Wolves do affect business

[bearpaw]

I have never debated or denied that hunter opportunity has been lost and businesses have suffered as a result.

OK, glad we agree on that.   

[Sitka_Blacktail]

Furthermore, these losses of hunter opportunity and resulting declines in hunters has heavily impacted rural businesses. 

This business in Western Montana seems to have not been affected. Lots of elk and great success rate and nice bulls. Darn that Ted Turner.  http://www.arnaudoutfitting.com/hunts/elk.html

Of course you have to have a bit of money to hunt with this business and they are probably self contained so they don't spread the cash around much to other businesses.

My 82 year old uncle and his group (all locals) took 12 elk off one ranch near Townsend Montana this year.  That's about par for the course for them. A local rancher lets them thin the elk on his property to alleviate elk damage. Wolves aren't keeping them from hunting and being successful. But if some outfitter convinces the rancher he can significantly up his profit margin by leasing the hunting rights to him, my uncle's group might be out of luck.

[Sitka_Blacktail]

Man the elk near Townsend are wiped out!............ NOT QUITE.

Montana Elk Herd 10-21-2012

[bearpaw]

Sitka you are a persistent bugger, I'll give you that.   

However, again you are trying to tap a point that is probably useless in this discussion. To my knowledge, that elk herd hasn't suffered any wolf impacts yet, so it's sort of a useless post at best for this discussion. Just for a reminder, it's the wolf impacted herds that have reduced hunter opportunity and damaged local businesses.

Think Yellowstone, lolo, selway, middlefork, panhandle, etc,... and you will be more on target.

[KFhunter]

Sitka you are a persistent bugger, I'll give you that.   

However, again you are trying to tap a point that is probably useless in this discussion. To my knowledge, that elk herd hasn't suffered any wolf impacts yet, so it's sort of a useless post at best for this discussion. Just for a reminder, it's the wolf impacted herds that have reduced hunter opportunity and damaged local businesses.

Think Yellowstone, lolo, selway, middlefork, panhandle, NE Washington etc,... and you will be more on target.

fixed

[idahohuntr]

Sitka you are a persistent bugger, I'll give you that.   

However, again you are trying to tap a point that is probably useless in this discussion. To my knowledge, that elk herd hasn't suffered any wolf impacts yet, so it's sort of a useless post at best for this discussion. Just for a reminder, it's the wolf impacted herds that have reduced hunter opportunity and damaged local businesses.

Think Yellowstone, lolo, selway, middlefork, panhandle, etc,... and you will be more on target.

Just out of curiousity, do you hunt the selway, middlefork, lolo, or panhandle zones? Or do you have any experience in any of them?

[KFhunter]

It's really hard for me not to fight bearpaw's battles for him,  but he's a big boy. 


I'd just say there's plenty of guides in those areas out of work and perhaps he knows them personally.  The outfitter world is pretty small.

[bearpaw]

Sitka you are a persistent bugger, I'll give you that.   

However, again you are trying to tap a point that is probably useless in this discussion. To my knowledge, that elk herd hasn't suffered any wolf impacts yet, so it's sort of a useless post at best for this discussion. Just for a reminder, it's the wolf impacted herds that have reduced hunter opportunity and damaged local businesses.

Think Yellowstone, lolo, selway, middlefork, panhandle, etc,... and you will be more on target.

Just out of curiousity, do you hunt the selway, middlefork, lolo, or panhandle zones? Or do you have any experience in any of them?

That's a reasonable question given that I shoot off my mouth so much!

First I would point out that my claims are based on IDFG statistics which are documented on the IDFG website, in the IDFG Predator Management Plans, and in numerous topics on this forum, and in most of these topics the same handful of "_____" members always derail the discussion. 

Next, my son is an Idaho resident and spends most of the year in wolf impacted Idaho units. He has been followed off the mountain by packs of howling wolves that skirted him and his dogs wanting to eat his dogs. That scares the dickins out of him, he will not go on the mountain without a gun. He has been on many winter ranges hunting lions and hunting wolves with clients for other outfitters. He also hunts spring bear in the higher areas in the spring and sees the herds then too. He probably has a better handle on many elk, deer, and moose herds than many people working for F&G. We knew about several of the undocumented panhandle wolf packs before wolf season opened and IDFG found out that half the wolves taken were killed from undocumented wolf packs.

Lastly, Yes, I have spent time in many of those zones myself and I almost purchased an elk hunting business in the Selway a few years ago, glad I backed out of that it just keeps getting worse. More recently I nearly purchased a business in the Lolo, two different businesses in the Coeur D Alenes, and two businesses in the St Joe, but backed off at the last minute because of the predator impacts. Just last year I tried to buy a business in the middle fork and a business in the southern hills, but both deals fell through because the outfitters had not done any business in the last three years and they lost the business back to the state due to non-use. I still have the correspondence to prove that.

There just isn't much value in the ungulate outfitting businesses in most of those units, if I can find a business that's cheap enough I will buy one for the predator hunts, but most of these outfitters are buried in businesses that they paid 4 to 6 times current value so they are trying to hold out. But I can tell you that many outfitting businesses are in the red with few if any hunters each year. In my search for additional outfitting businesses my son and I have probably talked to no less than 20 or 30 of the outfitters in wolf impacted areas in the last 1-3 years. We have also made scouting trips to check out these outfitting areas and when I talk about what outfitters say, in many cases that is coming directly from the mouth of outfitters (who have outfitted these areas for 10 or more years) when I have talked to them in search of buying their business.

Two years ago another outfitter friend purchased a Lolo outfitting business for just over $40,000. The previous owner of that business had paid $250,000 cash for that business in 1995. The new owner (friend) is doing predator hunts and hoping that IDFG can recover the elk herd with wolf control actions.

I can assure you that I know exactly what I am talking about when I discuss these wolf impacted areas. 

[bearpaw]

Hunting is my life. I guide hunters for all types of game in 4 states 8 months out of the year. As I type this I am waiting for more snow as I have another lion hunter waiting to hunt in Idaho. All my kiids and wife hunt to varying degrees and when I go on vacation I fit in some hunting or fishing. Even though I am allover the place my home is still NE Washington. It saddens me greatly to watch WDFW ignore the wolf experiences learned in ID/MT/WY and allow wolves to multiply to the point in NE WA that it may emulate the Lolo Zone in a few years. 

[ribka]

Your info is appreciated.. ,Every year I speak to  ID and MT outfitters at the sportsmen shows, you know the guys that actually live and work every day in areas impacted by the intro of wolves, and they echo your sentiments.  I hike and fish quite a bit in the panhandle and NW MT and have noticed a huge decrease in moose and elk sightings the past 9 years.

I guess we can start saving for a $ 8 k  canned elk hunt on a MT ranch

Sitka you are a persistent bugger, I'll give you that.   

However, again you are trying to tap a point that is probably useless in this discussion. To my knowledge, that elk herd hasn't suffered any wolf impacts yet, so it's sort of a useless post at best for this discussion. Just for a reminder, it's the wolf impacted herds that have reduced hunter opportunity and damaged local businesses.

Think Yellowstone, lolo, selway, middlefork, panhandle, etc,... and you will be more on target.

Just out of curiousity, do you hunt the selway, middlefork, lolo, or panhandle zones? Or do you have any experience in any of them?

That's a reasonable question given that I shoot off my mouth so much!

First I would point out that my claims are based on IDFG statistics which are documented on the IDFG website, in the IDFG Predator Management Plans, and in numerous topics on this forum, and in most of these topics the same handful of "_____" members always derail the discussion. 

Next, my son is an Idaho resident and spends most of the year in wolf impacted Idaho units. He has been followed off the mountain by packs of howling wolves that skirted him and his dogs wanting to eat his dogs. That scares the dickins out of him, he will not go on the mountain without a gun. He has been on many winter ranges hunting lions and hunting wolves with clients for other outfitters. He also hunts spring bear in the higher areas in the spring and sees the herds then too. He probably has a better handle on many elk, deer, and moose herds than many people working for F&G. We knew about several of the undocumented panhandle wolf packs before wolf season opened and IDFG found out that half the wolves taken were killed from undocumented wolf packs.

Lastly, Yes, I have spent time in many of those zones myself and I almost purchased an elk hunting business in the Selway a few years ago, glad I backed out of that it just keeps getting worse. More recently I nearly purchased a business in the Lolo, two different businesses in the Coeur D Alenes, and two businesses in the St Joe, but backed off at the last minute because of the predator impacts. Just last year I tried to buy a business in the middle fork and a business in the southern hills, but both deals fell through because the outfitters had not done any business in the last three years and they lost the business back to the state due to non-use. I still have the correspondence to prove that.

There just isn't much value in the ungulate outfitting businesses in most of those units, if I can find a business that's cheap enough I will buy one for the predator hunts, but most of these outfitters are buried in businesses that they paid 4 to 6 times current value so they are trying to hold out. But I can tell you that many outfitting businesses are in the red with few if any hunters each year. In my search for additional outfitting businesses my son and I have probably talked to no less than 20 or 30 of the outfitters in wolf impacted areas in the last 1-3 years. We have also made scouting trips to check out these outfitting areas and when I talk about what outfitters say, in many cases that is coming directly from the mouth of outfitters (who have outfitted these areas for 10 or more years) when I have talked to them in search of buying their business.

Two years ago another outfitter friend purchased a Lolo outfitting business for just over $40,000. The previous owner of that business had paid $250,000 cash for that business in 1995. The new owner (friend) is doing predator hunts and hoping that IDFG can recover the elk herd with wolf control actions.

I can assure you that I know exactly what I am talking about when I discuss these wolf impacted areas. 

[bearpaw]

Thanks Ribka 


Obviously some outfitters in ID/MT are still getting hunters and have elk to hunt, but here's what is happening. A lot of outfitters are losing their businesses and surviving outfitters are doubling and tripling the size of their outfitting areas to survive. If you have a large enough portion of the Lolo, Selway, or some other wolf impacted area and know where the remaining elk herds hang out, you can still be successful as an outfitter or as a DIY public land hunter. But with fewer elk in these areas the hunters who do not get onto the specific remaining herds usually see little or nothing. That is why hunter numbers have dropped off in the wolf impacted areas. Fewer elk spells fewer opportunities.

We have a friend who lives/lived in Garden Valley Idaho. He is not a hunter, he hunted one time with my son and another friend and he shot a bear, that's it. He and his wife owned the restaurant along the main highway, he is a heck of a chef. Their restaurant was successful providing meals to rafters in the spring/summer and hunters in the fall/early winter. This is fairly close to the original wolf release site in Idaho. About 3 or 4 years ago after most of the late season hunts were reduced or eliminated and after many hunters quit coming to the area for the general seasons, he and his wife went broke, rafting season wasn't enough to support them all year, they had to shut down the restaurant. That man hates wolves, he now has to leave home for a month or two at a time to go work on drilling rigs to earn a living, he misses his family and his business. Small businesses all over rural Idaho have suffered the same "wrath of the wolf".

[JLS]

If there are too many elk in your hunting area you are certainly welcome to identify it specifically so some of the displaced hunters can help control these over populated elk.

I'll be posting my hunting area publicly on the web about the same time you offer unlimited free hunts on your private leases.

[JLS]

You can certainly deny whatever you want. The F&G statistics (which is what I like to deal with) all say there are numerous declining herds in Montana, perhaps I misidentified one of the declining herds?. Even the Yellowstone herd that used to number nearly 20,000 elk but now only numbers less than 4,000 elk probably has a handful of record class bulls. I am not arguing that at all.

For your view pleasure.  I will be the first to admit that I think many of the objectives are too low in favor of agricultural interests, but if you want to talk data here is what we have to look at.

Intepret it how you wish, I see a lot of green and red in areas that have wolves.

Of course the loss of the late hunts had a significant commercial impact.  It was a cash cow for outfitters like Broken Hart to take late season cow hunters out.  But I've also talked to other outfitters while out hunting that are doing just fine.

[JLS]

A more current one.

[JLS]

http://fwp.mt.gov/fishAndWildlife/management/elk/