I hate wolves. JUST hate them

[JLS]

A very interesting study that WY Game and Fish is working on that shows trends consistent with the Northern Yellowstone elk herd, ie. an aging cow population and low calf recruitment.

http://www.wyocoopunit.org/index.php/kauffman-group/search/absaroka-elk-ecology-project/

[pianoman9701]

The problem I have is that hunters have brought the ungulates back from extinction to abundance. This is kind of like the expectations of the union bosses regarding the President: You depended on us to make it happen. Now, we deserve the hunting opportunities. Instead, plans have been implemented which don't consider the future of hunting unless it fits in with the wolf recovery. The food wouldn't be there for the wolves without the hunters. Now, it's too bad, so sad, the greenie environmentalists, who have had no skin in the game, are calling the shots. And, their goal is to stop hunting. I believe they'll eventually see their mission accomplished and the people who restored the herds will be left out; us.

[turkeyfeather]

A very interesting study that WY Game and Fish is working on that shows trends consistent with the Northern Yellowstone elk herd, ie. an aging cow population and low calf recruitment.

http://www.wyocoopunit.org/index.php/kauffman-group/search/absaroka-elk-ecology-project/

A very interesting study that WY Game and Fish is working on that shows trends consistent with the Northern Yellowstone elk herd, ie. an aging cow population and low calf recruitment.

http://www.wyocoopunit.org/index.php/kauffman-group/search/absaroka-elk-ecology-project/

THANKS MAN. The way I read that article it kinda proves our point.

[20 Minutes]

Habitat is a very pressing problem that is difficult to separate away from the issue or perception of wolf impacts.  Much of the habitat in northern Idaho has been decreasing in quality over the last 100 years.  Look at how much elk numbers have increased in the Palouse zone, which is a mix of agricultural and private timberlands.  Yet at the same time in the Lochsa, Selway and upper Clearwater elk numbers are remaining depressed and have for a very long time from before wolves.

I'm not saying wolves aren't having an impact, but I believe the biggest impact is habitat quality.  Following the fires of the early 1900's the upper Selway had one of the largest elk herds in North America.

Typical agency style response,  blame everything but the wolves, shift the blame to anything other than the real problem, a lack of predator management. I agree that habitat is a concern, but please explain the YNP elk herd. No habitat control there by humans, yet until man introduced wolves there were strong elk/moose herds before the fire and after the fire. Now that man introduced wolves they have reduced the herds, the wolves are eating each other and moving to new areas, the YNP has far fewer ungulates or wolves because of a lack of management.   

Is that obvious enough for you now?  I'm not shifting blame simply because I don't agree with you, I have repeatedly explained my stance and we obviously differ in our opinions and beliefs.  I don't feel the need to mock you, sorry that you do. 

I've explained my views and observations on the northern YNP herd to you and you will believe what you want to believe.  I'm good with that.  The reality is you had a huge population spike following the '88 fires, and then years of hunters shooting the snot out of the elk when they came out of the park, followed by an exponential growth of wolf numbers.  If the population is so dismal, why is that particular elk management unit within acceptable parameters in the state of Montana?  There are no emergency closures for elk hunting in this area.  People still continue to come from across the country to hunt it.  Maybe the reality is that it's not so bad after all.

That's misleading and untruthful, the wolf impacts are very well documented, all the late cow hunts have been eliminated because the northern Yellowstone herd has declined from roughly 20,000 to 4,000.

How many years did it take to go from 20K to 4k?
What is the estimated wolf population, which is responsible for the decrease in population?

[magnanimous_j]

I don’t think I’ve ever weighed in on wolves here (not that anyone has asked me to), but here goes:

I think one of the biggest unspoken misconceptions held by environmentally minded people (and many conservatives as well) is that the state of nature was a perfect equilibrium before man showed up; perfectly synergistic and sustainable until the sun goes nova. In reality, the state of nature is in constant flux and mankind is just the latest species to have the ability to completely crash an ecosystem.

Just like everywhere else on the planet, the plants and animals in the PNW have been in constant evolutionary arms race since the day the first living things arrived. For example, the wild sheep and goat have a common ancestor that was easily the most terrifying murderbeast since the dinosaurs went extinct. Point being, animals come and go. I don’t know if we have any way to track it, but I seriously doubt that wolves have been around here that long, on the geographic time scale anyway.

So take the wolf: breeds quickly, intelligent, kills often, and effortlessly handles the worst weather the Northwest can throw at it. Back in the day before western settlement, it’s only evolutionary barrier was starvation and other predators (and disease I suppose). There wasn’t the abundance of game then that there is today (to a point, I’m not convinced the PNW was as barren as some have suggested. I don’t think the Lewis and Clark expedition, total newbies to the area, at one particular time in history is a good enough sample to definitively make that known). However, inability to locate game was the main limiting force to keeping wolf populations in check.

Obviously they no longer have that issue. Livestock, pets, and humans are available year round and can be located effortlessly. A cattle ranch might as well be a QFC. Without diligent human management, the wolf has no barriers to explosive population growth.

Wolves to have the quality of picking off the weak, old and diseased of the herd, effectively increasing the overall herd health, but due to their lack of environmental restraint, they have nothing to limit them from just eating everything. Given the thousands of years required, game animals could evolve strategies effective against the wolf. But they don’t have that much time.

If we had highly effective human management, the wolf could be an invaluable player in the ecosystem of the PNW, but I doubt we have the resources OR ability to actually do that. So at least for now, purposely introducing wolves seems like a staggeringly horrible idea.

[billdo5]

And again your getting your info from state officials who have a vested interest in feeding you a line of crap. I'm out for tonight. Good luck trying to convince people of you line of thinking. We all know better.

Wow.  You can make this blanket statement about people you have never met?  People who are just as passionate, if not more, about elk hunting than many of us here?  People who I've gotten to know as friends with a common interest in hunting elk?  How brave of you to stand behind an anonymous name and label them crooked liars.   

I am in no way anticipating that I will convince you of anything.  You know everything apparently, maybe you should go run Idaho Fish and Game.  Then people like yourself, who think they know better than you could label you a crooked liar.

JLS please go hug a tree and just to let you know if i see one im shooting it... report me please ... I would love to know what u think about the hoof disease in the St. Helens Herd... not

[AspenBud]

As I've said before here....

This is really about whether we cultivate elk and deer like a crop or if we accept that their numbers, in a balanced situation, will be lower.

Without a top tier apex predator ungulates "thrive." That doesn't mean that you're looking at the healthiest of animals or the strongest, but a lot can survive even in what is sub par habitat since the only real threat is people, disease, the occasional cougar, weather, and starvation. To someone who isn't familiar with what is truly good habitat is, things can look great given a high population. But it can well be that the animals aren't getting as much to eat as they should or that the escape cover doesn't exist and those can be mutually exclusive or exist at the same time, but if an area is lacking in one or both, it's bad news with the introduction of a real predator. All of that would go unnoticed in the absence of something like wolves.

Wolves expose the problems. They expose the poor quality of the habitat in places and they expose just how unhealthy many ungulates really are, without them you would never know the difference.

I'm not saying that's right or wrong. But it is worthy of consideration.

This also does not mean they should not be managed through hunting or that people shouldn't be allowed to protect what is there's and themselves from them.

But dismissing the habitat issue and how wolves have shown some of the issues out there is very shortsighted. Put another way, it's not just the wolves that have been mismanaged, it's also the habitat.

[AspenBud]

I would love to know what u think about the hoof disease in the St. Helens Herd...

The St. Helens herd may well be a good place to learn some things about habitat if wolves stay out of there (which is unlikely). The herd came back with a vengeance after the mountain blew its top off and that makes sense since the blast had the affect of one giant clear cut. It will be interesting to see how they fair as the landscape continues to age and the herd grows in size. Hoof rot may well be a symptom of a bigger problem going on there.

[pianoman9701]

Wolves are already in St. Helens.

[AspenBud]

Wolves are already in St. Helens.

That's the rumor. I haven't seen or heard any, but I know guys outside of this forum who claim to have.

[pianoman9701]

I've seen a wolf at 20 yards. I know what they look like.

[JLS]

JLS please go hug a tree and just to let you know if i see one im shooting it... report me please ... I would love to know what u think about the hoof disease in the St. Helens Herd... not

Not sure where you come up with the tree hugger label pal, but whatever floats your boat.  I've been a proponent of liberal wolf hunting for a long time, and have repeatedly voiced my opinion that I think hunters got a raw deal when one considers how much money they've put into habitat improvements and winter range acquisitions.

I guess all of that is lost on you though.

[Worldhunter]

They ruined the hunting on our family ranch in Garden Valley, Idaho.  The introduced wolves are definitely out of control.

[pianoman9701]

The largest single problem facing habitat improvement are the limitations that were put on logging public lands in the early 90s, in conjunction with super-effective fire fighting techniques which have been improved greatly since they started 80 years or so ago. This is a disastrous combination which again, has been created by enviro-wackos who have no skin in the game. That, and the ESA, which has been used by these people, not to protect critters, but to forward their personal environmental agendas - and our government has been all too happy to allow it. There is no balance in nature because the very people who pretend to be there to balance it only balance that which suits their interests. Allowing wolves to repopulate as a measure to allow nature's balance to happen is false. We continue to unbalance nature when we don't 1. allow fire to create habitat, or 2. allow logging to create habitat where we fight fire. Adding the wolf into a "balance" scenario that didn't exist the last time wolves were here is like adding an invasive species. Each time we do something different without increasing habitat, the balance disappears.

[AspenBud]

The largest single problem facing habitat improvement are the limitations that were put on logging public lands in the early 90s, in conjunction with super-effective fire fighting techniques which have been improved greatly since they started 80 years or so ago. This is a disastrous combination which again, has been created by enviro-wackos who have no skin in the game. That, and the ESA, which has been used by these people, not to protect critters, but to forward their personal environmental agendas - and our government has been all too happy to allow it. There is no balance in nature because the very people who pretend to be there to balance it only balance that which suits their interests. Allowing wolves to repopulate as a measure to allow nature's balance to happen is false. We continue to unbalance nature when we don't 1. allow fire to create habitat, or 2. allow logging to create habitat where we fight fire. Adding the wolf into a "balance" scenario that didn't exist the last time wolves were here is like adding an invasive species. Each time we do something different without increasing habitat, the balance disappears.

 

Except for the bit about balance not existing the last time wolves were here. I think people simply eradicated them back then because that's what you did with wolves. Balance, or a lack of it, played no role in that whatsoever.

It doesn't really matter. You're right about the rest and the thing a lot of people fail to understand and accept is that the landscape is entirely different today. 50 years ago there were half as many people in this country and there was a lot more open and undeveloped space. Even more 50 years before that.

Love them or hate them, wolves have to be managed through some amount of hunting at the very least. We've changed the landscape over the years too much to not allow it.