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quietpartner
Trad climber
Moantannah
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Mar 28, 2010 - 05:42pm PT
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This year's hunt in Montana.....
A good start.
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quietpartner
Trad climber
Moantannah
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Mar 28, 2010 - 07:57pm PT
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Rox
Wyoming has balls, not knuckling under.
Eventually they'll come out on top.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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http://www.outdoornewsservice.com/odpkg/news/current.html
April 1, 2010
Firestorm over wolf introductions erupting throughout Western states
By JIM MATTHEWS
Outdoor News Service
Wolves were first released into Yellowstone Park and central Idaho in 1995. Most people believe it was a “reintroduction” program aimed at restoring native animals back into the region. While it could and should have been just that, it is now becoming apparent the federal government has unleashed an environmental and human health disaster on the Western states.
First, the wolves that were released were the wrong subspecies. The animals were Canadian pack wolves from the Arctic, and while there was a viable population of Rocky Mountain wolves (of the correct subspecies) in several small packs in Idaho and Montana that could have been used for the reintroduction, the federal government choose to use these non-native animals for the rushed effort.
Second, the released wolves were all infected with a parasitic disease (hydatid) that had effectively been eradicated from Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Today, the parasitic tapeworms are infecting a growing percentage of the ungulate and canine population in all three states, and the Centers for Disease Control is gearing up for treatment of human infections for which there is no know cure.
Third, the estimates on the wolves’ population increases and impacts on all wildlife in the region have been grossly misrepresented by federal scientists. As the wolf population spirals beyond what the government set as “recovery” limits, the impacts grow worse by the day. Some are calling it an ecological disaster on par with the slaughter of the prairie bison. And there’s nothing “natural” about this slaughter.
The controversy over the wolf releases is causing a firestorm of biological, political, and health concerns in the region. The releases were the result of feel-good environmentalism run amuck, and top scientists throughout the wildlife community and doctors experienced with the wolf-borne diseases are finally getting their voices heard about the problems with the so-called wolf reintroduction effort in the West.
The use of the wrong wolf subspecies has simply assured the extinction of the pure-strain Rocky Mountain wolf through cross-breeding, but genetic testing has proven this is the federal government’s apparent mode of operation with regard to wolves. The Eastern wolves being released, bred, and scattered throughout the Appalachians are coyote-dog-wolf hybrids. Even the wolves in the upper Midwest have an alarming percentage of dog and coyote genes. Apparently it’s more important to have wolves in a region than to have native wolves.
While the disease issue is going to become a major topic of conversation that will wedge it’s way onto newspaper front pages and national television news programs (and more coverage here another day), hunters and other wildlife enthusiasts are watching with horror as the West’s big game herds are being devastated by the Canadian wolves.
The Idaho Game and Fish Department has just conducted its annual survey of its once-prolific Lolo elk herds, which numbered from 13,000 to 15,500 animals in the years before Canadian wolves were released in Central Idaho. Today, with an Idaho wolf population approaching 1,100 animals (even after this fall-winter legal wolf hunting season that saw nearly 200 animals killed), the Lolo elk herd is down 85 percent to just over 2,000 animals.
The Yellowstone elk herd, which numbered around 20,000 animals before Canadian wolves, is down to around 4,000 animals, another 80-plus percent decline. Surveys of the Wyoming moose herd north of Jackson tallied over 1,200 animals before wolves. The Game and Fish Department’s February survey this year could only find 117 wolves -- more than a 90 percent decline.
The wolf population in the three-state region is estimated to be over 2,000, even though the three states were supposed to be allowed to keep the populations in check with hunting, trapping, and other removal programs when the numbers exceeded 300 with a specified number of packs. Lawsuits by radical environmentalists who don’t care about the impacts on local communities and ranches by the exploding wolf population, are now pressing for a “minimum” number of 6,000 wolves. So they don’t become “endangered” again.
The real issue with wolves is whether or not we can keep them in check now that they are back. It took over 50 years of intense effort to eradicate wolves from the Southwest and southern Rockies. And that was the era of leg-hold traps, snares, bounties, poison sets, and fleets of federal, state, and private wolf hunters working seven days a week to kill the animals. Fifty years! Today’s la-la land environmentalists are concerned that 2,000 isn’t enough or that sport-hunting programs are going to impact wolves?
History says they’re wrong. Even if we killed half of the wolves in the population each year, state wildlife biologists are saying there will be full-fledged packs of wolves in Utah and Colorado within three years. Both states have already reported wandering individuals and pairs. Washington and Oregon wildlife officials are expecting packs to become established in the Blue Mountains within a year or two and then expand rapidly beyond that.
The environmental document that was prepared for the wolf releases ignored vast volumes of scientific literature on wolves’ impacts on game herds, diseases, and productivity. The federal “scientists” assured the public that wolf numbers would peak at no more than 100 wolves in the 20-year period after releases, and that impacts on big game herds would be relatively small. Fifteen years into the project, wolves number over 2,000 and big game herds in the primary ranges have been reduced by 80 percent to 90 percent.
Think this is exaggerated? Canadian wolves kill an average of 22 elk per wolf per year, according to scientific studies, and that is considered conservative by many wolf experts. You do the math even with that number. Today’s 2,000 wolves will kill 44,000 elk per year, and if wolf numbers reach the 6,000 level (and it could do that in just two years at the current rate of growth), that would mean 132,000 elk per year.
To small towns around Yellowstone Park, wildlife along roadsides in the park has been the No. 1 attraction to visitors. Communities all over the region rely on the income generated when hunters flood into the region each fall. Cattle and sheep ranchers continue to hang on a thread in this region. Wolves are putting an end to all those activities in a hurry.
The idea of wolves cropping off just the sick and the weak is nonsense. Canadian wolves are an invasive, non-native species that are decimating Rocky Mountain wildlife and Western ranching and hunting traditions. Maybe that was really the plan all along.
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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Thanks for the pertinent post, Jan.
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atchafalaya
climber
Babylon
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Jan, that piece is alarmist and will work to get the ranchers loading their rifles while foaming at the mouth. Got anything objective? I know, prolly too much to ask...
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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atchafalaya-
I posted that piece so that people could see Rokjox is not the only person with those opinions. As he noted above, ranchers already have their guns loaded and are foaming at the mouth. The guns are for the wolves,the foaming for the federal government and environmentalists who laid this plague on them.
Meanwhile, you should read the article in Wikipedia about the hydatid parasites. I'm familiar with lots of parasites from India and Nepal but have to admit the cysts pictured are some of the most revolting parasite photos I've seen.
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atchafalaya
climber
Babylon
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Jan, I never thought RJ was alone. In fact, I assumed there are more like him in Idaho, which hurts the argument for no wolves.
I will check out the link you suggested when i get a chance.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Alarmist? From a California newspaper??
Where have you been hiding, atchafalaya? I lost 3 calves to wolf kill so far this year; my next door neighbor lost a horse, and had several more injured by being stampeded into barbed wire. This was in addition to another neighbor losing 2 calves earlier. The wolves were spotted last Fall, bedded down in the local 2-room schoolhouse schoolyard!!! U.S. Fish & Wildlife "removed" one of them (PC speak for shooting the phuckers). After an aerial search, they tracked the other wolf but failed to "remove" it.
Summary of damage done so far by TWO wolves, dollar wise: 5 calves at $600-800 value at sale time; $3,000.00-$4,000. One horse killed: $6,000.00 (it was a VERY good horse). Five horses injured, 2 had to be put down, and vet bills: $21,000.00.
TOTAL ECONOMIC LOSS: $31,000.00. Too bad it's NOT YOUR LOSS!!!!!!
This is the handiwork of just 2 animals who are 350 miles from where theyare "supposed to be." I live 350 miles from the "Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem."
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atchafalaya
climber
Babylon
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Brokedown, unlike Rj my opinion is open to change. I am listening and reading the links provided. Or will when I get a chance. Its the best I can do...
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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The problems are just beginning!
I didn't even comment of the parasite issue. Prior to my retirement career as a rancher, I worked as a manufacturing and research chemist in the pharmacuetical arena. Parasitic invasions of a host are very difficult to treat; it involves selectively poisoning the parasite without killing the host at the same time. Anybody here ever had giardia? Not a pleasant treatment. I put out wormer medicated blocks for my cattle twice a year; kills pinworms, roundworms, but not tapeworms. We have to treat with a pour-on called Ivomec for them. All we need to completey destroy the cattle industry is another UNTREATABLE parasite!!
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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There are so many wolf threads on this site, wolves are reaching Sarah Palin, WOS and guns stature around here. I suspect most of us don't have a dog in the wolf fight. Broken, I'm sorry about your cows, but what do you want us to do about it?
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Teach them to read the signs "Leaving Yellowstone National Park?" Nah, never work.
Just accept the fact that a HUGE MISTAKE was made in "reintroducing" a totally foreign species into an ecological vacuum, and let us deal with the issue in a realistic manner: KILL 'EM ALL!!!
My wife cried for days over l calf getting killed. My "herd" is her petting zoo, too.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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May 29, 2010 - 04:02pm PT
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How many children under 15 killed will it take to get the wolves de-listed from the ESA?
How much denial from "officialdom?"
How many more calves, ewes, lambs, puppies, kittens, dogs, cats, etc?
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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May 29, 2010 - 04:46pm PT
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Brokedownclimber, are your losses on your own private land or do you lease Federal/state land for your livestock?
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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May 29, 2010 - 04:56pm PT
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I have 1600 DEEDED ACRES! I pay property taxes on that much land. A few acres of State Lease land added in. Probably less than 200 acres that is totally enclosed by my deeded.
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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May 29, 2010 - 05:07pm PT
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Her family and friends really need support right now, very sad for them and also her students.
The small size of the lady is key. Generally, wolves very seldom attack people. A tall male is too big visually, but a child or small woman is more of a size they feel comfortable with.
Some years ago, I visited a guy at a wildlife waystation who had a semi-tame mountain lion. He said the thing was fine with full size adults, but reacted very differently to children and dogs, as visually they are the right size for prey.
Statistically, deer are far more dangerous to people than wolves. The number of people seriously injured from hitting a deer, or swerving to avoid one while driving is much larger than the number attacked by wolves.
The Canadian author R.D. Lawrence once found himself right in the middle of a large wolf pack, but they had no interest in hunting him.
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