term resident wolves which means he's talking about wolves that he thought were irremotus. Nor you or Tim can provide proof one way or another that proves for certain tha those resident pre-reintroductionary wolves were irremotus And you know it!
Nobody calls gray wolves by their subspecies names beside those who will make any attempt to discredit wolf reintroduction.
"
Ronald M. Nowak, the World Authority in Canid Taxonomy, identified the Teton Wolf shot by John Kysar, as most likely belonging to the subspecies Irremotus. Do you know why?
Key words Chandie MOST LIKELY, not 100% proof positive.
Do you have proof that irremotus was living in Idaho? No, you don't nor have you ever. Nor has Tim Kimery. ALL OPINION AND ASSUMPTION NOT BASED ON PROOF OR FACT CHANDIE.
This policy was shocking as any wild wolves found outside of the released population, would provide the last precious bit of information to "study" the original Yellowstone remnant wolves.
The Cody wolf was killed before any biological evidence was examined, and only months after she was killed did we learn that she possessed "abnormalities" linking her to the native wolf population. FWS did not even consider that she might have been a native wolf, desperately in danger of extinction by the agency's own actions.
The Cody wolf was reported by a rancher to Ed Bangs, USFWS, in which Ed Bangs ordered her to be shot on the spot on March 4, 1997, a free-ranging wolf near the South Fork of the Shoshone River. Bangs said the animal was a wolf. FWS admitted the animal was a wolf.
The ESA law prohibits the taking of threatened and endangered species.
The experimental population rules established for the reintroduction program state that "All wolves found in the wild within the boundaries of (the experimental population area) after the first release will be considered nonessential experimental animals.
FWS admitted that killing the Cody wolf was illegal by noting in a brief to the court that the provision of the rules which provide it with authority to destroy wolves only applies to situations outside the experimental population area; in this case outside Wyoming. "Through oversight, this provision of the rule as drafted only applies outside the boundaries of the experimental population area: the Service is currently taking steps to amend the regulation to extend this provision to animals found within the boundaries of the experimental population area.
Thus, while FWS terms this intentional destruction of a Wyoming Wolf an oversight, it was, in fact, a violation of the ESA and its implementation regulations.
In a letter to Freudenthal, Urbigkits wrote: "Ed Bangs, FWS Wolf Recovery Coordinator, should be prosecuted by the United States Attorney General, as other Montana and Wyoming citizens have been prosecuted for similar actions." One example of this was Chad McKittrick of Red Lodge, Montana, who had been sentenced in February of 1996, to six months in prison and one year of supervised release for killing a wolf. McKittrick claimed the thought the animal was a dog.
A similar case even closer to home, and which Fredenthal's office prosecuted, was decided in April, 196. Jay York, a Meeteetse ranch hand, pled guilty to killing a wolf. Yore believed he was shooting a coyote in the calving pasture. York was fined $500 by US Magistrate William Beaman. A statement a the time of the York's sentencing quoted the attorney as saying, "This is an appropriate disposition of the case, in light of the specific facts and circumstances."
McKittrick and York were charged with violations of the ESA for killing wolves that they believed were members of another species. But Bangs knowingly and intentionally ordered the killing of an animal he knew to be a wolf. He did not claim the animal was that of another species, but a wolf and had it shot.
While the Urbigkit's sought Bangs prosecution with the US Attorney's Office, federal attorneys had to respond to their show-cause filings in the federal court as well. It was humorous to note that some of the arguments made by those attorneys actually supported their claims that a remnant wolf population had survived in the Yellowstone area.
It was very apparent that any wolf found in the wild in the northwestern Wyoming area, that was not genetically a member of the introduced subspecies was to be destroyed or placed in permanent captivity.
Proof Fred!!!!!!
In a memo attached to its notice in the court, Ed Bangs noted that the Boulder wolf, (roped wolf) and the wolf killed near Cody were NOT members of the introduced wolf population from Canada. Both were female wolves in estrus!
Federal officials had already admitted that there were a few lone wolves in the Yellowstone area prior to the introduction. What was disputed is whether these wolves were lone dispersers from the Canadian population or if they represented a remnant population of the native wolf.
Both the Boulder Wolf and Cody Wolf's DNA, "did NOT match any known wolves from the western US or Canada." Urbigkits considered logically this as clear support for Ronald M. Nowak's theory that C.l. irremotus is not closely related to C.l. occidentalis.
The Cody wolf that was shot had a different overall appearance, and the fact it was found farther south than any monitored wolf of which FWS was aware, supported the claim that this animal was a member of the native population.
Bangs asserted that DNA tests indicated the Cody wolf was not related to the Boulder wolf. Actually, however the DNA report concluded that the Cody and Boulder wolf were simply not siblings, out of the same litter, but it made no further claim as to the relationship of these animals. In reality, the animals were similar in appearance, they were determined not to be from the same litter, and they most certainly might have represented C.l. irremotus.
The serology lab report on the Cody Wolf that was shot, "Although it was most similar to the mtDNA of gray wolves, it was not represented among the western gray wolf reference standards in the data base.
This was proof that the Boulder and Cody wolf specimens one shot, one died after being sent to Texas, were NOT related or from the same population of wolves released from Canada.
The Boulder wolf that was (roped by Bill Mayo), DNA results indicated that the wolf, like the Cody wolf that was shot, was not a long range disperser from Montana nor an offspring of the introduction wolves.
The Boulder and Cody wolves (DNA) proved that both wolves were of a unique geneotype, that was not in the USFWS data base, of any Western population samples on record. Therefore, these wolves could NOT be of the Montana population or the Canadian.
As a last possiblity; Ed Bangs suggested that the Boulder wolf "is a member of a remnant population that survived the Yellowstone area since the 1930's."
The Urbigkit's argued in a brief to the court that, according to the experimental population rules, "All wolves found in the wild within the (Yellowstone Nonessential Experimental Population Area) after the first releases will be considered nonessential experimental animals.
The Boulder wolf was found in the wild in the Yellowstone experimental area, thus FWS had NO legal authority to remove this animal from the wild.
FWS tried to claim the animal was a hybrid in order to remove it, this action was not allowed under the experimental population rules wither. the parts of the rules that allow such action only applied to such animals as they occur "outside an experimental area."
On June 9, 1997, US Attorney for the District of North Dakota, John Schneider issued a letter declining to prosecute Ed Bangs for shooting the Cody Wolf.
In conclusion it took months for Urbigkit's to receive the biological reports supported their concerns.
The Cody Wolf, that was shot possessed "abnormalities" linking her to the native wolf population, FWS did not even consider that she might have been a native wolf.
Really Fred? Please explain?
Wow Fred, I really ruffled some feathers today. Now why didn't Tim Kemery receive that proof Fred? Can you read?
l. Tim Kemery called the hotline 22 times.
2. The last time he called the hotline, he had the pack right by him, he drove into town called the hotline and said they are right here, COME! The man on the hotline said, "No! WE ARE NOT COMING!"
3.Tim Kemery mapped and documented 18 resident wolves, as he was asked by the IDFG/USFWS.
4.Tim Kemery submitted the maps and "data" of 18 pre-introductory wolves to the Conservation Data Base at IDFG, Dr. Craig Groves, who remembers him hand-delivering these maps!
5. Dr. Craig Groves has Dr. George Stephens enter the "data" in the Conservation Data Base at IDFG.
6. Tim Kemery goes into to speak to them about his maps and "data" after the release and Dr. Craig Groves tells him, Dr. George Stephens entered the information. Dr. George Stephens tells Tim Kemery, the information is gone. It's not here.
So I ask you did or did not Tim Kemery do everything possible to report wolves for the wolf hotline, and CDB? Yes he did.
So why was this information purged Fred?
You are blaming Tim Kemery for not having "physical proof" of resident wolves, most likely to have been (mtDNA) a specific different genotype as well as phenotype, and the "data" is gone!
The people on the wolf "hotline" refused to come!
Why is that Fred??? Do you think possibly that we would have biological evidence now? Do you think the wolves in the Middlefork would of been similar to the Cody, Boulder, and Teton Wolf in Cat Urbigkit's book, and court case? Found to be a different genetic population than the Montana wolves and the Canadian imported wolves?
Fred are you a lawyer or do you work for the USFWS yourself?
In addition, researchers note that although the gray wolf (canis lupus) was once divided into many subspecies, so many subspecies have become extinct that most scientists no longer differentiate between subspecies.264 Scientists now typically classify wolves as belonging to one of two species: the gray wolf (canis lupus) or the red wolf (canis rufus).265
With regard to the assertion that “Canadian” gray wolves are neither threatened nor endangered and therefore are not appropriate for use as a reintroduced population, the ESA itself speaks to this charge.266 It is a unique feature of the ESA that it applies state by state.267 “Hence the abundance of wolves in Alaska, Canada, or Russia has no legal bearing on the question of their endangeredness in Idaho, Montana, or Wyoming.”268 Thus, that gray wolves are abundant in Canada has no bearing on their status in the individual United States, and they are therefore acceptable for use as a reintroduced population.269
[*PG455] Accordingly, the defendants’ use of Canadian gray wolves for the reintroduction program did not violate section 10(j) of the ESA.270 The conclusions of the Wyoming district court, the Ninth Circuit, and the Tenth Circuit should be upheld if this issue is appealed to the Supreme Court."
There are a few problems with this claim. Some have switched their selection of “native” species to be canis lupus nubilus – based on the fact that Nowak suggested that irremotus was a subset of nubilus.
The problem with this is, of course, that nubilus has a range which stretches through the western United States, up in to Canada and even up to Alaska.
This creates two problems.
First, and most obvious, of course is that canis lupus nubilus would also be a Canadian wolf – since wolves pay little attention to borders.
Second, with such a massive range, there is good reason to believe that canis lupus occidentalis (western Canada and Alaska) and canis lupus nubilus have regularly crossed paths and hunt similar prey.
The other major issue is that there has been a pretty significant sample size (about 20%) of the Idaho wolf population which has been weighed in the last 6 months thanks to the wolf hunt.
The average weight of the 188 wolves killed in the 2009 Idaho wolf hunt was less than 100lbs.
The claim that occidentalis is more aggressive is also pretty subjective and doesn’t seem to have much supporting evidence.
There is some truth in that occidentalis is a little larger on average than some other wolf subspecies. However, the evidence of the small size of the wolves in Idaho, it seems clear that wolves (regardless of subspecies) are similar to many other animals in that their size is predominantly determined by environment and availability of prey.
If you want to focus only on physical proof, you can trace a population of wolves using this biological serology report from the Cody, Boulder, or Teton wolf, which actually supported the claim that a remnant population of wolves, not related to the imported Canadian wolves, or Nine-Mile Pack are valid.
Now if we had those 18 specimens that were "mapped and documented" pre-release in the Middlefork, I would definitely think they were more likely to be C.l. irremotus than the Canadian wolves that were helicoptered in from Canada, and not just out of Hinton, Alberta.
Ronald M. Nowak himself had challenged the tecniques used in these analysis and their implications for conservation, in regards to genetic evidence. Indeed mtDNA analysis can be valuable to trace the population source of a specimen, but there is more to subspecific differences than mtDNA. Indeed mtDNA has failed to show genetic differences between brown bears and polar bears, or mule deer and white tailed deer, yet found distinct differences between small-and large bodied subspecies of the Canada goose.
Although morphological differences traditionally had been recognized by FWS as a valid basis to define and differentiate subspecies, Jerry Kysar's shooting of a wolf south of Yellowstone in 1992, prior to the scheduled wolf introduction, brought about a change in this policy! *Note the USFWS is a master of changing the definitions of the rules and laws as they go!
Young and Goldman's The Wolves of North Amer ca maintained that the subspecies of wolf native to the Yellowstone region was Canis lupus irremotus, a light colored subspecies of a medium to rather large size, with a skull having a narrow but flattened frontal region.
In the same work, Canis lupus occidentalis, the subspecies of wolf from western Canada that FWS eventually released into the Yellowstone area and Central Idaho, was described as the LARGEST OF THE NORTH AMERICAN WOLVES, WITH A LARGE AND MASSIVE SKULL.
Young and Goldman noted that irremotus differed from occidentalis in its "decidedly smaller size." In addition, after examining hundreds of wolf skulls, they noted that cranial abnormalities in the larger of specimens were few, but did find an abnormality that was specifically associated with the subspecies irremotus.
More recent taxonomic work has resulted in the recognition of fewer subspecies than had been recognized by Goldman and Young. Nowak proposed that wolves in North America belong to only five subspecies.
Ronald M. Nowak to issue with the FWS department's position that all subspecies of wolves, now fall under the category of Canis Lupus.
He placed C.l. irremotus among a distinct southern group of wolves C.l. nublius, while he categorized C.l occidentalis in to a northern group, retaining this subspecies, more northerly in it's native range than C.l. nublius, (which he had classified irremotus under).
Ronald M. Nowak's classification of the Yellowstone wolf was NOT contested by other taxonomists, and was supported by studies of other researchers, all of which suggest that a MAJOR systematic north-south division of wolf subspecies existed along the Canada-US border in western North America.
This body of work demonstrated that the Yellowstone's native wolf
were "substantially different" from the introduced Canadian wolves, that there is a SUBSPECFIC DISTINCTION, between the two, and that the DEIS improperly suggested otherwise.
FWS knew that wolves had survived in the Yellowstone region. FWS also knew there was a pronounced subspecific difference between the native wolf, C.l. irremotus, and the released northern wolves, C.l. occidentalis.
It should come to no surprise that the wolf killed by a vehicle just north of the park in 1988, according to Nowak, "looks more like a member of this original US population. Its measurements fall mostly within the range shown by the subspecies C.l. irremotus of the Northern Rockies.
Nowak had examined the skull of this male wolf and stated that the skull was "notably smaller" than those taken in recent years in the north western US, presumably immigrants from Canada.
Kysar shot a wolf in 1992, that had several skull abnormalities. After examining the skull of this animal, Nowak, commented that, based on cranial measurements, it was "considerably smaller than that would be expected for a male wolf of the current population in western Montana." Nowak again pointed out that his analysis indicated the Canadian wolf population migrating into north western Montana represented a subspecies of wolf that DIFFERED from the smaller subspecies that occurred in the south.
He proposed several possibilities for taxonomic and geographic history of the Teton wolf, including that it might have been a member of a population that survived in the wild in the Yellowstone area.
Nowak did, however note a specific cranial abnormality in the Teton wolf. "The right third lower molar tooth is not present and seems never to have erupted." This is the abnormality described by Young and Goldman in 1944 as occurring in the native wolf, C.l. irremotus.
PROOF THAT C.l. IRREMOTUS SURVIVED UP TO THE INTRODUCTION AND AFTER.
The Cody adult wild female wolf ordered shot by Ed Bangs, post-release, by FWS in 1997, also had the exact same dental abnormality as the Teton wolf shot in 1992!!! One of the lab reports stated, "Gross examination of the skull indicates an adult individual with no visible abnormalities, except a missing right lower first premolar!"
Bangs said of the Cody wolves appearance, "It looked a little short legged and small-footed to me but otherwise very much like a wolf and likely within the physical variation found in wild wolves."
These characteristics were also attributed to the Kysar wolf shot Sept. 30th, 1992, the Boulder wolf that was roped by Bill Mayo, and a wolf hit by a car in 1988.
These characteristics were also attributed to another wolf discovered in the wild near Kemmerer in 1998 by USDA Wildlife Services agent, (I'm not giving out the name).
Boulder wolf that was roped and captured by the rancher near boulder early in 1999 was held in a pen in YNP, biologist Doug Smith had the opportunity to observe the animal. "It looks awfully lot like a wolf," Smith said. "It's pretty wary of us, which is pretty typical wolfish behavior." But he also said that the female wolf's body frame looked small in comparison to the Canadian wolves released in the park.
This is proof that there existed a unique population of wolves, with mtDNA not related to the Canadian imported wolves, and skeletal features, cranial dental characteristics that classified it as having the same abnormalities of C.l. irremotus, as described in Goldman and Young.
The pictures of the pack of four wolves I saw in the Middlefork were of a pack of gray wolves, short legged and longer backed, with flattened facial features. There is a great difference in the appearance from the pictures, as well as cranial skeletal "frames" of C.l. irremotus, (Smithsonian) compared to C.l. occidentalias.
Aside from appearance, cranial measurements, structural abnormalities, the most important differences were the "behavioral characteristics" of our original resident wolves as described my Mr. Kemery.
The people that shared the picture of the pack of four resident wolves, gave that picture to Mr. Kemery. They reportedly have many more pictures, as well as years of experience living with the original wolf, in comparison to the drastic changes to their environment, when the Canadian wolves were released.
Those people also tried to report these wolves pre-release. There information was dismissed, even having pictures to show as evidence! I would of liked meeting these people in person, however they have more pictures of these wolves, as they photographed all the wildlife every summer.
This is a blatant cover-up, and no amount sharpening your "word-smithing" skills is going to deter me from learning the truth, and believe an environmental lawyer, from Ralph Maughan's site, over the good people of Idaho.
Fred, I'm going to say this one more time. People like you who continue to make unproven claims that the wolves that lived in Idaho, prior to the illegal wolf introduction, have no proof they weren't C.l. irremotus.
"Assuming, arguendo, that the defendants’ assertion was incorrect and irremotus subspecies wolves did in fact exist in the Northern Rocky Mountain region, we must turn to the ESA itself for guidance. The ESA was enacted for the purpose of providing a “program for the conservation of . . . endangered species and threatened species.”259 In addition, section 10(j) authorizes the release of experimental populations [*PG454]if “such release will further the conservation of such species.”260 The subspecies irremotus was mentioned when the gray wolf was first listed as endangered in 1973, but when it was relisted in 1978, the entire species of canis lupus was given endangered status.261 Indeed, nowhere in the ESA or any of its regulations, including the special rules adopted specifically for the gray wolf reintroduction program, are subspecies mentioned.262 The logical conclusion is that Congress intended the ESA to preserve the entire species of gray wolf (canis lupus), not to distinguish between relatively obscure subspecies variations.263
In addition, researchers note that although the gray wolf (canis lupus) was once divided into many subspecies, so many subspecies have become extinct that most scientists no longer differentiate between subspecies.264 Scientists now typically classify wolves as belonging to one of two species: the gray wolf (canis lupus) or the red wolf (canis rufus).265
With regard to the assertion that “Canadian” gray wolves are neither threatened nor endangered and therefore are not appropriate for use as a reintroduced population, the ESA itself speaks to this charge.266 It is a unique feature of the ESA that it applies state by state.267 “Hence the abundance of wolves in Alaska, Canada, or Russia has no legal bearing on the question of their endangeredness in Idaho, Montana, or Wyoming.”268 Thus, that gray wolves are abundant in Canada has no bearing on their status in the individual United States, and they are therefore acceptable for use as a reintroduced population.269
[*PG455] Accordingly, the defendants’ use of Canadian gray wolves for the reintroduction program did not violate section 10(j) of the ESA.270 The conclusions of the Wyoming district court, the Ninth Circuit, and the Tenth Circuit should be upheld if this issue is appealed to the Supreme Court."
"Now if we had those 18 specimens that were "mapped and documented" pre-release in the Middlefork, I would definitely think they were more likely to be C.l. irremotus than the Canadian wolves that were helicoptered in from Canada, and not just out of Hinton, Alberta."
You can think as much as you want, but that doesn't make it so.
The wolves of north america came out in 1937 I believe. That was over 70 years ago. Things have changed. information we thought we knew about wolves HAS CHANGED.
You need to give up your obsession, your embarrassing yourself.
Type--From Red Lodge, Carbon County, southwestern Montana. Male adult, skin and skull, collected by M.E. Martin, April 19, 1916.
Distribution--Northern Rocky Mountain region, and high adjoining plains, from southwestern Wyoming north through western Montana and eastern Idaho at least to Lethbridge, Alberta.
General characters--A light-colored subspecies of medium to rather large size, with narrow but flattened frontal region. Similar in size to Canis lupus youngi of the more southern Rocky Mountain region, but whiter, the upper parts less heavily overlaid with black; skull differs in detail, especially in the narrowness of the frontal region. Size larger and color whiter than in Canis lupus nubilis of Nebraska, or in Canis lupus gigas of southwestern Washington, and differs from both in cranial features, including the relative narrowness of the frontal region.
Remarks--Canis l. irremotus is based on more than 30 specimens, chiefly skins with skulls from Montana and Idaho, but the range of the subspecies extends northward along the backbone of the continent to undetermined limits, probably meeting that of C.l. occidentalis. Specimens from northwestern Wyoming are somewhat intermediate between irremotus and youngi. On the east irremotus passed into nubilis, the somewhat smaller prairie wolf now probably extinct.
Well, will you look at the "native" wolf's range. It includes Alberta Canada. I guess this must make the "native" wolf a canadian wolf because its ranged included Canada just as occidentalis range included the northern rockies.
And this is from 1937, so I guess that is undenialable proof that irremotis's range included Canada according to Goldman. Try to discredit this Chandie.
Remarks--Canis l. irremotus is based on more than 30 specimens, chiefly skins with skulls from Montana and Idaho, but the range of the subspecies extends northward along the backbone of the continent to undetermined limits, probably meeting that of C.l. occidentalis.
Well, will you look at that.
pre-release in the Middlefork, I would definitely think they were more
likely to be C.l. irremotus than the Canadian wolves that were helicoptered
in from Canada, and not just out of Hinton, Alberta."
You can think as much as you want, but that doesn't make it so.
Fred, You can think about it as much as you want to believe these wolves never existed, and were the exact same population as Canadian wolves, but that doesn't make it so, and if you speak to the people on ground zero, they will tell you the exact samething.
The wolves of north america came out in 1937 I believe. That was over 70
years ago. Things have changed. information we thought we knew about wolves
HAS CHANGED.
I would trust Goldman & Young, over USFWS being hi-jacked by Jamie Rappaport Clark, who stole the 65 million dollars of Pittman Robertson Funds and Ed Bangs, before I would trust the radical left environmentalists that hi-jacked this department and continue to push their faux science!
Results are in Fred: Wolf Introduction was based on criminal fraud and political applied biology!!!!
Go listen to Dr. Charles E. Kay: Saturday, July 9, 2011 at the Lemhi County Fairgrounds, starts at 4:30 p.m. You might learn something!
The wolves we had in Idaho were different, and I would believe the people that observed them, over the USFWS corrrupt welfare biologists.
USFWS has no credibility. Wolf introduction has lost all credibility. That is what happens when you pile one lie on top of another, even Congress is getting involved to stop the corruption.
The whole non-essential experiment was based on fraud from the very beginning. Wouldn't matter how many wolves were shot, roped, caught, mapped, the USFWS/DOW and state agencies would of still destroyed the evidence!
The bottom line is wolf introduction was illegal. They shouldn't of brought in any wolves, we had them here already.
Why do you think the state agency and USFWS had to cover this fact up in the first place?
Why spend the time having putting posters up everywhere, asking the public for assistance to report sightings, if there were no wolves?
Why even bother going through those maneuvers if they refused to follow-up or write down and confirm the reports?
Why would they send grad students out from back east to be in charge of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Investigation in the first place, rather than hire seasoned trappers, outfitters, or people that knew how to find these wolves?
This entire introduction is a joke! It's going to go down as the biggest fraud since the Spotted Owl, and you're mistaken that people aren't furious about it.
Ronald Nowak is indeed right, irremotus and occidentalis ranges overlapped.
Chandie, even if all of this BS, you claim was true, the non native Canadian wolf would have over ran any different species of wolf anyway. They were invading south at quite a rate. All the recovery did was give the livestock community the non essential, experimental population status where we killed over 1700 wolves. Without that the Canadian invaders would have received full protections. With or without the relocation, illegal or not, the wolves would have been here. Get over it.
You need to give up your obsession, your embarrassing yourself.
RWS-I disagree with you completely. I'm not embarrassing myself at all! Quite the opposite! If the wolves were moving south at such a "rate" how come nobody in Bonner's Ferry noticed impact after the Ed Bangs helicoptered way over 100 problem wolves from Central Idaho, and dumped them into Yaak mountains on the border of Idaho and Montana?
I think what is embarrassing, is that you are so desperate to prove this wolf introduction was based on science, that you negate any information, from any source that we had enough of the original population of wolves to stop the introduction, if that information and evidence hadn't been compromised.
Oh, so irremotus whose range included ALBERTA CANADA ACCORDING TO GOLDMAN & YOUNG would mean that irremotus was a canadian wolf since they migrated to Canada and back to Idaho? Would that make them a non native wolf when they were in Canada just like people like you claim occidentalis that migrates down on its from Canada into Idaho is a non native wolf? ronald Nowak has said that wolves from Idaho and Canada overlaps. Has Jim Beers PROVED that money was stolen? Nope. I'm far as I'm concerned, it's just a claim on his part. He hated the federal government because they threw his butt out on the street!
Type--From Red Lodge, Carbon County, southwestern Montana. Male adult, skin and skull, collected by M.E. Martin, April 19, 1916.
Distribution--Northern Rocky Mountain region, and high adjoining plains, from southwestern Wyoming north through western Montana and eastern Idaho at least to Lethbridge, Alberta.
General characters--A light-colored subspecies of medium to rather large size, with narrow but flattened frontal region. Similar in size to Canis lupus youngi of the more southern Rocky Mountain region, but whiter, the upper parts less heavily overlaid with black; skull differs in detail, especially in the narrowness of the frontal region. Size larger and color whiter than in Canis lupus nubilis of Nebraska, or in Canis lupus gigas of southwestern Washington, and differs from both in cranial features, including the relative narrowness of the frontal region.
Remarks--Canis l. irremotus is based on more than 30 specimens, chiefly skins with skulls from Montana and Idaho, but the range of the subspecies extends northward along the backbone of the continent to undetermined limits, probably meeting that of C.l. occidentalis. Specimens from northwestern Wyoming are somewhat intermediate between irremotus and youngi. On the east irremotus passed into nubilis, the somewhat smaller prairie wolf now probably extinct.
Well, will you look at the "native" wolf's range. It includes Alberta Canada. I guess this must make the "native" wolf a canadian wolf because its ranged included Canada just as occidentalis range included the northern rockies.
And this is from 1937, so I guess that is undenialable proof that irremotis's range included Canada according to Goldman. Try to discredit this Chandie.
Remarks--Canis l. irremotus is based on more than 30 specimens, chiefly skins with skulls from Montana and Idaho, but the range of the subspecies extends northward along the backbone of the continent to undetermined limits, probably meeting that of C.l. occidentalis.
Funny how Goldman lists irremotus as a medium to A RATHER LARGE SIZED WOLF huh Chandie?? I thought irremotus was a small wolf, but Goldman seems to think that irremotus is a medium to large sized wolf. Pretty weird huh Chandie? You did not know that irremotus's range included Canada did you?
What if you are correct and the wolf was improperly introduced in violation of the separation requirements for 10j introductions?
What if you won that lawsuit? Would it really be a win, or would the requirement under the law be to slaughter every wolf killable? And what if in the killable pool, oops, the last "correct" wolves get shot?
Or somehow there's a "miracle" and one irremotus male and one irremotus female are found?
Then, how many c i irremotus wolves must be breeding in order to be viable?
Sorry, but this Prebles Mouse level genetic hairsplitting is tangential to the real issue....what to do about the wolves on the ground today.
You admit to pre-introduction populations of wolves in Idaho, yet you want to somehow claim these were the same wolves as Ed brought down from Canada.
Now lets impart a little logic here shall we? If in fact those pre-introduction wolves were not spp. irr., they sure didn't show the traits we seen from Ed's imported dogs. No large packs, no run away wolf populations, no crashing elk populations, no evidence of dozens of elk cows and calves strewn across a few hundred yards, growing moose populations, all was fine in Idaho. Yet you want me to believe that 35 more of these claimed 'same' dogs caused a turn around in EVERY one of those situations? That simply defies logic. This imported dog reacted more like a noxious weed or invasive species than it did an animal that was already supposedly here.
Ed Bangs himself has admitted to the differences between the native wolf and the Canadian wolf. The fact he wants to play it as "irrelevant", does not change that fact that they were in fact different. He has claimed there were no wolves here, which we all know is a pile of BS, yet that is what he hung his hat on. Why? Because he KNOWS they are different wolves, simply rewriting the science to meet your need does NOT change that.
There is documentation and witnesses to approx 100 wolves in Idaho pre-introduction, yet 35 more created 1600 in 15 years. Nope, I don't think so.
As far as where Ed got his puppies, one has to remember he brought them from at least 3 locations in Canada, one is home to the arctic wolf. They also brought wolves that were trapped on a ranch where they were attacking cattle. Now exactly what kind of logic would be used to do such a thing? Bringing known cattle killers into an area that has cattle does not show much intelligence or forethought. Well, unless your agenda wasn't as pure as what the wolf lovers claim.
The simple truth of the matter is, we had them here, they never caused a problem, no one bothered them and they fit fine into the ecosystem here. This wolf doesn't. That evidence alone would be enough to cause some serious pause in a trail.
Bad science, fraudulent science and money driven agendas wiped out our native wolf and created one of the largest wildlife disasters in the history of this country. The debacle that has played out over the last 16 years has done more damage to our current wildlife and to the future of the ESA that anyone could have ever imagined. The lies, deceit and outright fraud will insure that ANY animal that is attempted to be 'listed' or '"re"-introduced will be met with opposition. No one has won a damn thing here, only losers, well, exceot those welfare lawyers and biologists I mentioned above.
Chandie has laid out some very relevant evidence above, if you want to deny it, that is your choice and your right. You have a right to your own opinion but you do not have a right to your own facts.
Pre-introduction estimates of elk population impacts were 20% reductions in the Yellowstone and Lolo herds. We are now at 85% and falling. Pre-introduction estimates of wolf predation was 14/per wolf/per year, we now know it to actually be somewhere between 24 and 35, the biologists claim a natural reduction in wolves, which hasn't happened. There is no scientific estimations from the wolf biologists which has even come close, yet fools still want to label them experts.
The only real good that is ever going to come out of this will be the exposure of the fraudulent science. When the YS herd is wiped out, there will be no one to blame but the people who claimed their 'natural balance' is valid science. You people remind me of flat earthers, you deny what is unfolding right before your eyes. Your experiment was conducted, and the result shows your theory as false.
I know.....logic is a bitch.
I am sorry,that is a completely false statement. The truth is there is little evidence that many wolves were migrating South. And the wolves that are usually claimed to have been doing so were in NW Montana, right where Ed dumped his problem dogs. Now why would he do that if they were migrating so successfully in the first place? He wouldn't. I suspect he wanted to insure his Canadian dog filled the gap in the natural migration claim.
As soon as he dumped them, again, we seen an explosion of wolves in NW Montana and Northern Idaho. Coincidence? Same wolf? Again, logic just doesn't support it.
Mr. Skinner, as far as what to do with the wolves on the ground now. Open the season 24/7/365 to trapping and hunting, and force the state game agency's to partake in a reduction of the wolf numbers until they quit negatively impacting every other species in our ecosystems. Your strawman about 'what if' the last native wolf is killed, is just that.
We already had a viable population here, they fit in just fine, the fact they didn't overrun the entire ecosystem and explode into massive numbers while surviving over 40 years after the government wolf wars shows that.
BY what measure does one want to measure as viable? So many wolves that hunting is abolished and cattle and ranchers are run off the land?
That doesn't speak to wildlife advocacy, but to an alternative agenda.
Idaho Wolf Distribution Maps-(B. Sherwood) Wolves were most numerous in southeast Idaho where they (wolves) were associated with large ungulate populations, most notably buffalo in the beginning. This switched to livestock, and secondary wildlife prey species such as elk, mule deer.
Goldman & Young-Noted that all of Idaho was believed to have been within the original range of the NRM, Canis lupus irremotus, (Goldman 1944). Goldman recognized 23 subspecies of wolves through out North America.
Ronald M. Nowak took issue with the USFWS during the drafting of the (DEIS), in regards to the evidence that a remnant subspecific population of wolves still existed in Yellowstone, and was being compromised in party-line support of Wolf Introduction. In particular the 1992 specimen, shot by Jerry Kysar on Sept. 30th, 1992, demonstrated to have cranial dental features which resembled C.l. irremotus.
Nowak examined the skull of this male wolf and stated that the skull was "notably smaller" than those taken in recent years in the northwestern US, presumably immigrants from Canada.
He also noted the 1992 wolf had several unique skull abnormalities, and Nowak could not determine, with certainty, its subspecies. After examining the skull of this animal, Nowak commented that based on cranial measurements, it was "considerably smaller than what would be expected for a male wolf of the current population living in western Montana."
Nowak again pointed out that his analysis indicated the Canadian wolf population migrating into northwestern Montana, represented a subspecies of wolf that differed from the smaller subspecies that occurred to the south.
Most importantly Nowak, did however, note a specific cranial abnormality in the Teton wolf. "The right third lower molar tooth is not present and seems to never have erupted." This is the abnormality described by Young and Goldman in 1944 as occurring in the native wolf, C.l. irremotus.
Nowak sent a letter commenting on the DEIS concerning wolf introduction, and very clearly pointed out to FWS that the wolves native to Yellowstone were "substantially different" from the Canadian wolves, that there is a "subspecific distinction" between the two, and that the DEIS improperly suggested otherwise.
Also mentioned, was that the FWS knew that the wolves had indeed survived in the Yellowstone region. FWS also knew there was a pronounced subspecific difference between the native wolf, C.l. irremotus, and the released northern wolves, C.l. occidentalis.
It should be of no surprise that the wolf killed by a vehicle north of the park in 1988, according to Nowak, "looks more like a member of this original US population. Its measurements fall mostly within the range shown by the subspecies C.l. irremotus of the northern Rockies.
Important to note that: Cody specimen, shot in March 1977, ordered by USFWS Ed Bangs, , also had the exact same dental abnormalities as the 1988 wolf, and the 1992 Teton wolf. This adult female, in estrus, was missing a right lower first premolar. Her appearance was small in stature, short-legged, small footed,, which matched another wolf reported by USDA Agent in 1998, near Kemmerer, Wildlife Services.
The Boulder wolf, roped and captured by rancher near Boulder in early 1999, held in a pen in YNP, also had a small body frame, short-legged, and was remarkably smaller in stature compared to the Canadian wolves introduced according to YNP biologist Doug Smith.
The FWS National Fish and Wildlife Forensics laboratory in Ashland, Oregon, was given the task of determining through DNA analysis whether the Teton wolf was a wild wolf. Lab director, (not named) sent a memo to FWS's regional law enforcement office providing an update on the analysis. He had compared the Teton wolf to three Montana wolves.
Ashland Forensic Lab-Report-Teton Wolf shot by Jerry Kysar 1992-
The mitrochondrial DNA of three of these wolves have been extracted, isolated and compared to three Montana wolves. These three wolves are identical. The subject animal is NOT identical to these three wolves.
The final results proved very fascinating. The mtDNA analysis indicated that Montana had two distinct lineages of wolves, a circumstance that suggests subspecific distinction. The available evidence finally indicated that C.l. irremotus had survived in the Yellowstone region through 1992. No reintroduction was necessary or should have occurred prior to the unraveling of this canid identity issue.
Going back to the ESA-Congress included in the species definition, "any distinct population segment of any species." With DNA testing proving that there were two distinct lineages in the Montana wolf population, that threshold had BEEN MET.
FWS now claimed that the "reintroduction of wolves into the park will enhance wolf population viability by increasing the genetic diversity of wolves in the Rocky Mountain population.
In reality, the "introduction" of Canadian wolves into Yellowstone would indeed send a unique gene pool into extinction. Contamination of the gene pool through interbreeding could lead to the extinction of a distinct population of this endangered species, and would, in fact, decrease the genetic diversity of wolves in the Rocky Mountain region by eliminating an entire distinct population.
Not sure what lawsuit you are referring too.
Fred, Have you read the DEIS, EIS, or the FEIS at all. The historical distribution, wolf introduction was studying, (1984) Wolves of Central Idaho, written by Kaminski and IDFG Jerome Hansen does NOT focus on Canada. The USFWS wasn't interested in relocating NRM wolves form Idaho to Canada, the USFWS was conducting studies to determine if there was a population of the NRM wolf in Idaho, this study also included the Yellowstone area, which Cat Urbigkit documents in her book, "Yellowstone Wolves, The Animal, The People, The Politics.
I find it embarrassing I might add, that you haven't read the DEIS, EIS, or the FEIS. Under no circumstances do any of these documents consider transferring Idaho wolves into Canada.
The question is specifically, was there a US population, and if there were wolves, then under the ESA the population requirements were defined as: two breeding pairs to be collared, and studied for two years, and to successfully produce pups.
Now I have presented specimens of wolves that were unfortunately for the USFWS/DOW, shot by Jerry Kysar in 1992, and even more embarrassing for Ed Bangs, after he said there were no Native Wolves, and the likely hood of finding a Bigfoot would be more probably, came back to bite him hard!
Do you think if Jerry Kysar hadn't made the effort to report that wolf, that we would even know about it's existence today? No! The Teton wolf would be another "purged" carcass, maybe it might of made it as far as the Ashland Forensic Lab in Oregon, but the mtDNA wouldn't of been processed, it certainly wouldn't of been made public, if it wasn't for the huge publicity over this "dinosaur!"
God Bless Jerry Kysar for reporting this wolf, and it was in a pack of five!
How many more of these wolves were "purged" and processed away for the sake of an illegal transplanting effort, a non-essential experiment that will go down in the annuals of history as the largest wildlife disaster since the Market Hunting Era.
Fred, People don't like being lied too. I keep waiting for one of the RM students to say, "Wait a minute!" "You mean there were wolves in Idaho, remnant populations of the original wolf, and this was covered up?"
So far I have not met-ONE person on your "side" or is it "ilk" as your so smugly phrase it.
This story will come out someday, and hopefully the world will learn the truth, about what happened, what went wrong, and who participated.
Dr Richard Mitchell stood on a stage in Billings , Mt on Jan 11,2000 at the "Predator Management Symposium "and addressed an audience of 600 which included Bangs, all the hirearchy of Mt FW&P;, U.S. Senator Conrad Burns, Lt Governor Judy Martz and several representatives of Rep Rehbergs office.
Dr. Mitchell was one of the scientists who helped write the Endangered Species Act and the International list of Endangered Species.
Dr Mitchell vociferously objected to the introduction of or the idea of introducing Canadian wolves on top of the truly endangered Canis Lupis Irremotus and charged the USFWS of breaking the the ESA well before reintroduction because the larger animal would guarantee the extinction of the smaller Rocky Mountain wolf. Zealots in the DOI/ USFWS had Dr Mitchell not only fired but he had to sue to get his pension. This is how the federal government gets those who dissent within their own ranks to shut up.
Once the 3 scientists that FOTNYEH hired to appear finished dozens of members of the public were able to take the microphone. Many of those who spoke were hrrse pack trip outfitters in YNP. One by one they testified that they had seen Rocky Mountain wolves in the back country. I know personaly people from Tom Miner Basin and up in Buffalo Fork Hell Roarin' who have killed Canis Lupus Irremotus back in the 1960's and 1980's. Ed Bangs was the last to speak, he guaranteed to all the aformentioned audience that wolves would be "delisted" in 2002.
I think I remember specifically reading about Dr. Richard Mitchell addressing this ESA violation. As a matter of fact I know I have, in addition, I have read other statements that were submitted to support Dr. Richard Mitchell. I wasn't cognizant, however, that the DOI and USFWS tried to take away his pension.
What do you think of Fred claiming that Jim Beers, former USFWS Chief, is making up the fact, Jamie Rappaport Clark, stole $65,000,000 dollars from the USFWS, Pittman Robertson Fund? She also thinks Jim Beers made this up too. Problem is facts are stubborn things, when you have truth on your side.
You would referring to a completely distinctly different population of Montana wolves, that are (thought) to have immigrated from Canada into Glacier National Park, known as the famous Nine-Mile Pack. Mike Jimenez was the wildlife biologist that acted as full-time guardian to this pack, until he lost track and they went on, as he quaintly phrases it, "a rampage like bad teenage kids" killing livestock.
This population of wolves has nothing to do with our wolves that were mapped and documented throughout Idaho, mainly near the Frank Church Wilderness in Idaho.
It does have to do with one specimen the Teton Wolf.
If you studied up on the Yellowstone wolves, Steven Fain is the scientist that conducted the DNA work. He wrote that he had completed the analysis of mtDNA of the Teton wolf and seven Montana wolves, and concluded, "The genetic analysis indicate that the evidence animal did not originate from the Glacier National Park, Montana wolf pack."
If you break down the serology report it divides up into five distinct lineages. This is a very complicated report to digest in regards to the Teton wolf, and even though I understand it completely, it would take a lengthy post to write out the entire report.
To condense the serology report: Fain's conclusion was that : "Of all the reference samples, the evidence animal was most similar to the Nine Mile Valley animals.
Where it gets complicated is when you break down the genetic lineages of reference samples. His work demonstrated that, while the Teton wolf was related to some but not all of the wolves in the Nine Mile Valley of Montana, the wolves from this area fell into a lineage that was distinct from the linage of the Nine Mile Valley, Glacier National Park population.
This was VERY interesting information since the Nine Mile Pack was founded by wolves first discovered near Marion, Montana. While FWS suspects that these wolves came from Canada, their actual origin has never been determined.
The mtDNA analysis indicated that Montana had two distinct lineages of wolves, a circumstance that suggests subspecific distinction.
In conclusion, the available evidence indicated that C.i. irremotus had survived in the Yellowstone region through 1992. No introduction of wolves should have occurred prior to the unraveling of this canid identity issue.
Many years of intensive predator control could have led to the relative isolation of wolf pack demes, or small breeding populations. Whatever the cause or causes, a few small wolf packs could have survived in isolated areas in and adjacent to Yellowstone, and with restricted gene flow among the demes, conspicuous variation in the morphology of demes could have developed.
However with a low population density, the wolf populations would have had a high dispersal rate, increasing the genetic interchange between semi-isolated demes. Thus, interbreeding--crossing of different varieties within a group, but different than inbreeding, which is breeding within the group, --would occur on a moderate level, given the situation. One researcher stated, "It is the subdivision that results from interbreeding in small semi-isolated demes that best generates and maintains significant species wide variability as a hedge against environmental flux.
What all this means is:
A subspecies can consist of semi-isolated packs. Breeding between the packs within that subspecies would help to maintain genetic variations within the subspecies, while maintaining the subspecific distinction.
To claim that gray wolves are non native just because they come from Canada is absurd
Tony you are avoiding the issue that the EIS was violated by the USFWS employees, as well as State Agencies, with assistance from different NGO groups.
The issue was it was a violation of the EIS, to introduce a "population," non-native meaning that C.l. occidentalias was not the recognized subspecies of Canis lupus for the Northern Rocky Mountains. If wolf activity was reported in (1984) Wolves of Central Idaho, Kaminski and Hansen (just one of many reports), and wolf activity was reported by "many" individuals including biologists as well as Mr. Kemery, who had been hired previously by IDFG to map wolverines, why did the USFWS purge and destroy this evidence, including the "living remnant wolves" themselves pre and post release, unless there was an orchestrated cover-up?
Not one person has given me the answer to this yet.
If we had the original wolves in Idaho, and IF they are all the same wolf, a wolf, is a wolf, is a wolf, then why did the USFWS work so hard, in concert with the hotline, and state agencies to destroy ANY evidence of existing populations of wolves?
Also the: Cody Wolf, Boulder Wolf, Teton Wolf, and the 1988 wolf killed north of the park by a vehicle all had mtDNA evidence that showed they didn't match any population in the data-base, which would most likely prove they were the indigenous C.l. irremotus wolves.
Most importantly was Ronald M. Nowak's work of identifying the abnormal dental cranial features that C.l. irremotus reportedly had, which the Teton, Cody, and the 1988 wolf demonstrated.
The Boulder wolf unfortunately was shipped out of YNP, as Ed Bangs didn't want a specimen, especially a female roped when in estrus, seen publically to prove that the native population of wolves still existed in Yellowstone. Ed Bangs shipped this almost extinct subspecies to Texas, where she died a few months later. Her cranial skeleton should of been preserved for observation, to determine if she also had the dental abnormalities, C.l. irremtous was famous for, which she most certainly would of most probably had, since she was related to the Cody Wolf, Ed Bangs ordered shot in March of 1997.
If wolves don't recognize boundary's, and a wolf is a wolf is a wolf, they have no rightful place on the endangered species list in the first place. With a minimum population in North America of at least 150,000, they simply do not qualify. They are a faux endangered species at best, but better described as the ultimate cash cow for welfare lawyers and biologists. The truth of the matter is, subspecies are created simply out of geographical location. Whitetail deer are a perfect example of this, although the same species, there are 16+ subspecies within the geographic US alone.I find it interesting that only wolves are supposedly exempt from this reality. Well, unless of course the wolf lovers want to create more lawsuits by claiming otherwise, then the rule doesn't apply. They seem to think they can define subspecies at the will of their agenda. Politically applied biology anyone?
Perhaps this is the answer to the Bull Trout problem, we'll just dump some eastern brook trout on top of them to boost their recovery. I mean after all, they are both char right. It is a very interesting phenomenon at play here, they scream subspecies in every other attempted listing they can come up with, but with wolves it is all different. I guess whatever you have to try and push to move your agenda forward and cover your rear end when you have violated the law.
Meanwhile in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming........our elk populations are being further squandered to an uncontrolled predator that should have been delisted in 2002 as per the 50 CRF part 17 that brought them here. There will never again be a good faith agreement made with any ecoterrorist group posing as a 501(c)3. Trust me, we have all learned our lesson in dealing with these con artists.
pack cohesiveness
Anti-Hunting Pro Wolf Environmental Groups Are Continuously Harping About Relying More On "Science" Than Legislation To Manage Wolves...Here's A Look At How That Side Has Fraudulently Abused & Manipulated Wolf Science...And The Total Lack Of Science During The Implementation Of The Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery Project ......
See atttached word.doc or go to this link...
http://www.lobowatch.com/adminclient/WolfImpact5/go
And there you have it. One incredible Indian saying in one speech everything the Green movement advocates. How fortunate for that movement that they have such a role model to lead us all to the path of Green righteousness. There’s just one problem. Chief Seattle never said a word of this. All of it was written by a movie screenwriter named Ted Perry in 1971, about one hundred years after the chief died.
You Have LIED enough. Stop lying to the American Public.
Thank you Idaho For wildlife in the NEW Outdoorsman for sharing the TRUTH about the Real Fraud and Lies of the Green Movement and their Tool of Anti Hunting and Anti Ranching...The wolf.
"WARNING!! Do not accept as factual any statement from any state Wildlife Vet or F&G;official or other State bureaucrat (Ag., Health & Welfare)." This is a safety warning being put out by Idaho for Wildlife, George Dovel in regards to Echninoccous granulosus, in his new Outdoorsman Issue #44!
Idaho for Wildlife presents: Dr. Charles E. Kay!
The presentation will begin at 6:00 p.m., there will be a 50 minute Power Point Presentation, included in this speech.
Public is invited to hear Dr. Charles E. Kay speak about wolf introduction, corruption, fraud, and the "role" of political applied biology that has infected our wildlife departments federal, state, and Universities.
Free barbecue dinner is at 4:40 p.m.
July 9, 2011
Lemhi County Fairgrounds
Salmon, Idaho
On March 5, 2010, I had meeting and conversation with Joe Maurier, FWP Director, folowing an extensive hearing where I testified in behalf of "Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd "regarding wolves and hydatid disease in front of the Montana Environmental Quality council. The leadership of Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks was present as was the Chairman of the Montana Fish and Game Commission.We explained to the abreviated session of the Montana Legislature that the fatal, wolf born Echinococcus granulosus disease, posed great and lethal public health threat and presented multiple Ph.D & D.V.M. source citations .We pleaded that the Governor call in the Center for Disease Control to quantify the damage,educate the public as to the health risk, train health care workers in all Montana hospitals to recognize ,diagnose and treat Echinococcus granulosus. We demanded that Mt. FWP cease in their public relations campaign to down play the situation because of their financial conflict of interest and potential trailing liability issues and especialy their lack of qualified public health officials to make such reckless and unfounded assertions.Director Maurier agreed with us in his open testimony , particularly after his Mt FWP Vet confirmed that 90 % of the re introduced wolves tested in SW montana are carrying the disease because of these extreme wolf densities, that the CDC should be brought in.
In that conversation I told Director Maurier that if the public health issue of Echinococcus granulosus / hydatid disease is not confronted directly, openly, honestly and professionaly with science instead of politics and stop the 3 year cover up of the disease test results, that hydatid disease and other wolf born diseases, then not only would the Montana public completly lose trust in Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks but they woud stop obeying that agency as well. I concluded that we ,through our President Bill Hoppe have submitted formal ,written legal notice, following extensive consultation with multiple highly credentialed scientists that wolves carry a disease lethal to the human population, that they have been forced upon us and that we have a natural , lawful right to defend our selves our children and grandchildren .
http://lobowatch.com/
LOBO WATCH
July 2, 2011
Of Wolves and Junk Science
Tony,
Thank you for confirming what we all know, and that is wolf introduction had nothing to do with the ESA, since our resident population of wolves were still living within Central Idaho and even Yellowstone. It had nothing to do with saving a truly endangered subspecies, which is why the ESA was originally intended for.
It also proves that you don't care if the introduction was illegal, again demonstrating this program had everything to do with politics and social sustainability, and nothing to do with Science!!!
I find it interesting that Ed Bangs, Doug Smith, DOW, plaintiffs, Missoula & Bozeman academics completely ignored the Cody wolf Ed Bangs ordered shot in March of 1997.
I would think the Cody wolf would of made national news, and been more famous than "Limpy" that helped raise millions for DOW, but not $1.00 was spent to bring attention to this wolves illegal death.
FWS created a policy to deal with the embarrassing native populations of wolves that continued to be reported and sighted, as well as confirmed physically, after the Canadian wolves were released onto this fragile population.
New policies were put in place: FWS refused to consider evidence that a native population of wolves survived in the Yellowstone area. Instead, the agency actively implemented a policy that resulted in the removal of any wolves from the wild in Wyoming if their presence could NOT be attributed to the experimental release of Canadian wolves. Who authorized that?
Scientifically, the shooting of a native wolf, the Cody wolf should of outraged wolf advocates and the media alike. The shooting of one of a subspecific population of wolves, which could confirm the existence of C.l. irremotus was covered up by FWS immediately.
The Cody wolf was killed before any biological evidence was examined, and only months after she was killed did the Urbigkits learn that she possessed "abnormalities" directly LINKING her to the native wolf population. FWS did not even consider that she might have been a native wolf, desperately in danger of extinction by the agency's own actions.
Ed Bangs shot the Cody wolf in March of 1977, which was illegal for anyone else to have done. In addition, he wasn't even cited for illegally ordering this wolves death.
Boulder Wolf-The same story held true for the Boulder wolf who was kept in YNP under observation. Where was the media? Where was DOW? Where was Suzanne Stone, Hank Fisher, Renee Askins, Mike Phillips, Bruce Babbitt, FWS Director Turner, Reams, Scott Creel, Lynn Stone, Ralph Maughan, Ken Cole, Jerry Conley, Nabeki? Where were all of you when this wolf was pacing the enclosure, before being shipped to her death to a private facility in Texas?
September, 1997, Ed Bangs wrote to the FWS Regional Director, "I am directing that the wolf-like canid being hed in a pen in YNP be permanently placed in captivity." This female wolf also who was in estrus at the time of capture by a rancher, was tragically transported to a captive facility in Texas, only to die a few months later.
Thje people of Montana , Idaho & Wyoming were egregiously harmed by an experiment that Hank Fisher, Rene' Askins, Mike Phillips , Mark S Boyce and a host of others swore would be a low budget , low impact program that would confine it's self to Yellowstone Nationl Park.
Anti-Hunting Pro Wolf Environmental Groups Are Continuously Harping About Relying More On "Science" Than Legislation To Manage Wolves...Here's A Look At How That Side Has Fraudulently Abused & Manipulated Wolf Science...And The Total Lack Of Honest Science During The Implementation Of The Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery Project ......
See atttached word.doc or go to this link...
http://www.lobowatch.com/adminclient/WolfImpact5/go
Bangs has to remember Judge Downes ruled that that the reintroduction into Yellowstone was "unlawful" . Appeals let the illegal wolves stay for they had wasted too much time & they felt they could not remove the illegal wolves even if they tried …… and it would have been tough dealing with the bleeding hearts. Bottom line is Judge Downes ruled that it was "unlawful" what they did introducing the wolves under the rules of the ESA!
Seems like Salazar and Wyoming came to an agreement today to allow hunting as varmits outside of Yellowstone and a "buffer zone" during migration season whatever that means, on the south side of the Snake River Canyon.( I guess they are talking about where the Snake cuts south from Jackson down to Alpine.) to allow wolves to migrate to Idaho.
Except for the weirdness of the buffer zone all sounds good.
Also a rider to make it irreversible as in Idaho and Montana. Also includes Northern Great Lakes. Well worth taking a look at.
Now if populations would be cut by about 90%....
You don't stop hunting because you grow old, you grow old because you stop hunting.
The problem is that most of the kids in the country never have an opportunity or someone to take them out and teach them values.
So they finally get out and wind up not understanding how the wildlife and the natural areas came to be conserved in the first place.
Sportsman, regardless of whether they hunt for meat or pleasure, are the only reason we have the wildlife we have today.
Fortunately those of us in Wyoming and Montana are resisting with everything in us and trying to keep our land accessible to all.
These armchair biologist of today don’t spend much time outdoors so they really don’t seem to know or understand wildlife at all these days.
I have been in Montana now the last four years in a row, and it’s heart breaking to see exactly how much damage the non-native Canadian wolves have done to the elk, deer, and moose.
We are not seeing this kind of loss in the elk, deer, and moose here in Colorado, but then again we do not have non-native Canadian wolves either.
Every time a non-native predator has been introduced into an ecosystem it has always been desasterous for the ecosystem.
So yes when Montana has a season, I do plan on hunting non-native Canadian wolves after I retire in Montana,
Not as a trophy, but to help put some balance back in the ecosystem of Montana.
And yes humans are a natural predator on this planet, the only natural predator a wolf has.