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Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf Scientist?Rob Wielgus was one of America’s pre-eminent experts on large carnivores. Then he ran afoul of the enemies of the wolf.By Christopher SolomonJuly 5, 2018You might not guess from looking at him that Rob Wielgus was until recently a tenured professor of wildlife ecology. Wielgus likes to spend time in the backwoods of the American West that lie off the edge of most tourist maps, and he dresses the part: motorcycle leathers, tattoos on both forearms, the stringy hairs of a goatee dangling like lichen from his lower lip. Atop his bald head he often wears a battered leather bush hat of the type seen at Waylon Jennings concerts. A Camel smolders in his face like a fuse. The first time I called him, he told me that he couldn’t chat because he was riding his Harley home from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.When we met last fall, Wielgus, who is 61, wasn’t wearing his bush hat, however, but a straw cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes. He was, he explained, in disguise. We had rendezvoused in Republic, a faded former mining town of about a thousand people in the northeastern part of Washington State. Stores wore boomtown facades to tempt passing drivers and their dollars to linger. But this was mid-October: Pickup trucks throttled past on the main drag, hauling hay and firewood for a winter that would slump down from Canada any day.Wielgus had spent years in the surrounding woods doing research, and he loved the area. Now he considered it hostile territory. Before he pushed through the swinging doors of a bar, he paused and lifted an untucked shirt to show me the black handle of a .357 handgun poking from the front pocket of his jeans. “Too many death threats,” he said. “I never started carrying this till I started studying wolves.”Not long ago, Wielgus was a respected researcher at Washington State University in Pullman, in the far eastern part of the state, with his own prosperous lab and several graduate students under his guidance. His specialty was North American apex predators — mountain lions and bears. Over a 35-year career, Wielgus has published surprising research about how these animals behave, especially once their paths cross with civilization. Unlike some wildlife research, which can be esoteric, Wielgus’s work by its nature has concrete, real-world implications. And Wielgus, by his nature, hasn’t been shy about emerging from academia to tell wildlife managers, ranchers and politicians exactly how they have screwed up and why they should pay more attention to him and his findings. He is accustomed to being the least-popular man in the room.Wielgus had no idea how unpopular he could get, though, until he began to study wolves. By the time I met him, his academic reputation lay in shreds. His lab was essentially shuttered. He was $50,000 in debt, he said, and he had had to pull his daughters out of college. His career, he told me, was over.
Lol so he Carrie's a 357 into a bar huh? Interesting tid but to share... Some how I think the state won't take that admission as seriously as if it was some one else.Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
He gotta pack a 357 'cause the ranchers are gonna kill him ya right, he's so full of BS. quote from the article:They also knew that the ranch had set salt blocks nearby, which attract cattle, who lick them for the needed minerals. But even after the first livestock was confirmed killed in early July, no one moved the salt blocks, “and no one moved the livestock,” Wielgus said. Trail cameras used to monitor the pack showed that cows were all around the area through July. Once the area’s deer, a preferred prey, were scared off by the cows, wolves opportunistically attacked cattle, he said. Wielgus insists to this day that the Diamond M’s patriarch, Len McIrvin, could have been prodded by the state to take steps — quickly moving the salt blocks, removing cattle from the den site — to avoid serious problems. those blocks have been there for years, the salt is in the dirt, the locations are memorized by the cattle. WDFW did not tell Diamond M the wolves were "a couple miles away", which in that country might as well be 50 miles, you aren't going to know wolves are 2 miles away Cattle do not "scare off all the deer" total utter BS lie, the deer will walk right through a herd of cattle..the freaking wolves scare the deer off (or eat them) "wolves opportunistically attacked cattle" the only true thing in his quote. He's blaming Diamond M for utilizing a grazing lease they lawfully acquired when WDFW didn't tell them a wolf den was nearby? no one asked them to move the salt, yet Weilgus said they did it intentionally (dropped the cows on top of a wolf den). Weilgus is a fraud and liar.
Quote from: KFhunter on July 10, 2018, 09:32:40 PMHe gotta pack a 357 'cause the ranchers are gonna kill him ya right, he's so full of BS. quote from the article:They also knew that the ranch had set salt blocks nearby, which attract cattle, who lick them for the needed minerals. But even after the first livestock was confirmed killed in early July, no one moved the salt blocks, “and no one moved the livestock,” Wielgus said. Trail cameras used to monitor the pack showed that cows were all around the area through July. Once the area’s deer, a preferred prey, were scared off by the cows, wolves opportunistically attacked cattle, he said. Wielgus insists to this day that the Diamond M’s patriarch, Len McIrvin, could have been prodded by the state to take steps — quickly moving the salt blocks, removing cattle from the den site — to avoid serious problems. those blocks have been there for years, the salt is in the dirt, the locations are memorized by the cattle. WDFW did not tell Diamond M the wolves were "a couple miles away", which in that country might as well be 50 miles, you aren't going to know wolves are 2 miles away Cattle do not "scare off all the deer" total utter BS lie, the deer will walk right through a herd of cattle..the freaking wolves scare the deer off (or eat them) "wolves opportunistically attacked cattle" the only true thing in his quote. He's blaming Diamond M for utilizing a grazing lease they lawfully acquired when WDFW didn't tell them a wolf den was nearby? no one asked them to move the salt, yet Weilgus said they did it intentionally (dropped the cows on top of a wolf den). Weilgus is a fraud and liar.
