wolf management will cost $2.3 million in 2013

[Special T]

I spent two years as a spotted owl surveyor, and in that time I only saw two spotted owls. I saw the same two owls on more than one occasion, but nevertheless, it was still only two individual owls. That's why I find it hard to believe that you would just randomly have seen several spotted owls, while not out specifically looking for them.

But, to get back on topic, yes I have also seen three wolves, back in 1990.

I think that statement answers a lot of questions that have had me scratching my head.

[bobcat]

I spent two years as a spotted owl surveyor, and in that time I only saw two spotted owls. I saw the same two owls on more than one occasion, but nevertheless, it was still only two individual owls. That's why I find it hard to believe that you would just randomly have seen several spotted owls, while not out specifically looking for them.

But, to get back on topic, yes I have also seen three wolves, back in 1990.

I think that statement answers a lot of questions that have had me scratching my head.

Oh, questions related to the rarity of spotted owls? I'm glad I could be of some help.   

[denali]

The agency really wanted SB 5193 to pass. It would have also raised a lot of money for management through the sales of special license plates — earlier this year, WDFW said there would be a $1.5 million shortfall in its wolf budget — as well as designated wolves as big game for future hunting seasons/increased poaching fines.

I'm going to go out on a limb here....there are more wolves and they will cost more than the WDFW estimates.   

[pianoman9701]

The agency really wanted SB 5193 to pass. It would have also raised a lot of money for management through the sales of special license plates — earlier this year, WDFW said there would be a $1.5 million shortfall in its wolf budget — as well as designated wolves as big game for future hunting seasons/increased poaching fines.

I'm going to go out on a limb here....there are more wolves and they will cost more than the WDFW estimates.   

Can't be. That would mean we're being lied to. 

[wolfbait]

wolf management will cost $2.3 million in 2013? What will the cost in tags be with less hunting?

"MOOSE & WOLVES"
The Minnesota moose population “free fall” noted on your front page (8,840 in 2006; 4,900 last year; and 4,230 today) coincides with the steady rise in the number of wolves in the state and the past two decades of wolf dispersals N, E, & S from the overpopulated Minnesota wolf habitat.  Despite “Upper Midwest” “scientists” claiming that wolf predation on moose is not the “culprit” while cleverly admitting that “wolves do eat moose”; wolves are widely recognized to currently be:

-          Reducing moose populations in Alaska

-          Reducing moose and elk populations in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Alberta.

-          A primary limiting factor on moose in Asia.

-          Limiting, to the point of extinction, caribou in both the Lower 48 States and sections of Canada.

 

Both State and federal bureaucrat “scientists” have a stake in downplaying the many bad effects of their continuing wolf programs.  Wolves, like your dog, learn and adapt.  That Minnesota wolves learn where moose calves are to be found each year as increasing numbers of wolves compete for decreasing food is not surprising.  That the “Bull-to-cow” ratio is “at the highest level since 2006” while maintaining a “consistent 80% pregnancy rate” only indicates that many pregnant, nursing, and protective (to calves) moose cows are sharing the cruel and ugly demise suffered by their calves.

 

Ask your favorite bureaucrat how they measure calf predation the next time they tell you, “parasites, possibly linked to summer heat spells” are causing the moose decline or how Native harvests are reported as including the laughingly accurate “six or so female” moose?  All the other bunk about “wolves can be a moose’s best friend” and how Michigan moose on the U.P. (a few years behind Minnesota’s wolf population expansion and big game impacts) won’t be hunted because “If you don’t have a moose season now is not the time to start one” are simply bureaucratic public relations diversions intended only to muddy the waters.

 

Minnesota moose and Minnesota moose hunting are indeed in “free fall” and headed “toward zero within decades.”  The problem isn’t just the wolves killing moose: the problem is government perfidy and public gullibility.  Minnesota natural resources are being managed like children’s cartoons and the adults are pretending not to recognize it..

 

Jim Beers

28 March 2012,