Bowhunter chased up tree by wolves in GMU 121!

[bearpaw]

oh ya!  I guess you did, my apologies JLS.


The boys in Montana would never SSS 

Maybe the do.  I don't know anyone that has but I'm sure there are.  Given the fact that hunters have only been killing about 150-200 wolves a year, I'm doubting that poachers are having all that significant of an impact on the wolves. 

Your conspiracy theory may vary.

How would you know how many wolves have been poached?

I would comment that many of those "wolf poachers" are likely good citizens on most other counts. It was the continued court battles that prevented wolf management and their love for Idaho wildlife that caused them to become vigilantes.

I would suggest that the legal harvest is likely still not all inclusive of wolf harvest and yet Idaho still needs areal gunning to try and get wolf numbers under control.

[idahohuntr]

For the record I find it interesting that some of you guys claim wolves don't decimate herds yet you acknowledge the need for aerial gunning of wolves. 

Yea, I find it interesting that you continue to distort intentionally or out of ignorance the opinions of people on this forum.  I have not heard one person say wolf hunting is a bad thing.  I agree there are specific areas where wolves need additional control actions.  I do not subscribe to the mass hysteria that wolves will decimate all wildlife.  Sorry, the world is not black and white where you can fit everybody into simple categories like "wolf lovers" or "wolf haters". 

[KFhunter]

oh ya!  I guess you did, my apologies JLS.


The boys in Montana would never SSS 

Maybe the do.  I don't know anyone that has but I'm sure there are.  Given the fact that hunters have only been killing about 150-200 wolves a year, I'm doubting that poachers are having all that significant of an impact on the wolves. 

Your conspiracy theory may vary.

How would you know how many wolves have been poached?

I would comment that many of those "wolf poachers" are likely good citizens on most other counts. It was the continued court battles that prevented wolf management and their love for Idaho wildlife that caused them to become vigilantes.

I would suggest that the legal harvest is likely still not all inclusive of wolf harvest and yet Idaho still needs areal gunning to try and get wolf numbers under control.

Washington is screwed. 

Liberal King CO. isn't going to tolerate helicopters gunning down wolves,  we can't trap them or snare them, and hunting them in the brush is almost impossible on a scale that's needed to curb the population. 


I still haven't seen any ideas for WA wolf management where conflict dictates wolves need to be removed, or where large ungulates have declined too far.

[bearpaw]

Some of you can try to paint me as a "wolf hater" who wants all wolves killed. Nothing could be further from the truth, I've said this before, I think there is a place for all species including wolves. What I cannot and will not agree with is the failure to manage wolves at numbers compatible with our modern environment that do not decimate herds and the failure to allow citizens to protect themselves and their property when needed.

Wolves need to be managed and citizens need to be able to protect themselves and their property.

The hypocrisy is that if the "wolf lovers" would back off and allow reasonable wolf management, larger big game herds would support larger numbers of predators and hunters would not be so opposed to predators. The reality is that "anti-hunters" are using wolves to decimate herds so they can curtail hunting and ranching. It's truly unfortunate that some otherwise well-meaning hunters fall for the wolf propaganda "koolaid" and actually are helping the "wolf lovers" to accomplish their ultimate goals. The question is how many misled hunters and wildlife managers are big enough to admit they have been misled and that many big game herds, the ranching industry, and hunting have been seriously damaged by wolves?   

[bearpaw]

oh ya!  I guess you did, my apologies JLS.


The boys in Montana would never SSS 

Maybe the do.  I don't know anyone that has but I'm sure there are.  Given the fact that hunters have only been killing about 150-200 wolves a year, I'm doubting that poachers are having all that significant of an impact on the wolves. 

Your conspiracy theory may vary.

How would you know how many wolves have been poached?

I would comment that many of those "wolf poachers" are likely good citizens on most other counts. It was the continued court battles that prevented wolf management and their love for Idaho wildlife that caused them to become vigilantes.

I would suggest that the legal harvest is likely still not all inclusive of wolf harvest and yet Idaho still needs areal gunning to try and get wolf numbers under control.

Washington is screwed. 

Liberal King CO. isn't going to tolerate helicopters gunning down wolves,  we can't trap them or snare them, and hunting them in the brush is almost impossible on a scale that's needed to curb the population. 


I still haven't seen any ideas for WA wolf management where conflict dictates wolves need to be removed, or where large ungulates have declined too far.

    There is something in the wolf plan about protecting herds, but WDFW stated at the Colville wolf meeting they would have to study the effects for years before taking any action, so they obviously plan to side step that requirement.

[bearpaw]

For the record I find it interesting that some of you guys claim wolves don't decimate herds yet you acknowledge the need for aerial gunning of wolves. 

Yea, I find it interesting that you continue to distort intentionally or out of ignorance the opinions of people on this forum.  I have not heard one person say wolf hunting is a bad thing.  I agree there are specific areas where wolves need additional control actions.  I do not subscribe to the mass hysteria that wolves will decimate all wildlife.  Sorry, the world is not black and white where you can fit everybody into simple categories like "wolf lovers" or "wolf haters".

You seem to be one of the people who tries to sugar coat the impacts of wolves, it appears that you may have drank the wolf lover koolaid. Please tell me it aint so? 

Livestock losses plus the moose and elk herd numbers in the impacted areas of ID, MT, and WY are statistical fact, for anyone to claim that wolves do not impact herds is just   That seems pretty black and white to me!   

[AspenBud]

Much like Yellowstone, the Bison and Elk will literally hug people and activity to get away from the wolves,

Something tells me that's not why elk hang out around the country club in Longview, WA. Nor is it why people in Kentucky  (where elk have no real predators, have a 92% calf survival rate and are about 15% bigger than their western counterparts) are starting to complain about elk invading their gardens and property.

Nice try to distort this situation in Kentucky to try and say wolves are needed. But that's more wolf lover rubbish. All that Kentucky has to do is liberalize hunting seasons to control elk populations. Wolves are not needed. 

Actually I was making the point that elk have a tendency to wander into towns and yards even in the absence of predators. Some here want to make it sound like that only happens when wolves show up. Right...

There is no distortion. Elk there are wandering and people are starting to complain. The elk recovery out there is one of the most successful reintroductions ever.

Or perhaps you would like to argue that the behavior listed in this article was caused by wolves pushing them into towns?

http://www.kentucky.com/2010/04/24/1237904/kentuckys-elk-population-close.html

[AspenBud]

Just an addition to the above, yep, wolves must have caused this behavior. They sure sound scared.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/41522427/ns/us_news-environment/t/revived-then-reviled-elk-now-hunted-part-kentucky/#.UtgO3bR0mF8

[AspenBud]

Since I'm hearing crickets...

People think it's strange that elk and deer are hanging out where civilization is. I think it's strange they think that's strange. Seeing black tails in people's yards growing up was not uncommon at all and still isn't. If you go to the upper Midwest you'll find white tails all over the place either dead on the side of the road, in fields, or in city parks and people's yards. As for elk, as I said, Roosevelts hang out around the country club in Longview and the descendents of Rocky Mountain elk are becoming a pest in Kentucky.

It's not wolves that have caused the examples I listed above, it's a lack of a major apex predator AND they have good habitat both for winter cover and food.

If people are seeing ungulates in places they never used to it's either because they're numbers are growing or the habitat that they've traditionally been in over the last +/- 100 years is so poor that it provides next to no cover that helps them hide from predators like wolves. The fact that you never saw them in some of the places you do now probably speaks to just how poor the habitat is. If it was good, you should have been seeing them everywhere since the food supply and cover would have favored a higher survival rate and a corresponding spill over.

Habitat is not irrelevant.

[Elkaholic daWg]

oh ya!  I guess you did, my apologies JLS.


The boys in Montana would never SSS 

Maybe the do.  I don't know anyone that has but I'm sure there are.  Given the fact that hunters have only been killing about 150-200 wolves a year, I'm doubting that poachers are having all that significant of an impact on the wolves. 

Your conspiracy theory may vary.

 Friend of a friend.....Libby Mt....Oh yeah........ in the yard

[wolfbait]

WOLF ATTACKS ON HUMANS
http://www.aws.vcn.com/wolf_attacks_on_humans.html

[bearpaw]

Aspenbud, you just can't seem to stay on topic can you? You have to spew rubbish to try and change the topic from talking about the real problems with wolves!

Kentucky elk that are thriving without wolves have nothing to do with wolf predation on elk and wolf interactions with humans in the northwest. 

[bearpaw]

Æ 2012: Idaho Fish and Game sold 80,577 elk tags, and hunters killed 16,418 elk — a 20 percent success rate. In 1996, 100,527 hunters had a 25 percent success rate.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/01/14/2971988/wolf-killing-plan-complicates.html#storylink=cpy

[idahohuntr]

I was reading the Revised draft IDFG Elk management plan put out December 2013 and this quote on page 29 caught my attention as it relates to some of the debate on this forum:

"No single factor impacts wildlife, including elk, more than habitat."

This is in a document prepared by an agency that fully supports wolf hunting, wolf trapping, is taking a lot of heat right now for sending a trapper into the Frank Church to reduce wolf numbers etc.  While IDFG recognizes and responds to specific predation issues in a way that I believe many on here find appropriate, they very correctly understand the overriding importance of habitat to elk populations. 

[Sitka_Blacktail]

Wolves need to be managed and citizens need to be able to protect themselves and their property.

See Dale, something we agree on. Amazing! What we don't agree on and what you label me a wolf lover for is, I don't believe wolves are the end of hunting. Not even close.

I've never said don't trap them. I've never said don't hunt them. I've never said don't manage them. All I've ever said is don't think that they will be the end of hunting or that they will be the ultimate cause of a herd's demise. (That is crazy talk) And if that makes me a wolf lover, so be it.

I've also pointed out before that I've been through all this before with the Feds in my work as a commercial fisherman. I know how frustrating it can be to not be able to protect your property. As a salmon gillnetter in Alaska, we have to deal with the Marine Mammal Act which proclaims all marine mammals to be endangered no matter how bad the local population is.  We've been banned from shooting seals and sea lions to protect our nets. The area I fish, the Copper River Delta, right now has more seals than what scientists ever believed the area could support. But they are still protected. If you saw the herds of sea lions, you'd be surprised that they are protected too. The situation with the Feds is so bad that if they survey the beaches and find dead sea mammals and can prove they were shot by fishermen, they can shut the whole fishery down. Now think of what this would mean in the case of wolves if they thought people weren't taking them serious and were illegally killing wolves and they decided to shut hunting down? And yet I see people talking about illegal killing of wolves all the time on hunting sites, this one included.  do you know that according to the wolf recovery plan, it is actually illegal to encourage anyone to illegally kill a wolf? If I was a Fed and wanted to make a point or push my weight around, I'd start getting IP addresses and tracking people down and writing tickets. Luckily it hasn't come to that yet, but it could.

Frustration? I have thousands of dollars in damage to my nets every year from seals and sea lions. (and that doesn't include the value of the fish they take or ruin) We don't get reimbursed like farmers do. I eat that as a cost of doing business. I also have to put in the time to repair my net which, after a 24, or 48, or 60, or 72 hour fishing period, is the last thing i want to be doing. I have better things to do with my time, like sleeping for starters.  But I don't get the choice. And I don't get the choice of protecting my property. But I'm not going to break the law. So I've learned to deal with it.

The Feds also tell us if seals and sea lions get too bad, we should move to avoid conflict. Guess what, moving isn't an option most of the time. The seals and sea lions are there because the salmon are there, same reason as we are. Moving means wasting fishing time traveling, higher fuel costs (we pay $5 a gallon and my boat burns 20 gallons per hour), and chances are you are moving to an area with no fish. Plus the weather and seas may make moving a moot point.  So this is an impractical suggestion. But imagine being told you have to leave the area you're hunting in if wolves are spotted.

So yes I understand the frustration. But all that being said, in the last 5 years, I'm also catching more fish than I've caught in over 40 years of fishing. The spike in salmon predators (seals and sea lions) has also corresponded with a spike in the number of salmon, just like in most all predator/prey relationships. So I grit my teeth and deal with it.

At least with wolves, there will come a point when hunting is allowed and private property can be protected. Anyone spreading fear and loathing of wolves and encouraging illegal shooting or actually illegally killing wolves is just delaying that point in time. Your time would be better spent trying to push for the hound hunting ban to be rescinded. But to do that, hunters need to be respected and their voices need to be listened to. This wolf battle won't get us there, the way some or most are arguing it. Hunters as a group need to sound knowledgeable, reasonable, and responsible. If we can't, no one will listen to us.