Free: Contests & Raffles.
So wolves hunted elk into extinction on the east coast?? Wolves killed all the bison? What’s funny is you have it backwards. The white tail numbers in the US today are inflated because we have killed most of their predators and eliminated competition. When you remove predators from an ecosystem the prey tends to become overpopulated. What we are seeing is a rebalancing of nature. What’s out of balance is the human population in these areas. How many humans lived in all of the US when Lewis and Clark made their journey?? I bet it’s less than the amount that live in Washington state alone. Wolves, bears, cougars, coyote and etc all are part of this ecosystem. I agree that they may need to be managed but let’s not get carried away saying that humans have less of an impact than other predators.
Some of you people have been hand fed to much liberal propaganda and you believe it. You can't blame dieing herds all on the impacts of humans! In fact the contrary is far more truthful.There's some very important history that most people keep forgetting or never learned. Lewis and Clark nearly starved to death crossing the Rocky Mountain west (it's all documented) until they got to the Columbia River system and found abundant food, they barely survived the Rocky Mountain region. The only reason there has been abundant deer and elk populations in the mountains is because predators were hunted hard for decades and their numbers brought down to a point where deer, elk, and eventually even moose could flourish.Ungulate herds have actually flourished with the settlement of the far west. The first two Hudson Bay trading posts in the west were first near Astoria and second at Kettle Falls. There are records of hundreds of wolf hides being traded by the Indian tribes in the early 1800's. My grandfathers both homesteaded here in the very early 1900's, as a little boy my father and grandfather traded with the Indians for salmon at Kettle Falls. My father watched loggers clear land along the Columbia River while Coulee Dam was being built. My dad hunted with Cougar Sam one of the famed cougar bounty hunters during the middle of the 1900's. It was not until after the wolves were brought under control and then cougar were brought under control that ungulate herds really flourished. The 1960's and 1970's were the peak.Obviously there's a reason there was no moose season at all until near the end of the 1900's, there were almost no moose before that time! Moose have only flourished after predators were controlled and logging operations created huge amounts of perfect habitat. For those who seem a little foggy on this and especially anyone who has never read any of it, please look up the Lewis and Clark records and the Hudson Bay records! Elk and deer literally flourish right in the middle of human development! Colorado has the largest elk herd in the world and the epicenter is right in downtown Estes park Colorado! Within the city limits of our nations capitol WA DC there's outstanding deer numbers and hunting opportunities! DON'T miss the Omaha Nebraska buck or the Salt Lake City buck either. Right here in NE WA since the predators have taken over I can probably show you more deer quicker in the city of Colville than in the country.Most of us want to hunt in a country setting, but the rubbish that human development is causing the loss of deer and elk herds is simply green propaganda. Yes people need to tie up dogs, yes we lose deer on highways, yes i hate to see winter range developed, but predators have prevented herds from recovering from hard winters and that's why herds are not what they used to be!
Quote from: bearpaw on February 13, 2019, 10:26:13 AMSome of you people have been hand fed to much liberal propaganda and you believe it. You can't blame dieing herds all on the impacts of humans! In fact the contrary is far more truthful.There's some very important history that most people keep forgetting or never learned. Lewis and Clark nearly starved to death crossing the Rocky Mountain west (it's all documented) until they got to the Columbia River system and found abundant food, they barely survived the Rocky Mountain region. The only reason there has been abundant deer and elk populations in the mountains is because predators were hunted hard for decades and their numbers brought down to a point where deer, elk, and eventually even moose could flourish.Ungulate herds have actually flourished with the settlement of the far west. The first two Hudson Bay trading posts in the west were first near Astoria and second at Kettle Falls. There are records of hundreds of wolf hides being traded by the Indian tribes in the early 1800's. My grandfathers both homesteaded here in the very early 1900's, as a little boy my father and grandfather traded with the Indians for salmon at Kettle Falls. My father watched loggers clear land along the Columbia River while Coulee Dam was being built. My dad hunted with Cougar Sam one of the famed cougar bounty hunters during the middle of the 1900's. It was not until after the wolves were brought under control and then cougar were brought under control that ungulate herds really flourished. The 1960's and 1970's were the peak.Obviously there's a reason there was no moose season at all until near the end of the 1900's, there were almost no moose before that time! Moose have only flourished after predators were controlled and logging operations created huge amounts of perfect habitat. For those who seem a little foggy on this and especially anyone who has never read any of it, please look up the Lewis and Clark records and the Hudson Bay records! Elk and deer literally flourish right in the middle of human development! Colorado has the largest elk herd in the world and the epicenter is right in downtown Estes park Colorado! Within the city limits of our nations capitol WA DC there's outstanding deer numbers and hunting opportunities! DON'T miss the Omaha Nebraska buck or the Salt Lake City buck either. Right here in NE WA since the predators have taken over I can probably show you more deer quicker in the city of Colville than in the country.Most of us want to hunt in a country setting, but the rubbish that human development is causing the loss of deer and elk herds is simply green propaganda. Yes people need to tie up dogs, yes we lose deer on highways, yes i hate to see winter range developed, but predators have prevented herds from recovering from hard winters and that's why herds are not what they used to be!LOL..... Estes park. Lets not forget that there is no HUNTING impact in many of those places either
Any land purchased for wildlife to prevent a house from going up on it, GOOD IMO, especially in the Methow
The wolf lovers will never be swayed. They claim they aren't pro-wolf, but defend wolves whenever possible. They are the educated intellectuals that love "facts" but just don't force common sense on them. Their abundance in this state is the reason predators are treated like gods and their defense of WDFW is steadfast. At least wolfbait draws them out to show us it isn't just the game department and anti's we are up against on the issue of wolves.