Free: Contests & Raffles.
It's amazing the paranoia some are capable of. No person or government agency has ever denied that wolves were here in the 1990's.
There is a article in Seattle times from 91 about a wolf caught and collored in the cascades. I'd call that a confirmation.
Quote from: jasnt on March 10, 2015, 07:56:22 AMThere is a article in Seattle times from 91 about a wolf caught and collored in the cascades. I'd call that a confirmation.I have extensively looked and googled for this article, and have yet to find it. I suggest that your assertion is not correct, and that such an article never existed.
there was not a collaring effort. There was a wolf sighting, documented. Which is biologically meaningless.
Because they never documented any reproduction in the 80-90's. Once they had wolves breeding and the wolves were not hiding so well, they had to get on it. >>>> good one, so that's how WDFW manage wildlife. Did the WDFW actually lie? Or are you referring to a newspaper article again??
Quote from: Knocker of rocks on March 10, 2015, 08:34:39 AMQuote from: jasnt on March 10, 2015, 07:56:22 AMThere is a article in Seattle times from 91 about a wolf caught and collored in the cascades. I'd call that a confirmation.I have extensively looked and googled for this article, and have yet to find it. I suggest that your assertion is not correct, and that such an article never existed.There was a wolf collared in 1992, thats pretty close to 1991 Endangered Gray Wolf Trapped Near Mt. BakerWednesday, February 5, 1992State Wildlife Department biologists said they trapped the animal, a healthy 56-pound female, near Mount Baker last Friday. The wolf was fitted with a radio collar and released the next day on national forest land a few miles away.http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19910908&slug=1304367
Sunday, September 8, 1991 - Page updated at 12:00 AMAs The Wolves Reappear, So Do Old Range ConflictsBy Sean KellyWashington PostWASHINGTON - For the past decade, gray wolves have been gradually making their way south from Canada, extending their range down the spine of the Rocky Mountains, and are now living in several Western states from which they were exterminated half a century ago.An estimated 40 to 50 wolves now live in Montana, with smaller numbers in Idaho and perhaps even some in Wyoming.While wildlife biologists see the return of the wolves as good news, they are concerned that the animals may settle near ranches and kill livestock, renewing old conflicts that led to their deliberate extermination.The Western adage, "No wolves, no way," still is quoted among many in the livestock industry, and biologists fear the wolves could be killed off in secret. Biologists suggest that a more reliable way to regain wolf populations would be to plant breeding pairs in remote areas where they cannot prey on livestock. At the same time, they say, the natural populations that take up residence near ranches should be monitored and destructive animals should be removed if necessary.If an approved experimental population can be established, portions of the Endangered Species Act can be relaxed, permitting livestock owners to kill any wolf that threatens domestic stock."The question really boils down to: Now that we have wolves, what's the best way to get them off the endangered-species list and have viable populations that people can really enjoy?" saidbiologist Ed Bangs, leader of the wolf-recovery program in Montana for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.Biologists say Yellowstone National Park is ideal for wolf reintroduction. But, for the past decade, the livestock industry has opposed the idea.In Congress, Sen. Steve Symms, R-Idaho, and Rep. Ron Marlenee, R-Mont., are among a group of anti-wolf campaigners in Congress who assert that wolves are a threat to humanity. On the other side is Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah, a proponent of artificial introduction. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., opposes introduction but favors natural wolf recovery.Yellowstone, where the last gray wolf was killed more than 50 years ago, consists of 2.2 million acres surrounded by national forests and on three sides by rigidly protected wilderness areas. Large wild populations of ungulates - hoofed mammals - are found in and around the park, including elk, mule deer, bison, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and moose, with smaller populations of white-tailed deer and mountain goats."There's certainly concern that ungulates have increased in numbers too large for the (park's) available lands," said Hank Fischer of the activist group Defenders of Wildlife "People think predation's cruel, but it doesn't compare to starvation."Fischer said that if wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone efforts by officials to control wolf dispersal would focus on the park's periphery, where ranch owners are "rightfully concerned" about their livestock.Gray wolves can travel great distances in short periods of time. For example, one wolf that was recently radio-collared in Montana's Glacier National Park was killed a few months later 500 miles north in Canada. If that wolf had traveled in the opposite direction, it would have been 100 miles south of Yellowstone.The wolf movements are a result of growing wolf populations in the Western provinces of Canada.Wolf packs maintain stable territories for years. So when pups leave home to start new packs, they must move out to the fringe of the old territory. As Canadian wolf numbers grew, they spread. The first wolf den in that part of the United States was confirmed in 1986 in Glacier National Park.Recently, one wolf was found fatally injured - apparently accidentally - in central Idaho. Confirmed populations of gray wolves also exist in northern Washington and small packs are documented in Wisconsin. A large wolf population has long existed in northern Minnesota.Removing the wolf from the endangered-species list is the primary objective of Montana's recovery plan.Although wolves generally prefer to prey upon elk and deer, and although attacks on humans almost never happen, livestock owners contend that they prey indiscriminately. But Fish and Wildlife Service figures indicate that domestic livestock are rarely killed by wolves.Nevertheless, the service said it is trying to appease ranchers. "I think, at least in Montana, we're doing everything we can to look at the ranchers' interests, which are legitimate," Bangs said.Copyright (c) 1991 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved.advertising
Do have any actual sources? Department documents? Research? Is this old newspaper article all you have to show "proof" of some elaborate cover up??
I'm confused. Wolfbait, I benefit from the information in some of your posts. This one has zero relevance to anything I can see, at this point.
Here is what WDFW says about wolf occupancy in Washington State in the 1990's (From page 20-21 of the WDFW Wolf Plan):Washington experienced a flurry of reported wolf activity during the early 1990s, primarily in the North Cascades, which presumably involved animals originating mostly from southern British Columbia. Adult wolves with pups were detected at two locations in the North Cascades in the summer of 1990. One of these sites was in the Hozomeen area of the Ross Lake National Recreational Area, where animals were present for more than a month (Church 1996, Almack and Fitkin 1998) and were again documented (without breeding evidence) in 1991, 1992, and 1993. It was later learned that a pet wolf released in this area in the early 1990s (Martino 1997) was responsible for some of these sightings (S. Fitkin, pers. comm.). The second location occurred northwest of Winthrop near the Pasayten Wilderness (Anonymous 1990, Gaines et al. 2000). Howling surveys conducted in the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests from 1991 to 1993 resulted in two confirmed wolf responses in backcountry areas, with one involving multiple individuals in the Lake Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness and the other being a lone individual in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness (Gaines et al. 1995; W. Gaines, pers. comm.). A sighting of a wolf with pups was also reported in the North Cascades in July 1996 (Church 1996). Additionally, one wolf was found dead near Calispell 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. Overall, from 1991 to 1995, Almack and Fitkin (1998) reported 20 confirmed wolf sightings in Washington. Sixteen of these were made in the Cascades and four in Pend Oreille County, although these records were probably biased towards observations in the Cascades. Almack and Fitkin (1998) concluded that small numbers of wolves existed in Washington, mostly as individuals and with one or two possible breeding packs that did not persist. No evidence of large packs or a recovering population was detected. Almack and Fitkin (1998) also confirmed the presence of free-ranging wolf-dog hybrids in the state and believed that a significant number of reported wolf observations probably represented hybrid animals. Wolf reports in Washington declined from 1996 to 2001, probably due mainly to a reduced emphasis on data collection. However, reports began increasing again in about 2002 (WDFW, unpubl. data), as summarized in the following sections. This was likely a reflection of increased dispersal of wolves into Washington from adjacent recovering populations in Idaho and Montana, and resumed efforts by agency biologists and others to obtain and follow up on reports and to place remote cameras in the field.
Quote from: Knocker of rocks on March 10, 2015, 08:34:39 AMQuote from: jasnt on March 10, 2015, 07:56:22 AMThere is a article in Seattle times from 91 about a wolf caught and collored in the cascades. I'd call that a confirmation.I have extensively looked and googled for this article, and have yet to find it. I suggest that your assertion is not correct, and that such an article never existed.Quote from: WAcoyotehunter on March 10, 2015, 08:55:00 AMthere was not a collaring effort. There was a wolf sighting, documented. Which is biologically meaningless.There was a wolf collared in 1992, thats pretty close to 1991 Endangered Gray Wolf Trapped Near Mt. BakerWednesday, February 5, 1992State Wildlife Department biologists said they trapped the animal, a healthy 56-pound female, near Mount Baker last Friday. The wolf was fitted with a radio collar and released the next day on national forest land a few miles away.http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920205&slug=1473981
https://books.google.com/books?id=URrxfzXwdkkC&pg=PA313&lpg=PA313&dq=john+almack+wolf+trapped+dog&source=bl&ots=uA-wD0xpUG&sig=G_rZKu0vtqyWKTsBo5UtRqfcaYE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DUb_VM6dHcL1oAT4mYKoDA&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=john%20almack%20wolf%20trapped%20dog&f=false
Suspicious about how the species got here as well as their true numbers, the quartet of Eastside lawmakers are going through an estimated 7,200 pages of biologist emails, plans and other things wolfish they received through a public disclosure act request of the Department of Fish & Wildlife this past summer.At the same time, they’re questioning WDFW’s effort to provide new corridors for “rare, wide-ranging carnivores” through Okanogan County. A plan shows the agency hopes to “secure” 125 square miles of ranchland in the heart of some of the state’s best mule deer country through a mix of acquisitions and conservation easements over the next decade.
Republican staffers in Olympia are also scouring Internet forums such as Hunting Washington for reports from hunters which state biologists may have poo-poohed.One thing in the documents that has caught Taylor’s eye is Conservation Northwest’s involvement with WDFW. He brands the Bellingham organization an “environmental” group and says there is a lot of email traffic between them and state biologists.
ONE PARTICULAR WDFW document adds fuel to that fire.A grant proposal submitted to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in 2009 makes it appear as if the agency has a Yellowstone to Yukon-like master plan for North-central and Northeast Washington.It asks the Feds for $4 million in matching funds for “the second phase of an anticipated 5-10 year public/private effort to secure approximately 80,000 acres of critical wildlife habitat and vital wildlife corridors in the Okanogan-Similkameen watershed.”
Protecting the land through conservation easements and fee-title purchases would help “maintain migration corridors for deer, moose and bighorn sheep (rare carnivore prey).”It’s the phrasing – relegating game species to burger for footloose wolves and bears – that partly gets Rep. Joel Kretz.“It really frosts me that sportsmen are the biggest contributors to the department and the reason for [the acquisitions] is to feed predators,” he says.
DAVE BRITTEL IS WDFW’S assistant wildlife program manager. He admits that if he were looking for “mischief” in the agency’s dealings on wolves, the carnivore-centric phrasing in the Okanogan-Similkameen grant proposal might be it.“That makes it awkward, you’re right,” he says.But the verbiage appears to be a function of what it takes to shake loose money from USFWS. Plug in words like “Canada lynx,” “bull trout” and other endangered or threatened wildlife, add that there’s connectivity to nearby public lands, and the coffers seemingly swing open – especially for WDFW.“The intent of these grants is to acquire habitat for listed species,” says Joan Jewett, a USFWS spokeswoman in Portland.Since 2001, her agency has awarded at least $28.74 million for land buys in Okanogan County. WDFW then matches that with grants from the state Recreation and Conservation Office, itself funded by state gas tax and bond sales, and the federal government.
AS TAYLOR AND KRETZ’S staffers dig into sites like Hunting Washington, they will find nearly as many reports of wolves there as they can find in WDFW’s own records. Together, the draft plan and a 1998 paper list over 800 different howls heard, tracks seen and critters spotted across the state the past 35 years.Over 250 sightings between 1975 and 1995 are considered confirmed wolves or highly likely to be, but wolf-dog hybrids – released by owners who can’t handle their pets, find another home for them or have them euthanized – lead to false sightings, giving biologists fits.For example, in 1992 WDFW’s Scott Fitkin captured, collared and released an animal near Mt. Baker. Big news at the time, but a month later it was determined to be a hybrid, so it was recaptured and taken to Wolf Haven International near Tenino where it was nicknamed Nooksack and died in 2005.
However, a real female wolf that was turned loose in southern British Columbia led to a flurry of sightings of adults and pups on upper Ross Lake in the early 1990s. The woman who raised then released the animal vehemently denied state biologists had any part in it when we spoke in early fall. But Seattle Times articles from that period – including one with a dubious passing reference to a whopping six packs in the state’s Cascades – are sometimes dredged up to discredit WDFW’s claim that the Lookout wolves were the state’s first confirmed breeding pair in 70 years.
SOME OF THE FIRST images of that pack and its six pups came off of Conservation Northwest’s trail cameras. The group is headed up by Mitch Friedman, one of Earth First’s original tree sitters. Now he’s hugging loggers.And the gun.I met him in mid-September as CNW campaigned in Seattle for new wilderness, more sawlogs and continued cattle grazing in the Colville National Forest (see page 14 of the November issue of Northwest Sportsman). He surprised me when he said he hunts Okanogan County, as do I.Suspicious he was just orangewashing himself, though, I checked with state sources and found he’s actually bought a deer tag every year since 2001. Over that time he reported killing three bucks and one doe with a rifle. He sent me pictures of himself posing with two, a spike whitetail and nice muley.Friedman later blogged that he’s a “nature lover” and “sportsman” at the same time. He explained of CNW, “Part of our role is to bridge the gap between various pro-nature ethics, urban/rural, and hunter/nonhunter, because this is what helps wildlife best.”
"After trying for 10 days, biologists Jon Almack and Scott Fitkin succeeded in luring the animal into a fenced swimming-pool area, using a fish carcass as bait."Ah yes, the old "swimming pool cage trap".... not generally regarded as the best trapping method for wolves...or any wild animal for that matter.It was a hybrid dog.page 313, The Company of Wolves, by Peter Stienhart
Quote from: WAcoyotehunter on March 10, 2015, 12:31:36 PM"After trying for 10 days, biologists Jon Almack and Scott Fitkin succeeded in luring the animal into a fenced swimming-pool area, using a fish carcass as bait."Ah yes, the old "swimming pool cage trap".... not generally regarded as the best trapping method for wolves...or any wild animal for that matter.It was a hybrid dog.page 313, The Company of Wolves, by Peter StienhartYup, that was confirmed to me. So all these stories from 1990 ( or 91 or 92.....) are just rumors without standing.
Thanks bear paw for posting that
Quote from: Knocker of rocks on March 10, 2015, 03:15:49 PMQuote from: WAcoyotehunter on March 10, 2015, 12:31:36 PM"After trying for 10 days, biologists Jon Almack and Scott Fitkin succeeded in luring the animal into a fenced swimming-pool area, using a fish carcass as bait."Ah yes, the old "swimming pool cage trap".... not generally regarded as the best trapping method for wolves...or any wild animal for that matter.It was a hybrid dog.page 313, The Company of Wolves, by Peter StienhartYup, that was confirmed to me. So all these stories from 1990 ( or 91 or 92.....) are just rumors without standing.I'm going to go with the Seattle Times articles, cover stories after the fact are pretty easy to spin as we are now seeing.Knocker-Maybe you could explain why WDFW shut coyotes hunting down in the Pasaten Wilderness in 1991-92? Was it because of wolves or was that just another story from the 90's that no one should believe?
Quote from: wolfbait on March 10, 2015, 05:56:44 PMQuote from: Knocker of rocks on March 10, 2015, 03:15:49 PMQuote from: WAcoyotehunter on March 10, 2015, 12:31:36 PM"After trying for 10 days, biologists Jon Almack and Scott Fitkin succeeded in luring the animal into a fenced swimming-pool area, using a fish carcass as bait."Ah yes, the old "swimming pool cage trap".... not generally regarded as the best trapping method for wolves...or any wild animal for that matter.It was a hybrid dog.page 313, The Company of Wolves, by Peter StienhartYup, that was confirmed to me. So all these stories from 1990 ( or 91 or 92.....) are just rumors without standing.I'm going to go with the Seattle Times articles, cover stories after the fact are pretty easy to spin as we are now seeing.Knocker-Maybe you could explain why WDFW shut coyotes hunting down in the Pasaten Wilderness in 1991-92? Was it because of wolves or was that just another story from the 90's that no one should believe?why are you going to stick with them? Bearpaws syory reconfirms that the collared animal captured in a swimming pool enclosure was a hybrid, and was placed in wolf Haven. Why is that story unbelievable to you?
