Free: Contests & Raffles.
I am busy today but just wanted to post this for you all to chew on. I think the commission is dicovering the faulty science being presented by WDFW. We hunters must keep firing letters to give the commission support and reason to not accept the plan as written. We are in the final stretch we must give this race our best in the final stretch or we will lose.I urge you all to stay motivated and send letters.....Here are some facts and fuigures I have dug up in the last week, please use any of it in messages to the commission. If everyone on here would send a message each week of October using this data or any other data you can dig up, we may win in the final stretch, if you don't care and don't mind losing on this wolf issue, then do nothing, becuase then we will priobably lose if we don't stay motivated and effective.ITS YOUR CHOICE, DO YOU WANT TO WIN OR LOSE?Here's some data with links to the source to verify statistics, please use any of it you like in messages to the Commission: commission@dfw.wa.govComparing Washington to Idaho, Montana, Oregon, WyomingBy averaging the data for the northern rocky mountain gray wolf recovery states and by comparing the number of Breeding Pairs (BP’s) required by the Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Wyoming wolf plans, we can make a comparison with the proposed Washington Wolf Plan.• Washington has proposed 15 Breeding Pairs (BP’s). The wolf plans in 4 other Northern Rocky Mountain wolf recovery states is as follows: Idaho 15 BP’s, Montana 15 BP’s, Oregon 4 BP’s, and Wyoming 10 BP’s. That’s 44 breeding pairs or an average of 11 Breeding Pairs (BP’s) per state.• According to the US Census Bureau with 44 million acres Washington is much smaller than Idaho, Montana, Oregon, or Wyoming. Idaho has 53.4 million acres, Montana 94.1 million acres, Oregon 62.2 million acres, and Wyoming 62.6 million acres. That’s over 272 million acres in the other 4 states which are managing for 44 Breeding Pairs. That’s an average of 6.2 million acres for each Breeding Pair in the other 4 states. Considering that Washington has only 44 million acres the Washington Wolf Plan should require 7 Breeding Pairs. So how can Washington sustain 15 BP’s? http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0369.pdf • Washington’s human population is 6,725,000 which is almost equal to the population of the other 4 states combined. Idaho has 1,568,000 people, Montana 989,000, Oregon 3,831,000 and Wyoming 564,000. How can Washington sustain 15 BP’s? http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0016.pdf • According to the Census Bureau statistics, Washington’s smaller size and higher human population results in 3 to 17 times more people per square mile as ID, MT, OR, WY. Washington has 101.2 people per square mile, Idaho 19.0, Montana 6.8, Oregon 39.9, and Wyoming 5.8. How can Washington sustain 15 BP’s? http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0014.pdf • Census Bureau statistics indicate Washington has 1,063,000 people living on rural private lands. That is 2 to 6 times the human population on rural private lands in the other 4 states. Idaho has only 434,000 rural residents, Montana 414,000, Oregon 727,000, and Wyoming 172,000. How can Washington’s private lands that have a much higher human population sustain more wolves than private lands in these other states? http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0029.pdf • One of the Most Important Comparisons! According to the National Wilderness Institute, Washington has 15.5 million acres of state and federal public lands for wolves to inhabit. This is less than half of Idaho’s 35.2 million acres, Montana’s 32.5 million acres, or Wyoming’s 34 million acres. Washington even has less public lands than Oregon’s 19.4 million acres and Oregon’s plan only calls for 4 BP’s. The other 4 states have a total of 121 million acres of public lands for 44 BP’s, that’s 2.75 million acres per Breeding Pair in the other states. Washington’s 15.5 million acres at that same rate can only support 6 Breeding pairs. Why does the WDFW think our much smaller amount of public land can support more than twice the wolves the other states can support? http://www.nrcm.org/documents/publiclandownership.pdf • The Final Important Comparison! Washington’s elk herd at the WDFW inflated figure of 61,000, is still much smaller than the herds of Idaho at 103,000, Montana’s 150,000+, Oregon’s 130,000, and Wyoming’s 120,000. In fact the other 4 states herds total 503,000 to support 44 BP’s, that’s 11,430 elk per breeding pair of wolves in the other states. By those standards Washington’s 61,000 elk can support 5 breeding pairs. How can the WDFW think Washington’s elk herds can support 3 times as many wolves as the other 4 states? http://www.rmef.org/Hunting/Features/Articles/
Something some of you are missing is that 15 breeding pairs IS NOT the total number of wolves that they want. That is just the minimum that they want to before they can be delisted and a management plan can be started. We will end up with far more than that. Aerial gunning will not work in the heavy cover we have. Steel traps and snares are ILLEGAL in this state. Hunting season will never be opened up enough even if it was effective. We need to remind everyone of these things, especially the Commission.
I have officially got the Mrs to open her eyes, COMPLETELY. Yes, she is semi-pro wolf.When I threw the wolf density numbers at her she was "OMG, no way!!! Just look at the population of our surrounding states along with those public land numbers. Are they out of their minds?"She's firing off a message and she says she will clearly state that she is semi-pro wolf and the proposal for densities is insane!!!! My conversion of her is making headway. Baby steps.
To rebut that, they stated that the wolf predation on the elk would be compensatory so it wasn't a 1:1 wolf taking an elk that could be hunted.
It looks like Pope did a good job of relaying most of what I was thinking as well. I do have a few points that really hit me though. First off we arrived just after the morning break, it was standing room only but I managed to secure a couple seats for us in the second to last row. We couldn't see the screen at the angle we were at but had the entire commission facing us, the wolf advocates had their backs to us and were facing the commission. We sat there listening for about 15 minutes and I was already getting heated, I started taking notes of the things that really shocked me. I kept asking Pope where these wolf people were getting their data, the numbers just sounded way low and thankfully Chair Miranda and Vice Chair Gary called them on several of their theoretical stats. A little after noon we adjurned for lunch, that's when I was really shocked. The "wolf advocates" I had been listening to were not just advocates at all, they were WDFW people. I couldn't believe it, without seeing them before they spoke, and just going by what they were telling the commission, I easily came up with fact that they were wolf proponents, how wrong I was. Unlike Killbilly and Pope, I have very little faith in the commission shelving this plan and asking WDFW to come up with another one. I do think we, as sportsman, have a few people on the commission that see right through WDFW's agenda, I just don't think they will be able to convince the rest of the board that the proposal is bad science. I also think Phil Anderson will pressure them into adopting it, although I hope I'm wrong. One of the statements that I had to laugh at was when Nate said this plan started in 2007, before we had any wolves present. He also said currently Washington only has 25-30 wolves statewide. Nate and Rocky also said that Wolves would have no effect on ungulate numbers. Gary said he disagreed. He said Idaho's Lolo area has seen a 70% cow/calf mortality rate directly attributed to wolves, he asked them how they came up with their conclusion and why they thought Washington would be any different. Get this, they said that with the wolves taking out elk, the elk would start dropping two calves rather than one, there by increasing the numbers of elk. This is what Pope means when he said QuoteTo rebut that, they stated that the wolf predation on the elk would be compensatory so it wasn't a 1:1 wolf taking an elk that could be hunted. When they put the estimated wolf kill graph on the screen and tired to quickly flip to the next slide, Miranda stopped them and told them to go back. She then wanted them to explain the numbers. I wish I had taken a pic of the slide but it started with 50 wolves, then 100, then 200, then 300 followed by the number of deer/elk killed by hunters each year. According to WDFW estimates, wolves kill an average of 20 deer and 8 elk/ea. per year. Gary again said he disagreed. He went through his papers and said Wyoming, Montana and Idaho now estimate they kill 44 deer and 20 elk/ea. per year. He said according to your chart that is double that of your estimated numbers. Miranda, not to let them off, then looked at the chart and told Nate that even with the low estimate WDFW have, the numbers show that the wolves would kill half of the numbers of elk that are slotted for hunters. Again they didn't have an answer. Rocky was throwing out BS statements too, I would really like to see the study or documentation that backs up this statement he made, he said "the decline of ungulates in one unit in Montana resulted in an increase of ungulates in the neighboring units" Another slide came up showing WDFW's estimate of annual costs involved in wolf management. This was laughable too and Chuck Perry grabbed hold of this one. He told Nate that costs for management in the other states is 2-3 times higher than WDFW's estimates it will cost, he then asked them why WDFW think they can do it so much cheaper, again with no answer! So in a nut shell folks we have a pro wolf proposal with all kinds of holes in it, no real science, no option to reduce the number of breeding pairs, and a WDFW crew that are not concerned at all with the ramifications for hunters.
