Were wolves imported into Washington on the downlow?

[KFhunter]

what I haven't got figured out yet is what exactly triggers these super packs, and is our particular subspecies of wolves prone to forming these super packs if the conditions are right?
Or is that just a sub species eurasion wolf thing?


Siberia, Russia packs merge into super packs of 70+ wolves and go on a rampage, we know its a food trigger, but can we look for signs that the typical pack social structure is about to break down and wolves enter into this super pack thing? 

This one is epic
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354445/Super-pack-400-wolves-kill-30-horses-just-days-remote-Russian-village.html

400 wolf superpack?  Not sure I believe there was truly 400 wolves, but dayummmm...could something like that happen here?

[KFhunter]

She has the home range, he's the interloper, he'll land where she is, and she won't be all that far from her momma.   

This is why two desperate females in Ione, WA started mating up with sheep dogs and hanging around town, even though they were in their home territory of the Ruby pack.   
They needed dispersing males from other packs to find em and lead them to a new territory not far away and begin carving out their home range, as he gets bigger and stronger the nearby males get older his range will grow. 

This is why having a pack established in the methow "all of a sudden" with no contiguous wolf packs nearby makes no since to me. 

A male is not going to drag a female 100's of miles to "dispirse",  he don't need to.  They'll land at the fringe of her pack she came from. 


That's why my snarky google maps comment,  they don't know what lies 50 or 100 or 300 miles away, there's no thought process "Oh I bet it's a good spot 300 miles west of here"

You’re saying females don’t disperse?

speaking in absolutes?  Nothing is absolute...  yes they'll disperse, but its the males who do it more often and travel further. 

[JimmyHoffa]

IIRC--Right, the Utah wolf I think was female.  Went from Montana to Southern Utah.

[zwickeyman]

My cousin took video of 21 in a pack up the Little Wood river in Idaho the winter before it was opened up for hunting. They were working together killing the deer wintering there. pretty brutal.

Total uneducated opinion here

I believe the more food available the bigger the packs get

[KFhunter]

IIRC--Right, the Utah wolf I think was female.  Went from Montana to Southern Utah.

was she in a cage?   



 

[JimmyHoffa]

IIRC--Right, the Utah wolf I think was female.  Went from Montana to Southern Utah.

was she in a cage?   



 

In a box truck from U-Howl.

[KFhunter]

Well I'm about wrapped up done with this thread,  I got my vote and nearly 70% of Washington hunters think wolves had some help. 

5 years ago if I had this vote I think it would be less than 20%


I think what's changed to precipitate that 50% swing in vote is a huge and growing mistrust of WDFW, which is why I started this poll in the first place.



on a side note:
I could care less how the wolves got here and I've said so over and over and over throughout the years here on HW.   
The wolves were going to come, either with help and fast,  or very slow, or very fast without help.  It matters not.  I'm actually in favor of a sped up process
that way at least we can have our pain and get to dealing with it sooner.  A slow progression of wolves will just mean some communities suffer much longer than others. 


*IF* the wolves did indeed have help NO ONE is ever going to be held accountable for it.

If the wolves did naturally disperse to Washington, so be it, just goes to show how important management is going to be going forward.   

If they can colonize almost an entire state and go from nearly zero to what we have now with no help whatsoever???    ....then holy smokes we're in for it!

and you can bet if I had evidence that wolves were transplanted illegally,  I would be howling about it.   I've got none, zero, zip, zilch. 

[zwickeyman]

I know I dont have pics or recorded audio of this so it didnt happen according to some on here " which I understand" becasue I dont have proof.

I do know for a fact of this incident and I'm not going to answer to any one on here so I dont care if you call B.S.


I think it was 2006-2007. I had my son with me and we were deer hunting NE of Chewelah. We got pulled over by a female Game Officer. She checked our licenses and guns and all were good. I brought up Wolves in Idaho and was blown away with how much she loved Wolves. She said she was part of some of the Wolf releases in Idaho and how great it was and how Wolves are not the viscous animals people think they are. Then she said

" She was also going to be soon involved in the release of Wolves in WA"

I told her she was a #@$R$# and had no clue what Wolves really are and what they do. She did not appreciate my candid response for sure

[kentrek]

If the greenies are involved with a wolf transplant because they love them so much then why would they plant them on the east side of the state where they would never get to see or enjoy them ?? Seems awfully selfless for the most selfish people in the world 

Or is the methow the greenies back yard   

Just a thought

[zwickeyman]

They all love them more when they are in someone else back yard

[KFhunter]

If the greenies are involved with a wolf transplant because they love them so much then why would they plant them on the east side of the state where they would never get to see or enjoy them ?? Seems awfully selfless for the most selfish people in the world 

Or is the methow the greenies back yard   

Just a thought

talk about hitting the nail on the head

[JimmyHoffa]

They don't wan't them in their main backyards, just in the backyards of their vacation homes.

[KFhunter]

They don't wan't them in their main backyards, just in the backyards of their vacation homes.

BAM!

[KFhunter]

SO instead of beating around the bush guys,  who is that Sierra Club exec with a vacation home with gobs of property up a certain road where the pups were howling in the methow??? 

[LDennis24]

I know an old guy who's daughter and husband run a fly-in place in the far far far North somewhere in the tundra and they had some clients come in back when wolves started "expanding" and the clients were part of a project to relocate wolves to other areas in the lower 48 States is all they were later told. He said the pilot was instructed to follow and locate the biggest healthiest wolves they could find and dart them and another group followed and retrieved the animals. He said they later found out they were being released in Idaho. It's a story, but this guy is NOT the type to make up things or further anything false he has heard. He spends time volunteering and does free handyman work for the elderly and is an avid church going God fearing man. The type most see as an honest human being, and he thought it was the most misleading dishonest thing that they were secretly relocating wolves. He didn't want to believe it was really happening and wanted to know my thoughts on it. This really happened.