Washington’s wolf experience unlike rest of the West

[pianoman9701]

Lol, Bob. You're very optimistic!

[grundy53]

Here's where the "balance" will come in: 

When wolves outnumber deer and elk, we will switch over to wolf hunting every year and deer/elk hunting will possibly be a once in a lifetime tag.

And the wolves will be forced to eat domestic livestock more often than wild game.

No worries, there will always be something to hunt in this state. 

Bobcat, why must you troll....

[wolfbait]

Wildlife Management Is Not Rocket Science

The added “disclaimer” in the first article (implying that blaming wolves for declining prey populations reflects ignorance of the complexity of ecosystems) suggests that only academic wildlife biologists have the ability to manage wildlife. If that were true one might ask how the partnership of hunter conservationists and game wardens managed to restore North American wildlife populations from near extinction to unheard of abundance during the first half of the 20th Century.

Regardless of their academic credentials or alleged experience, if your wildlife managers refuse to admit that large carnivore populations must be carefully regulated in order to maintain healthy wild ungulate populations, don’t waste your time trying to reason with them. They either lack the wisdom to separate fact from fiction, or they are lying to you – and perhaps even to themselves.

Management Requires Controlling All Wildlife Numbers – Not Just Prey Species

In the first Science article, instead of concluding the obvious fact that uncontrolled wolves decimated the deer population and then, lacking alternate large prey, destroyed each other, the article blamed the inevitable result on the size of the island. Yet the same result (wolves driving prey into a “predator pit”) has been documented with wolves and moose for more than half a century on Isle Royale in Michigan and with wolves and deer on Vancouver Island in British Columbia since the 1970s.

In geographically “closed” ecosystems such as Coronation Island and Isle Royale, a single large carnivore species decimates its single wild ungulate prey and ultimately destroys itself, allowing the prey to repopulate over time. But in the vast majority of ecosystems such as Vancouver Island and Interior Alaska, where alternate prey species allow predators to survive after the primary prey is decimated, the primary prey may not recover without a dramatic reduction in predator numbers.

The importance of predator density and territory size varies with the abundance of prey species. Researchers in Alaska and Yukon Territory determined the minimum number of moose-per-wolf that allows sustainable populations of both species. Once the number of moose-per-wolf falls below that minimum, regardless of the reason, the number of wolves and possibly also bears must be reduced in order for the moose to recover.

That is the situation throughout much of Alaska today and it resulted from pandering to propagandists who were allowed to promote the myth that predators and their prey will seek and maintain a “natural” balance. In his 1993 article, “Wolves in the West,” Wildlife Ecologist Dr. Charles Kay illustrated how the presence of uncontrolled wolves cut hunter harvests by as much as 90% and how a slight increase in hunter harvest with wolves present can help prevent game species recovery for decades. Read More@ http://idahoforwildlife.com/files/pdf/georgeDovel/The%20Outdoorsman%20No%20%2035%20July-Nov%202009.pdf

[grundy53]

If cougar were managed better wolf predation wouldn't be so additive to current cougar predation. 1 cougar and 1 wolf eat about the same amount. Currently WA has roughly 4,000 cougar, that is double the cougar numbers that we had a few decades ago. Studies have shown that 1 cougar eats 25 to 50 deer per year, so 4,000 cougar are eating 100,000+ deer, elk, moose,

What happens to cougars when wolves move into an area they have normally been in? There's a lot of talk about skinny and dying cats in those areas.

Hopefully this...

[jasnt]

If cougar were managed better wolf predation wouldn't be so additive to current cougar predation. 1 cougar and 1 wolf eat about the same amount. Currently WA has roughly 4,000 cougar, that is double the cougar numbers that we had a few decades ago. Studies have shown that 1 cougar eats 25 to 50 deer per year, so 4,000 cougar are eating 100,000+ deer, elk, moose,

What happens to cougars when wolves move into an area they have normally been in? There's a lot of talk about skinny and dying cats in those areas.

Hopefully this...

[Roundhead]

Put your aluminum cone hats on because I have a conspiracy theory I'd like to share.
The wolf issue is a mask for two liberal agendas: a minor agenda and a major agenda.
The minor agenda being game management agencies are using wolves to deliberately cause chaos to the environment.
First, they claimed the lack of wolves are creating an "off-balance" to the environment.
And eventually the abundance of wolves are creating an adverse "off-balance" to the environment which will need additional management.
It is nothing but a job security for wildlife management agencies to create more jobs and bigger government.
The major agenda is gun control. Liberal thunking machines need new ammo against 2A.
They know that it will impossible to abolish the 2A but they can slowly acclimate gun owners to not use their guns and eventually the population will find it not necessary to buy any guns.
The slow sales in guns will force gun manufacturers to shut down.
And finally new laws and regulations can be introduced.
To get to these steps, the liberals are using wolves first as a protected species which put away any hunters who kill wolves.
Their second step is to work side by side with wildlife management to protect those prey species which are in decline from wolf predations.
They achieve their secondary goal by limiting hunting opportunities.
So with less hunting opportunities, new hunters are hesitant to buy guns for hunting.
The low rates in new hunters in conjunction with the aging population of existing hunters result in low gun sales and gun ownerships.

[KFhunter]

Agenda 21 stuff 

[idahohuntr]

2 problems:
1. Where does a lot of that money come from to fund them guvmint biologists?

2. What have gun (and ammo) sales been like the last several years?  Keeping in mind wolves were reintroduced 20 years ago.

Carry on.

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[Maverick26]

One nice thing about wolves is when one goes "missing", the others dont call 911 and send out search parties. It would be damn hard to pin a dead wolf on a hunter if not busted in the act. In the rare opertunity that a Washington sportsman is presented with the window in time to help manage the preditor to pray ratio, I would hope the stars align for that person. The only preditor season in this state that is worth a hoot is coyote.

[RadSav]

Here is a stupid question that has been ringing around in my head;

Does the WDFW wolf plan address the fact that two of the three recovery zones are basically surrounded by a giant moat?  I know some of the north cascade population is obviously going to come down naturally from Canada.  But how does the plan adjust for the speed in which the NE zone must expand before enough wolves swim the moat and then breed to acceptable levels in the south cascades and to an extent the north cascades?  When I think of Washington's Wolf Experience being Unlike the Rest of the West I have to believe that the Columbia River posses a challenge to the efficiency of balance and distribution of breeding pairs unmatched by other western states.

I haven't gotten myself to read the whole wolf plan, so I just don't know these answers.  Thought I would try and cheat by asking here!

[X-Force]

I did a word search in the plan for "giant moat", "moat", and "efficiency"

Nothing came up 

[RadSav]

Well then...that answers that

[Bob33]

Unmarked black vans.

[mfswallace]

Here is a stupid question that has been ringing around in my head;

I haven't gotten myself to read the whole wolf plan, so I just don't know these answers.  Thought I would try and cheat by asking here!

You don't need to read all of the info presented on wolves, that's how idahohunter does it and he knows everything 

[idahohuntr]

Here is a stupid question that has been ringing around in my head;

I haven't gotten myself to read the whole wolf plan, so I just don't know these answers.  Thought I would try and cheat by asking here!

You don't need to read all of the info presented on wolves, that's how idahohunter does it and he knows everything 

Could you please take your personal attacks elsewhere.  Thanks.

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