Bad news-wolves in the Blue Mtns

[hunt4]

That "save our elk" website is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.  It's just redneck sensationalism. 

Pictures interviews movies articles facts = redneck sensationalism!  Now that's someone with there head in the sand.
I would like you to debunk any of the information they have with any hard evidence they are just over sensationalism anything.
You think there just making up this for what reason?  What is your reasoning for that statement?  Is it that it makes you uncomfortable with your beliefs and that maybe everything the bleeding hearts have piped into your head might not be true?
Do you think the pictures of the cow elk with there asses eating out to get to the calf that is about to be born are PHOTO SHOPED?
 Information seems to be coming from Federal and State Government, and Media
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/severity/results.htm#table1
http://www.yellowstonepark.com/MoreToKnow/ShowNewsDetails.aspx?newsid=10
Cathy Ellis, Special to Calgary Herald; Canwest News Service
Published: Mar 6th, 2008
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin
just for some examples off there fact page
I will stop and listen to any thing informed you have to rebuttel, but for now i have a hard time understanding how people can think bringing in another predator that is not even  native to the area is a good idea they should not even be here for starters.  We should not even have to worry about a management program for the Canadian Gray Wolf !

[docsven]

According to that study, if I am reading it right, a collection of 5 known packs killed 61 elk in a one month period in 1997.  Project that to about 700 elk in one year, not counting deer, moose, or bison.  What will they eat when the elk are gone?  Also noted that the number of wolves almost doubled in one year (from 1997 to 1998)

[skybusterbo]

According to that study, if I am reading it right, a collection of 5 known packs killed 61 elk in a one month period in 1997.  Project that to about 700 elk in one year, not counting deer, moose, or bison.  What will they eat when the elk are gone?  Also noted that the number of wolves almost doubled in one year (from 1997 to 1998)

If this survey is true, then in 5 years we will have a terrible problem in this state. Maybe sooner than that. NOT GOOD

[docsven]

Ya, and the wolves had less competition in Yellowstone, and probably a fairly tame elk herd.  I don't think the wolves will do as well here as in Yellowstone, but I doubt the elk would survive anyway, they would probably all seek refuge on the reservations, wolves would probably not be welcome on the res, and then guess what would happen to the elk herds? 

[WAcoyotehunter]

How do we know the elk weren't winter killed and salveaged by wolves/coyotes?

Look closely at the Study about the #of elk eaten.  It's an exerpt from the 'real' document.  I would like to see the actual document.  It's a study on winter predatation, so you cannot assume a 12 month # from that data.

Hunt4- my head is not in the sand- I know there are wolves here, and that they eat elk/deer/moose.  They've been here for a LONG time.  This isn't news.  What makes you think they're going to have a population explosion and eat every living thing in WA?  We're not even close to crossing that bridge. 

BTW- many of the wolves we're seeing in WA are coming down from BC...not up from yellowstone, which makes them a native species and, yes, part of the ecosystem. 

[WAcoyotehunter]

That "save our elk" website is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.  It's just redneck sensationalism. 

Pictures interviews movies articles facts = redneck sensationalism!  Now that's someone with there head in the sand.
I would like you to debunk any of the information they have with any hard evidence they are just over sensationalism anything.
You think there just making up this for what reason?  What is your reasoning for that statement?  Is it that it makes you uncomfortable with your beliefs and that maybe everything the bleeding hearts have piped into your head might not be true?
Do you think the pictures of the cow elk with there asses eating out to get to the calf that is about to be born are PHOTO SHOPED?
 Information seems to be coming from Federal and State Government, and Media
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/severity/results.htm#table1
http://www.yellowstonepark.com/MoreToKnow/ShowNewsDetails.aspx?newsid=10
Cathy Ellis, Special to Calgary Herald; Canwest News Service
Published: Mar 6th, 2008
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin
just for some examples off there fact page
I will stop and listen to any thing informed you have to rebuttel, but for now i have a hard time understanding how people can think bringing in another predator that is not even  native to the area is a good idea they should not even be here for starters.  We should not even have to worry about a management program for the Canadian Gray Wolf !

After revisiting the site and really studying some of the material, I'm sticking to my guns.  This is the dumbest "wildlife management" site I have ever seen.  They have taken multiple studies and letters from professionals and totally changed the context.   The have also taken some extreme 'liberties' in their assumptions about wolf predation.

See the speech by the west yellowstone director and shoe me where he says the goal of the wolf reintro was designed to remove 30,000 ranchers from public land.

I (btw) am in favor of revisiting grazing leases and removing some of the animals from public property.  I'm also in favor of increased habitat protection and road closures.  I've said it here before- weeds are a bigger threat to our elk than wolves are.  If the habitat exists we can have both.

[hunt4]

No way to tell if there winter kills, but what is there agenda to make the stuff up? they claim they are all "confimed wolf kills".
I understand any one can pull out exerpt and turn it any way they want.  I do not want to see this State doing the same thing to us.


Very intersting read on there facts page
The Underlying Fraud and Deception behind this Wolf Introduction Exposed

“Nothing Wrong With Lying to the Public”
"Oversight Committee member Don Clower told us
the Committee knew the prey population figures were
highly inflated when they were given to FWS but said that
was necessary to support the rapid build-up of wolves that
would occur in the Nonessential Experimental recovery
option. Then he said he saw nothing wrong with lying to
the public to accomplish that goal."


from the Smithsonian Institution
Under a strict
interpretation of the current taxonomy, wolves that were introduced to YNP and central Idaho were from
founder populations of C. l. occidentalis and C. l. columbianus. In the 1978,

WDFW
The gray wolf in the Northern Rocky Mountains “Distinct Population Segment” (DPS) that included the eastern third of Washington was federally de-listed in March 2008. De-listing was based on increased populations in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming where wolf re-introductions occurred in the mid-1990’s. Inclusion of the eastern third of Washington in that DPS was based on distances that wolves disperse, measured by relocations of radio-collared wolves.
There are no federal or state plans to reintroduce wolves into Washington. With the success of recent federal wolf-recovery efforts in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, it is likely that wolves will increasingly disperse into eastern Washington. State and federal wildlife authorities are monitoring the activity of resident wolves to learn more about their use of habitat and to reduce potential conflicts.

DRAFT WOLF CONSERVATION
AND MANAGEMENT PLAN
FOR WASHINGTON

http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/diversty/soc/gray_wolf/conservation_plan.pdf


I found this funny "NOT" this is in our states grey wolf plan
"Washington could conceivably develop a sizable wolf-related tourist industry, depending on where wolves reestablish, at what numbers, and their detectability."

WDFG

Wolves were again found in the area during 1991, 1992, and 1993. However, it was later learned that a pet wolf released at Hozomeen in the early 1990s (Martino 1997) was responsible for some of these sightings

Additionally, one wolf was found dead near Callispell Lake in southern Pend Oreille County in May 1994 (Palmquist 2002; WDFW, unpubl. data). This animal was radio-collared and had immigrated from northwestern Montana.

In February 2002, a radio-marked female spent several weeks in northern Pend Oreille County, including sites near Metaline Falls and the Salmo-Priest Wilderness (Palmquist 2002). This

individual had also immigrated from northwestern Montana and soon departed for British
Columbia.

In summary, Washington currently holds at least a few solitary wolves in scattered locations and one pack confirmed to have bred, with possibly one or several additional packs present. Wolves occurring in northern Washington probably represent animals that have dispersed from areas of northern Idaho and northwestern Montana that were naturally repopulated by wolves, or from British Columbia . By contrast, wolves present in the Blue Mountains probably originate from central Idaho (via Oregon), where a population was reestablished through reintroductions in 1995 and 1996


The rates at which wolves kill and consume prey are highly variable with time of year and species taken. Both rates (usually expressed as biomass per wolf per day) have been investigated in many North American studies and average about 7.2 kg/wolf/day for kill rate (winter only; Mech and Peterson 2003) and 5.4 kg/wolf/day for consumption rate (winter only; Peterson and Ciucci 2003). The figure for kill rate roughly corresponds to about one 150-kg elk killed per 21 days per wolf (or 17 elk per wolf per year) or one 60-kg deer killed per 8.3 days per wolf (or 44 deer per wolf per year). However, these estimates are probably somewhat inaccurate because they are based on 1) winter studies, when predation rates are highest causing annual take to be overestimated, and 2) do not account well for the number of fawns and calves killed in summer or supplementary prey (e.g., beavers, hares) taken in other seasons (Mech and Peterson 2003, Smith et al. 2004). White et al.2003) attempted to overcome some of these problems and estimated an annual kill rate of 25 ungulates per wolf per year in prey-rich Yellowstone National Park. However, it should be noted that wolf kill rates are generally higher for reestablishing and expanding wolf populations like those at Yellowstone than for long established and stable populations (Jaffe 2001). Predicting predation rates for wolves in Washington is difficult because of many uncertainties, including where wolves will become reestablished in the state and at what population level.

[hunt4]

"I (btw) am in favor of revisiting grazing leases and removing some of the animals from public property"
GREAT IDEA all for it

[runamuk]

That "save our elk" website is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.  It's just redneck sensationalism. 

Pictures interviews movies articles facts = redneck sensationalism!  Now that's someone with there head in the sand.
I would like you to debunk any of the information they have with any hard evidence they are just over sensationalism anything.
You think there just making up this for what reason?  What is your reasoning for that statement?  Is it that it makes you uncomfortable with your beliefs and that maybe everything the bleeding hearts have piped into your head might not be true?
Do you think the pictures of the cow elk with there asses eating out to get to the calf that is about to be born are PHOTO SHOPED?
 Information seems to be coming from Federal and State Government, and Media
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/severity/results.htm#table1
http://www.yellowstonepark.com/MoreToKnow/ShowNewsDetails.aspx?newsid=10
Cathy Ellis, Special to Calgary Herald; Canwest News Service
Published: Mar 6th, 2008
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin
just for some examples off there fact page
I will stop and listen to any thing informed you have to rebuttel, but for now i have a hard time understanding how people can think bringing in another predator that is not even  native to the area is a good idea they should not even be here for starters.  We should not even have to worry about a management program for the Canadian Gray Wolf !

After revisiting the site and really studying some of the material, I'm sticking to my guns.  This is the dumbest "wildlife management" site I have ever seen.  They have taken multiple studies and letters from professionals and totally changed the context.   The have also taken some extreme 'liberties' in their assumptions about wolf predation.

See the speech by the west yellowstone director and shoe me where he says the goal of the wolf reintro was designed to remove 30,000 ranchers from public land.

I (btw) am in favor of revisiting grazing leases and removing some of the animals from public property.  I'm also in favor of increased habitat protection and road closures.  I've said it here before- weeds are a bigger threat to our elk than wolves are.  If the habitat exists we can have both.

+1

[Pathfinder101]

Blue Creek Unit is my elk area.  Killed a decent Mulie up there this year too.  I don't worry about the elk as much as the mule deer.  The cougar have already wreaked havoc with the mulie "herd" (if you can call it that anymore).  Plenty of elk, lots of whitetails moving in, but the mule deer in that unit are hurtin'. 
I had a trail cam out for about 4 weeks this August and September until elk archery started.  Got 3 different adult bears on it, and 2 cougar (I am sure it was the same cougar twice-I hope). I only had one camera out. That's a lot of predators on one ridge.  I only had one camera out.  Like I said, the elk seem to be holding their own and the whitetails breed like rabbits.  I am worried about our mulies though.
I am afraid that a healthy wolf pack would put the last nail in the coffin...

[bowhuntin]

I am not particularly excited about having wolves in this state, but the one thing that has me concerned is when will they get delisted and managed. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are still fighting to get them delisted and managed. If I remember correctly the wolf management plan in our state calls for fifteen breeding pairs just to get delisted. Now the other states had a number given to them and they watched as that number was passed and is still growing and there doesn't seem to me that they are going to be delisted anytime soon because of litigation. I think that is what lies in wait for us. Even if we hit that number they have set, we won't get to hunt them and manage them until it well exceeds their minimum of getting them off the list and then it will all go to hell with the courts and litigation for years because of groups like Defenders of Wildlife, etc.

[Joeman3285]

So I was reading this thread and I have several strong opinions myself on wolves, humans, and prey animals.  I fear that many of these opinions may be very unpopular but here it goes.

First off, I would like to say I hunt and I enjoy hunting. I enjoy game meat and I enjoy getting out into the woods.  I also enjoy the feeling of self-sufficiency I get from bringing home a game animal.  That being said let me voice my opinions on this wolf issue. 

Someone said they are part of the ecosystem.  I agree whole-heartedly with this.  Wolves, humans, and prey have lived together for what some archeologists believe to be upwards of 40,000 years.  Now suddenly in the last 200 years we will not tolerate the existence of other predators.  We humans are the only predators I can think of that will go out of their way to kill the "opposition".  You don't see bears hunting wolves or wolves hunting cougars even though if one of more these predators didn't exist then there would be conceivably more game for the others (you may point to that youtube vid where the wolves killed that yote, but it looked to me like the wolves were defending their kill as opposed to seeking out their competitors, as if coyotes are much by way of a competitor at all).  So why do we feel compelled to hate/fear wolves? 

Since the advent of agriculture and its encroachment onto hunter-gather type cultures, we have felt like the land and anything in or on it is ours by right.  This mindset has led to huge losses of wilderness through logging, mining, and development.  I repeatedly see people here referring to "our" elk, or "our" game.  What makes it ours other then the fact that we are here?  By that same logic, these prey animals, if they belong to anyone, belong as much to the wolves as us, or even more theirs since they have been here much longer then our race has.  Perhaps now we feel as though the wolves are the intruders since in our short memory, there have been none.  But remember, wolves were here long before the first of our ancestors were even thinking about crossing the ocean.  Someone mentioned that these 'intruding wolves' are in-fact Canadian wolves, not timber wolves.  Well, as far as I know there is one species of wolf in NA, the grey wolf.  This species is divided into three or four other varieties based more on geographic occurrence than actual genetic difference: Arctic wolves, red wolves (may be a true subspecies, not sure), grey/timber wolves, and mexican wolves.  Therefore, to say that any migrating wolves in WA do not belong would be similar to saying that we do not belong and should go back to Europe.

Some people have expressed fears regarding the impact of wolves on their hunting.  Will there be an impact? Probably.  However, I was reading a study done in Yellowstone on yearly wolf predation.  Something like 3 monitored packs were bringing down 30-35 elk a month (measured in March and Nov).  Projecting that over a year gives a maximum of 410 elk lost to 3 packs of wolves.  Now think about predator/prey relationships. 

That being said, the number of predators always follows the number of prey.  A spike in elk populations will be followed by an increase in predators.  Likewise, a decrease in elk will be followed by a decrease in predators.  The number of predators and prey is never stable in nature, but only fluctuates about some mean.  Now, throw in humans who are independent of this system.  That is, we have other means of sustenance which means that as a species we are not effect by fluctuations in prey animals.  Therefore, the only limiting factor in how much game we kill is ourselves.  And we have an incomplete understanding of these fragile relationships (yes incomplete, no matter how many biologists we put in the field there will always some new variable that we will uncover that will throw off our predictions).  As a result we are the single largest threat to game.

I guess my point here is this: If you want to point fingers for a decrease in game and harder hunting point it toward over population of people.  More people = more hunting which says nothing of our encroachment onto these animals habitat.  So don't be so anti-wolf.  They have every right to be here and are much more healthy for the ecosystem then we are, no matter how good our 'management' plan is.

[Ridgerunner]

I am not particularly excited about having wolves in this state, but the one thing that has me concerned is when will they get delisted and managed. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are still fighting to get them delisted and managed. If I remember correctly the wolf management plan in our state calls for fifteen breeding pairs just to get delisted. Now the other states had a number given to them and they watched as that number was passed and is still growing and there doesn't seem to me that they are going to be delisted anytime soon because of litigation. I think that is what lies in wait for us. Even if we hit that number they have set, we won't get to hunt them and manage them until it well exceeds their minimum of getting them off the list and then it will all go to hell with the courts and litigation for years because of groups like Defenders of Wildlife, etc.

AMEN.  That is the problem, the species are hitting the recovery goals and the anti groups are letting them be delisted they are fighting to keep them listed.  If management would be turned over to the state it wouldn't be the problem that it currently is in MT, ID and WY and will be hte problem here in WA. 

[Thenewguy]

So I was reading this thread and I have several strong opinions myself on wolves, humans, and prey animals.  I fear that many of these opinions may be very unpopular but here it goes.

First off, I would like to say I hunt and I enjoy hunting. I enjoy game meat and I enjoy getting out into the woods.  I also enjoy the feeling of self-sufficiency I get from bringing home a game animal.  That being said let me voice my opinions on this wolf issue. 

Someone said they are part of the ecosystem.  I agree whole-heartedly with this.  Wolves, humans, and prey have lived together for what some archeologists believe to be upwards of 40,000 years.  Now suddenly in the last 200 years we will not tolerate the existence of other predators.  We humans are the only predators I can think of that will go out of their way to kill the "opposition".  You don't see bears hunting wolves or wolves hunting cougars even though if one of more these predators didn't exist then there would be conceivably more game for the others (you may point to that youtube vid where the wolves killed that yote, but it looked to me like the wolves were defending their kill as opposed to seeking out their competitors, as if coyotes are much by way of a competitor at all).  So why do we feel compelled to hate/fear wolves? 

Since the advent of agriculture and its encroachment onto hunter-gather type cultures, we have felt like the land and anything in or on it is ours by right.  This mindset has led to huge losses of wilderness through logging, mining, and development.  I repeatedly see people here referring to "our" elk, or "our" game.  What makes it ours other then the fact that we are here?  By that same logic, these prey animals, if they belong to anyone, belong as much to the wolves as us, or even more theirs since they have been here much longer then our race has.  Perhaps now we feel as though the wolves are the intruders since in our short memory, there have been none.  But remember, wolves were here long before the first of our ancestors were even thinking about crossing the ocean.  Someone mentioned that these 'intruding wolves' are in-fact Canadian wolves, not timber wolves.  Well, as far as I know there is one species of wolf in NA, the grey wolf.  This species is divided into three or four other varieties based more on geographic occurrence than actual genetic difference: Arctic wolves, red wolves (may be a true subspecies, not sure), grey/timber wolves, and mexican wolves.  Therefore, to say that any migrating wolves in WA do not belong would be similar to saying that we do not belong and should go back to Europe.

Some people have expressed fears regarding the impact of wolves on their hunting.  Will there be an impact? Probably.  However, I was reading a study done in Yellowstone on yearly wolf predation.  Something like 3 monitored packs were bringing down 30-35 elk a month (measured in March and Nov).  Projecting that over a year gives a maximum of 410 elk lost to 3 packs of wolves.  Now think about predator/prey relationships. 

That being said, the number of predators always follows the number of prey.  A spike in elk populations will be followed by an increase in predators.  Likewise, a decrease in elk will be followed by a decrease in predators.  The number of predators and prey is never stable in nature, but only fluctuates about some mean.  Now, throw in humans who are independent of this system.  That is, we have other means of sustenance which means that as a species we are not effect by fluctuations in prey animals.  Therefore, the only limiting factor in how much game we kill is ourselves.  And we have an incomplete understanding of these fragile relationships (yes incomplete, no matter how many biologists we put in the field there will always some new variable that we will uncover that will throw off our predictions).  As a result we are the single largest threat to game.

I guess my point here is this: If you want to point fingers for a decrease in game and harder hunting point it toward over population of people.  More people = more hunting which says nothing of our encroachment onto these animals habitat.  So don't be so anti-wolf.  They have every right to be here and are much more healthy for the ecosystem then we are, no matter how good our 'management' plan is.

I respect your opinion but 2 things i think you missed:

1. We can;t do anything about the over population of people...

2. when Wolves and people lived together 200 years ago, we didn;t have concrete and cars destroying the habitat of our already failing deer and elk herds

[docsven]

Unless you saw the entire documentary that the you-tube video was taken from,(I did) ,the wolf pack killing the coyote was a pack that had run off or killed the pack of wolves that the coyote used to get along with.  In other words, wolves will kill other wolves and any other predators that they can to take over an area, so they can thrive.  The reason we have wolves in Washington, if they were not introduced intentionally is because they moved from somewhere else so they could thrive. If the prey/predator ratio becomes unfavorable, they will move-or eat things other than deer or elk.  I think we all have strong opinions that the state hasn't done the best job of managing the prey before the new predators showed up, that's why everyone is upset about Oklahoma Gulch as well as the wolves
I don't have anything against the wolves, I just wish the State had more habitat, gave farmers more incentive to put food plots in the corners and edges of fields for game etc.  Just don't think hunters are as well represented in this state as necessary.