Wolf Wars have moved to Washington

[bearpaw]

FYI - Carter Niemeyer is the wolf promoter who calls himself "wolfer". When wolves killed a ranchers cow near Eagle idaho right outside Boise, F&G and Wildlife Services identified it as a wolf kill. Carter showed up after several days and tried to claim something else killed the cow.

[robertg]

So, if they migrate so well, why plant them?

Wolves were never planted in Washington. They came over naturally from Idaho and other states. There is no reason to reintroduce wolves to Washington when they are already come over naturally from places like Idaho and Canada.

Please get your facts straight Robert.

Non-native Northern canadian grays were planted in Idaho. ITS DOCUMENTED....
THEY are not natural to our environment. It would be like planting Alaska moose, our native Shiras moose would be bred and outcompeted into extinction.

They were REINTRODUCED and that claim they are non native is bogus and incorrect. Those wolves in Washington came over NATURALLY from Idaho, Canada, etc. so they are natural to your environment. You're telling someone who has studied wolves for years and years to get his facts straight?

[robertg]

So, if they migrate so well, why plant them?

Wolves were never planted in Washington. They came over naturally from Idaho and other states. There is no reason to reintroduce wolves to Washington when they are already come over naturally from places like Idaho and Canada.

Please get your facts straight Robert.

Non-native Northern canadian grays were planted in Idaho. ITS DOCUMENTED....
THEY are not natural to our environment. It would be like planting Alaska moose, our native Shiras moose would be bred and outcompeted into extinction.

Aren’t the wolves that were re-introduced in other places non-native or different from earlier wolves?

No. The belief that the wolves reintroduced in the mid-1990s to Idaho and Yellowstone National Park from west-central Alberta and east-central British Columbia differed (being larger and more aggressive) from the wolves that originally occurred in the northern Rocky Mountain states is erroneous for several reasons.

First, wolves from the Canadian and northern U.S. Rockies, interior British Columbia, Northwest Territories, and nearly all of Alaska are closely related and belong to a single subspecies known as Canis lupus occidentalis. This conclusion is based on the examination of historical and recent wolf specimens collected throughout North America. Those originating from the region described above have proven to be genetically and morphologically similar. Examples of this are seen in the wolves harvested during the 2009 hunting seasons in Montana and Idaho. Adults from Montana weighed an average of 97 lbs with a maximum of 117 lbs, whereas adults from Idaho weighed an average of 101 lbs with a maximum of about 130 lbs. These weights are similar to the sizes of the wolves that occurred in these states in the 1800s and early 1900s.

Second, wolves are well known for their ability to disperse long distances from their birth sites. Radio-tracking data show that wolves from southeastern British Columbia and southwestern Alberta mix both with wolves from Idaho and Montana, and with wolves from farther north near the source locations of the animals used in the Idaho and Yellowstone reintroductions. When combined with recent research that reveals considerable genetic mixing among wolf populations in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, this information shows that wolves form a single population across the Rocky Mountains of the northern U.S. and southern Canada.

Third, recent genetic research involving hundreds of wolves sampled from Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in the 1990s and 2000s found no evidence that the remnant native population of wolves that differed from the reintroduced wolves. Thus, the wolves present in these states before wolf recovery began were genetically similar to those used in the reintroductions.


Rumors of 150-pound wolves abound in the Idaho Panhandle, but most of the wolves taken by hunters are much smaller.

Adult females averaged 86 pounds, according to Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials, who also included the weights of wolves struck by vehicles in the survey. For adult males, 101 pounds was the average.

The exception was a 130-pound adult male killed in Boundary County that was weighed after its stomach had been removed.

It’s not surprising that wolf weights get exaggerated, said Jim Hayden, Fish and Game’s regional wildlife manager in Coeur d’Alene.

“They look huge,” he said. “They’ve got long legs, big heads and lots of fur.”

Wolves have 2- to 4-inch-long guard hairs around their necks, reinforcing the impression of a bulky body, said Jason Husseman, a Fish and Game wolf biologist in Salmon, Idaho. People see wolves, compare them to their dogs, and estimate that the wolves weigh 150 pounds.

“It’s a human tendency to overestimate. You see the same thing with bear sightings,” Husseman said.

In actuality, wolves have the lean, rangy build of distance runners – an adaption that helps them chase down prey, he said.

Some opponents of wolf reintroduction claim that the Canadian gray wolves released in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in the mid-1990s are a larger, more aggressive subspecies than native wolves, which were extinct by the 1930s. Biologists say there’s little or no evidence to back up that assertion.

“I’m curious that they throw out those numbers – that the Canadian wolves are 50 to 100 pounds bigger than the native Idaho wolves,” Husseman said. “I don’t know where those numbers come from.”

Hayden said the most authoritative research on wolf subspecies comes from a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service zoologist, Ronald Nowak, who studied 580 historic skulls of full-grown male wolves. Nowak concluded that North America had five subspecies of gray wolves. Two subspecies had historic ranges in Idaho – the Rocky Mountain wolf and the Great Plains wolf.

The Rocky Mountain subspecies outweighed the Great Plains wolf by about 20 pounds, Hayden said. But their ranges overlapped in the Idaho Panhandle, according to Nowak’s research.

“Realistically, there’s no difference between the subspecies. They interbreed,” Hayden said.

In addition, “we’ve got wolves that are walking here from Canada,” he said. “They’re the same species that would have been here in the past.”

[bearpaw]

Re-introduction is bringing back of a native specie. Government documents prove these canadian wolves were imported from northern Canada. (how is that native)

Introduction is the release of a non-native specie.

FACT
The "introduced" Canadian Wolves are breeding and reproducing in idaho and crossing into Washington. Worst of all, it has also been proven at WSU that 62% of wolves tested from Idaho are carrying danferous hydatid tapeworms (E. Granulosus), so we have non-native parasite infested northern canadian wolves crossing into Washington from Idaho.

BC Wolves
There are some wolves migrating in from southern BC. Those are the only natural wolves migrating into Washington.

[robertg]

Re-introduction is bringing back of a native specie. Government documents prove these canadian wolves were imported from northern Canada. (how is that native)

Introduction is the release of a non-native specie.

FACT
The "introduced" Canadian Wolves are breeding and reproducing in idaho and crossing into Washington. Worst of all, it has also been proven at WSU that 62% of wolves tested from Idaho are carrying danferous hydatid tapeworms (E. Granulosus), so we have non-native parasite infested northern canadian wolves crossing into Washington from Idaho.

BC Wolves
There are some wolves migrating in from southern BC. Those are the only natural wolves migrating into Washington.

They are not referred to as "canadian" wolves by experts. They are gray wolves aka canis lupus, the SAME EXACT species of wolf that existed in Idaho, Washington, Montana, etc before they were wiped out. These are the same wolves that have been crossing the border to get into the northern rockies for years and years.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/feb/17/actual-wolf-weights-often-skimpier-than-hunters/

"Some opponents of wolf reintroduction claim that the Canadian gray wolves released in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in the mid-1990s are a larger, more aggressive subspecies than native wolves, which were extinct by the 1930s. Biologists say there’s little or no evidence to back up that assertion."

[bearpaw]

Note the size of these "non-native" canadian wolves killed in Idaho. Take a good look at the head and body bulk.

The guy in the top photo is 6'6" tall and a big man.

[jackelope]

Robertg's bio?
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2011/03/former_wolf_hit_man_carter_nie.html

 

[bearpaw]

Now look at the trail cam photo of a wolf in the methow, (likely migrant from southern BC) does this wolf look smaller to anyone besides me?

Take a good look at the head!

[bearpaw]

good post jackelope...

Carter has been at the frontline of introduction....
Every state brings him in to try and convince an unsuspecting populace that wolves frolic with the butterflies in the meadows. Everyone in idaho knows who he is and he is not the most popular person in Idaho. 

[bearpaw]

I think the 150 to 180 pound claims may be exagerated, but, if a wolf has 30 pounds of fresh elk or beef in his belly, he probably would weigh that much. 

Here's a small smpling of livestock killed by wolves in Montana, Idaho, or Oregon, not sure how this happens since wolves only eat grasshoppers and chase butterflies in the meadows.... 

[Kain]

I wish I knew more about grey wolf subspecies but I just dont have the time at the moment.

This site is interesting because it lists several historic "subspecies" and most that would be found in Washington are extinct.  I have no idea about its accuracy though.

http://www.graywolfconservation.com/Information/subspecies.htm

Mackenzie Valley Wolf/ Canadian Timber Wolf  C.l. occidentalis   Rocky Mountains of Canada & U.S. (reintroduced to Yellowstone & Idaho)   Endangered / Threatened / Unprotected   Largest subspecies in N.America

Cascade Mountain Wolf  C.l. fuscus   Cascade Mountains of Canada & U.S.   Extinct by 1940   Usually had a brown or tawny coat


British Columbian Wolf C.l. columbianus   Western Canada   Extinct   Usually had black coats; smaller than other Canadian wolves

[Wenatcheejay]

One thing I would like to see is Regions forced to deal with their own problem and nuisance animals. I don't like the predators being transported from West to East. No region should be forced to take another's nuisance critter. The Westies need to watch the sub-predators be destroyed in their own backyard. It is wrong to send them over here in the East to starve or a rancher forced to contend with. More City-living, anti-hunter, pro-wolf, people need to see nature imploding. I think it would help.

[WA hunter14]

[]

gray wolves are a native species. The population will be managed when there are 15 breeding pairs. you hunters who are advocating "sss" are no better than poachers.

     

   wolfs are the same thing as poachers, human poachers are hunters who shoot more than they are legally supposed to,out of season,not obey the hunting laws. wolfs do all of those plus they don't humanely kill their prey, they don't limit their self's to 1elk a year. If you kill a wolf its like preventing a poacher that is really good at what he does to do it. hunters are managing the wildlife populations just fine why do we need wolfs? cause people want to look at them? 15 breeding pairs of talented poachers? stupid unnecessary idea. robertg why don't you say what you have said to hunters in a elk hunting camp in lolo or any area where wolves are destroying the elk population, someone might use SSS on you, and by the way saying someone "advocating" SSS is no better then a poacher is just stupid just because they are advocating it doesn't mean they are doing it and if they aren't doing it then they are better than the person doing it. someone who SSS wolves is like a game warden in a way

[WA hunter14]

That quote was what robertg said.

[bearpaw]

Here is a small sampling of wild game killed by wolves, in some cases they kill for sport and eat very little, they leave it rot. I guess the grasshoppers taste better but are not the challenge to kill... 

If you don't believe wolves eat elk, one photo shows the wolves chasing an elk.

If you think wolves will avoid people, check out where some of these kills were made.