cry wolf. the real reason wolves were reintroduced

[grunt soldier]

Crying Wolf Movie (HD) on Vimeo

check out this video. there is some crazy stuff in there about the lies that were told for the reintroduction of wolves to a place they never lived to begin with. the erosion of state rights and individual property rights because of a animal on the endangered species list that numbers in the 60,000-70,000. pay attention hunters.

 

[24Carat]

"to a place they never lived to begin with" ???

 

[Dirty Steve]

The Canadian wolf reintroduced to the mountain west (originally Yellowstone only) was not native to the area. It has had a tremendous effect on big game population around Yellowstone. For 12 years I hunted in the Gros Ventre area off of the SE corner of Yellowstone. The elk and moose numbers there used to be fantastic. Elk numbers are way low now and moose is virtually non-existent, except right around public campgrounds down near Kelly. When we first started hunting that area, it was not uncommon to see 6-10 moose per day. The last two times we hunted there, we saw 1 in 20 days of hunting (10 days each trip). I won't even bother hunting the area anymore. Some areas in Idaho adjacent to the park are almost devoid of elk.

What a waste. Hopefully hunting of wolves because of delisting in Idaho and Montana (Wyoming should follow as well) will shift the balance back where it belongs and reduce wolf populations substantially. Maybe some day I will go back and hunt that area again,....but not anytime soon.

Dirty Steve

 

[Rob377]

History of wolves in Yellowstone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Kirk Freeman]

"to a place they never lived to begin with" ???

Among a certain ideology, wolves are the salt for the ground.

Wolves belong on t-shirts, not Yellowstone.

 

[yotewacker]

"to a place they never lived to begin with" ???

They use to be there. They were exterminated in the early 1900's

 

[24Carat]

Among a certain ideology, wolves are the salt for the ground.

Wolves belong on t-shirts, not Yellowstone.

Ideology doesn't have anything to do with it. As far as Canadian or "Made in the USA" you are splitting hairs. Balance in nature is the guiding force. Natural law trumps man's whims and desires.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Ideology doesn't have anything to do with it.

Did you watch the video? Druidism has everything to do with it.

Shoot the wolves and restore the game. Restore wolves to Central Park in New York City and Washington D.C. and t-shirts where they belong.

 

[grunt soldier]

Ideology doesn't have anything to do with it. As far as Canadian or "Made in the USA" you are splitting hairs. Balance in nature is the guiding force. Natural law trumps man's whims and desires.

you said it yourself sir. balance in nature is the guiding force. it was stated from the beginning yellowstone could support 100 or so wolves. there is 1700 plus there now. where is the balance? where do you think those wolves are going to go when all the elk are gone? the movie says to sustain a wolf for the year is something like 25 elk. lets bring that down to around 10 just because it seems more realistic to me. 10 x1700 =17,000 elk. that means with in the next 2 years there will pretty much be no elk left. (they are already down from 19,000 to 4500) when there are no elk left and they are only eating cattle and people visiting the park then it will be a huge deal. and when beef price go up all the people who wanted to save the wolf (which is no where near being extinct) will be the first to *****.

 

[yotewacker]

The movie also says that there were around 50-70 wolves in this country before they started to put a no hunt law to them. They were not extinct. Just scarce

 

[nipprdog]

there is 1700 plus there now.

Yellowstone National Park - Wolves of Yellowstone (U.S. National Park Service)

At the end of 2010, at least 97 wolves (11 packs and 6 loners) occupied Yellowstone National Park (YNP). This is nearly the same size population as in 2009 (96 wolves) and represents a stable population.

 

[24Carat]

you said it yourself sir. balance in nature is the guiding force. it was stated from the beginning yellowstone could support 100 or so wolves. there is 1700 plus there now. where is the balance? where do you think those wolves are going to go when all the elk are gone? the movie says to sustain a wolf for the year is something like 25 elk. lets bring that down to around 10 just because it seems more realistic to me. 10 x1700 =17,000 elk. that means with in the next 2 years there will pretty much be no elk left. (they are already down from 19,000 to 4500) when there are no elk left and they are only eating cattle and people visiting the park then it will be a huge deal. and when beef price go up all the people who wanted to save the wolf (which is no where near being extinct) will be the first to *****.

Shall we examine the counts from the Project folks on sight and see how they compare to the computations of an Indiana statistician? :
Wolf Project staff detected 268 wolf kills in 2010 (definite, probable, and possible combined), including 211 elk (79%), 25 bison (9%), 7 deer (3%), 4 wolves (1%), 2 moose (<1%), 2 pronghorn (<1%), 2 grizzly bears (< 1%), 4 coyotes (1%), 2 ravens (<1%), and 10 unknown species (4%). The composition of elk kills was 43% cows, 25% calves, 18% bulls, and 15% elk of unknown sex and/or age. Bison kills included 4 calves, 6 cows, 7 bulls, and 8 unknown sex adults. Intensive winter and summer studies of wolf predation continued.
The natural law I mentioned will rule. The Elk populations had gotten genetically weak for a century. Now with the culling of the weak and infirm the bloodline is getting stronger. This stuff is all cyclical. As prey numbers fall, predator numbers fall. Prey numbers then rise and predator numbers recover. Hunters want an uninterrupted high count of Elk to pursue. Nature says "sorry" this year you don't fill your tag, come back in five years. Paying 7 grand for a Yellowstone hunt that doesn't pay off drives this anti-wolf hysteria.

 

[Dirty Steve]

There's a real good reason moose kills were only 2% in 2010,.....there are virtually none left for a wolf to kill. That is not anti-wolf hysteria. Wolves already hosed the population before 2010. From first hand observations by me, the folks I hunt with, the ranch owners, wranlers and jacks where we get horses from and friends in the area, I feel pretty comfortable in that statement. This is not "park" area, this is well beyond the park boundaries just NE of Jackson. Two moose sightings in 20 days of hunting, and I'm talking back-country horse back from a tent camp riding 15-20 miles a day and covering different areas each day. Ten -twelve years ago, several moose sightings per day was the norm. Look at the licenses numbers issued, the numbers are way down, harvest is way down and some areas are closed completely. The fact that many of the closed areas are immediately adjacent to the park is not a fluke. This isn't because of poor moose genetics, its from wolf predation pure and simple. No, I'm not pissed because I dropped 7 grand on a hunt and came home empty handed. I hunt for virtually free, excluding my tag and travel expenses. I have found nice bulls, (36-45") dead with nothing more eaten than the nose and a few bites out of the side.

Elk seasons in this same area are now shortened for the same reason. The population is way down. That's not because of poor "park" genetics either. The park is an area entirely to itself. You can't compare what happens in the park to the area outside of it. The park was over-populated with everything. The only time a park elk was in danger before wolf reintroduction was during the late season park hunt when they migrated out of Yellowstone, into Teton Park and to the feed ground. Wolves don't know when they are inside or oustide of the park, and there are an awful lot outside of the park. I could really care less what they do in the park. If they want wolves inside the park to control game populations because of the lack of hunting, fine. I don't really care to have them in areas that already control the population thru hunting and neither do the vast majority of folks in the area.

While we are on the subject, bears are the same. The number of grizzlies outside of the park is way beyond delisting guidelines. I do enjoy seeing them and it will make you mess your pants when you bump into one on a narrow trail on horseback, but they could be and should be hunted now. They have exceeded the population objectives.

I do not claim to be a statistician. I am just a guy who has seen what wolf reintroduction has done to an area I used to love to hunt first hand. I am not sitting back here in Indiana and surmising what is happening from looking at statistics and studies. I know the area I used to hunt well and have many friends who spend most of the year in that country. One even stays on the feed ground sometimes through the winter (there is a feed ground on the ranch). He has a pretty good idea of elk, deer, moose and bighorn populations from seeing what shows up for the winter, and watches the wolfs follow them down, chase them off and kill them, leaving the majority of the carcass to lay. What game they don't kill, they stress seriously by chasing for fun when the animals are already struggling during the winter.

I didn't come home with an elk every time, but always had a good time with friends and enjoyed seeing game. I fully intended to hunt moose in that area, but didn't have the points to draw the license. Now after 10 years of buying preference points at $75 a pop, I guarantee I would never consider wasting the tag of a lifetime in an area with any wolf population. Many outfitters will not even take a moose hunter in the areas with wolf populations anymore. It's not worth the hunter or outfitters time and effort to do a 10 day " trail ride" looking for a moose. You can do a trail ride in Brown County State Park for a lot less money and have just as good of a chance at killing a moose.

Dirty Steve

 

[grunt soldier]

Shall we examine the counts from the Project folks on sight and see how they compare to the computations of an Indiana statistician? :
Wolf Project staff detected 268 wolf kills in 2010 (definite, probable, and possible combined), including 211 elk (79%), 25 bison (9%), 7 deer (3%), 4 wolves (1%), 2 moose (<1%), 2 pronghorn (<1%), 2 grizzly bears (< 1%), 4 coyotes (1%), 2 ravens (<1%), and 10 unknown species (4%). The composition of elk kills was 43% cows, 25% calves, 18% bulls, and 15% elk of unknown sex and/or age. Bison kills included 4 calves, 6 cows, 7 bulls, and 8 unknown sex adults. Intensive winter and summer studies of wolf predation continued.
The natural law I mentioned will rule. The Elk populations had gotten genetically weak for a century. Now with the culling of the weak and infirm the bloodline is getting stronger. This stuff is all cyclical. As prey numbers fall, predator numbers fall. Prey numbers then rise and predator numbers recover. Hunters want an uninterrupted high count of Elk to pursue. Nature says "sorry" this year you don't fill your tag, come back in five years. Paying 7 grand for a Yellowstone hunt that doesn't pay off drives this anti-wolf hysteria.

don't get so worked up over the internet. I never claimed to be anything except a concerned hunter. i personally have friends who live there year round and talk with them often, have hunted out there with them often and have seen the devastation the over population of the wolf has caused. believe what you want sir but those number you quoted are from the people who wanted and put the wolf in yellowstone. you think they are going to say hey we screwed up our fault? those are the kills they detected anyways that could be a quarter of the actual kills. are they out everyday checking the entire areas even outside the park where a lot of the wolves are running around now? either way you can say, think and believe what you want sir. the main problem i see with your thoughts is that they are the same the as bunny huggers in New York looking out over 5th ave saying the wolf is cool it was here first and is just doing what it does but you nor them actually live there and deal with them and the problems daily.

also on a side note for you when cats walk there will be no claw marks on the ground as the claws stay retracted.

 

[hammer24]

First off, I don't think I'd trust the numbers of "Wolf Project staff". My guess it's a hippy college professor walking around with tree hugging college kids writing down their "observations." The fact is throughout the history of mankind, the wolf has stood in direct conflict with the interests of human beings. Are they cool? Sure, as long as they don't live by me! I can see how people were excited by the idea of them at first, but I don't think they really understood the ramifications of the reintroduction. What's the saying....? THE PATH TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS. There will be gov. killing programs again, poisoning, helicopters, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a bounty eventually. If not that, then year round hunting will open up. Unfortunate, yes. But the idiocy will end at some point. There are thousands of years of human history to draw on. Not to mention ever expanding human population.

 

[24Carat]

those number you quoted are from the people who wanted and put the wolf in yellowstone. you think they are going to say hey we screwed up our fault?

I think they are highly trained and experienced Biologists who have been granted a rare once in a lifetime opportunity to document this reintroduction and I seriously doubt they would poison the data to skew the outcome for political advantage. With turn over in Project staff over the years you think every learned member would want to skew the numbers? Highly unlikely. They are the ones with the Helicopters and Tracking collars to quite effectively document population and kill data for the entire park system and their Pack areas clearly extend beyond the park borders. I am clearly more suspect of subjective analysis by lay folk with no experience in scientific observation. The 1700 wolf population forwarded earlier in this thread is clearly erroneous.

 

[hammer24]

Here is a similar story much closer to home. Wisconsin's state biologist and DNR has been pleading for the feds to delist the wolves in the great lakes region. They have seen the destruction of their deer herd, widespread deprivation of livestock, and domestic pets. Their pleading has fallen on deaf ears even though the state estimates on population have far surpassed the feds OWN NUMBERS on how many wolves that state could support. The Gray Wolf in Wisconsin - WDNR

Wisconsin wolf population surges - JSOnline

 

[grunt soldier]

I think they are highly trained and experienced Biologists who have been granted a rare once in a lifetime opportunity to document this reintroduction and I seriously doubt they would poison the data to skew the outcome for political advantage. With turn over in Project staff over the years you think every learned member would want to skew the numbers? Highly unlikely. They are the ones with the Helicopters and Tracking collars to quite effectively document population and kill data for the entire park system and their Pack areas clearly extend beyond the park borders. I am clearly more suspect of subjective analysis by lay folk with no experience in scientific observation. The 1700 wolf population forwarded earlier in this thread is clearly erroneous.

yeah just like global warming was real and the data those scientist and biologist provided wasn't faked and a hoax right?

 

[24Carat]

yeah just like global warming was real and the data those scientist and biologist provided wasn't faked and a hoax right?

Apples to oranges comparison. Some very rich people will get disturbingly more wealthy and destroy our society with the global warming illusion. State and federal coffers will suffer loss of tax revenue and risk losing their offices with out of control wolf predation.

Also, in either situation, I know government, either state or Federal especially, can be basically ignorant without having an agenda. If these two situations are the result of some sort of underlying conspiracy I find the notorious nature some see here as being beyond government's very basic intelligence.

Again, nature is cyclical. Several more than 10 to 15 years will be needed to evaluate the cause effect relationships involved here. I'd say find some good wolf stew recipes in anticipation of a delisting.