Big Game Hunting > Wolves

Wolves in Turnbull?

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littletoes:
Here's a controversial topic....

I've been hearing rumors of the release of a breeding pair of wolves in the Turnbull Preserve. Is that crazy or what?

Who in thier right mind would, could imagine that wolves would even stay there???

If we needed to control the elk population, then lets have a raffle or two, not introduce predators around an area where we have high numbers of cattle ranches, THATS CRAZY!

Even our game departments are wondering if thier decisions were the right ones with the release of wolves in other areas of our country, but an area such as that, that is so heavily populated, just doesn't make any kind of sense.

You know, we ALL know that there are hundreds of thousands of people that idalize the wolf. In some simple, crazy way they imagine themselves as part wolf, at least in thought or something.....I don't know. And possibly they have the thrill of knowing that wolves are again existing in the lower 48, but those same folks feel that way, as they live in their warm homes, eating thier prepared food....I don't get it much. I think they need to start thinking like the "HUMANS" that they are, regardless if they like it or not. Time to grow up.

Anybody remember the story of the two or three year old that was hiking in the woods and got lost? They found the last of his tracks covered by a cougars tracks...and that was the end of him.

These animals are predators, and eat meat. ONLY MEAT.
Not vegetables like you and me, not grass, not sugary treats....MEAT, and "WE" are made of meat. Hell, we are even easy to catch and kill, especially our young. You want wolves in your backyard?? They're putting them in mine.....

high country:
one step over the line and it becomes a "big coyote"........if you get my drift. the only good that could come of it would be getting the elk riled up and shoving them off the refuge for a little shooting.

elkaholic:
Those wolves will not stay on Turnbull for long, they will be down in Cheney enjoying easy prey from peoples yards....

littletoes:
The following is a long letter printed in Predator Extreme Magazine under a column by Judd Cooney, and it says a lot.....

"Norm from California (where he has helped destroy the environment and there are no wolves) is woefully misinformed about wolves. Here are some hard facts about wolves in Wyoming from a professional who sees them and deals with their presence on a daily basis;
  The wolves reintroduced here in 1995 are NOT true wolves. They are hybrid dogs/wolf/huskey and are nothing like the gray wolves that originally inhabited Wyoming. They come from an ecosystem populated by massive herds of migrating caribou, not static herds of elk, cows and sheep. They are larger and have a different social structure than our orginal gray wolves.

The US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFW), the US Parks & Recreation Service and the National Park Service routinely misrepresent the facts surrounding "endangered species." A couple of years ago, the USFW sedated and relocated some wolves. They dropped them by helicopter in early spring to a place just a few hundred yards from a rancher's calving pastures.

When the original gray wolves inhabited this area they had millions of bison to pursue. The decimation of the buffalo herds drove the wolves into conflict with man and his herds of sheep and cattle. Today the only herd animals with a population large enough to support the federal wolf plan are elk, cattle and sheep. However, the wolves are also killing large number of big horn sheep and deer, rapidly reducing the herds. This predation on ungulate herds is alarming enough that the government is now forced to admit that the orginal wolf plan was incomplete and inaccurate in its assessment of wolf impact on the ecosystem.
Wolves routinely kill cow elk and eat nothing but the udders. Sometimes they eat nothing at all. Thats bad for the elk, but a spectacular benefit to the booming grizzly population that feeds on the rotted caracasses. Grizzlies themselves kill a number of telk every year and mountain lions pitch in on the ungulate herds as well.

I would hate to mimic the wolves' social stucture. I hope Norm is the alpha male on his block so he gets to eat regularly and breed now and then, while the neighbors work their tails off to feed his kids. And, if they get out of line, it is completely okay to just kill the neighbors.

Like all of man's arrogant tinkering with otherwise healthy ecosystems, the wolf reintroduction will have an impact that lasts for decades, if not centuries. If left un-managed, as I am sure Norm would support, wolf populations will continue to grow unchecked. Ungulate herds will continue to dwindle to the point of mear regional extinction. Wolf populations will be forced to migrate to agricultural areas. Lack of steady food sources will create a death spiral of desease and starvation in wolf populations. Ungulate herds, if they survive, will begin to recover and the cycle starts again. This cycle is decades in length and never ending.

Many people such as Norm believe that their pet "noble" predator has certain inalienable rights that supersede those of other species. Yet I don't see any of them exiting the planet in recognition of the rights of the wolf. They believe that through some imaginied intellectual superiority over us dumb hick Westerners, they and only they know what is best. To prove that they are the protector of the ecosystem, they build million-dollar summer homes on 10-acre plots. They buy a full suit of cowboy clothes and a diesel pickup, and bang around the fire roads "protecting" their wolves and our enviroment.

The chickens are beginning to come home to roost on the wolf reintroduction in the West. Over the next 10 years we will see what a true disaster it is. The recent delisting will help, but with the uncontrolled wolf populations remaining under federal protection in the Rocky Mountain elk factory, expect to see those herds continued to decline.

Wolves are interesting creatures and certainly have a place in the ecosystem, but not as an uncontrolled member of an otherwise tightly regulated system.
Man is here to stay. Nobody is going to kill themselves to make room for the wolf. Not even Norm. Nobody is going to issue an order to evacuate the Rocky Mountains to make room for free-operating, prehistoric ecosystems.
Predator and prey alike must be closely monitored and when necessary, actions taken to increase or decrease predator populations.  If Norm and his ilk want to turn Wyoming into the world's largest petting zoo, they are going to have to snap to some reality. Wolves have to eat and someday, sooner than he thinks, we will run out of elk to feed them.

The only good news is that this whole romance with protected predator species has those same predators consuming Californians at an ever-growing rate. I invite anyone who belives that large carnivores are endangered in Wyoming to tie a pork chop around his neck and go for a hike. Please do surrender yourself to the superior rights of (your favorite pet species here.)
Sincerely, Mike.

Very, very well Said!

tlbradford:
I hope the radio collar has an address on it so I can send it back to Fish and Game.

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