OT: why does Idaho want to kill its wolf population?

[XXtwindad]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/idaho-bill-90-percent-of-wolves-to-be-killed?cmpid=int_org=ngp::int_mc=website::int_src= ngp::int_cmp=amp::int_add=amp_readtherest

It looks like the issue is really a proxy war between ranchers and conservationists, but that might be a simplistic reading.

Anyone live in Idaho or have a better grasp on the subject?

[NormansCay]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/idaho-bill-90-percent-of-wolves-to-be-killed?cmpid=int_org=ngp::int_mc=website::int_src= ngp::int_cmp=amp::int_add=amp_readtherest

It looks like the issue is really a proxy war between ranchers and conservationists, but that might be a simplistic reading.

Anyone live in Idaho or have a better grasp on the subject?

I just got an email this morning asking me to support the change.org petition to protect wolves. Not surprising it is a proxy war between those two factions. I think a lot of it is that Idaho is a conservative state (politically) undergoing significant migration influx from other mostly more liberal western states.

[ripvanrando]

I do not live in Idaho but as I hunter, I am familiar with Fish and Game using hunters to do the hard work while collecting huge license and permit fees as they sit comfortably in their offices analysing data.

If Idaho wants to manage the population of wolves and thus reduce their killing of cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, deer, elk, etc., I think they should do the killing rather than allow so-called hunters to use night vision, snow mobiles and other machinery to do their dirty work. The bill allows these measures and I would not consider it hunting but likely just a power and money grab by the fish and game. It is not hard to understand that farmers and rancher want predators killed. The permit and licensing money maker for the state is harder to see.

[Ozz]

What I've never really understood ....is it really that big of a problem? I would guess that maybe a couple hundred cows, sheep, goats each year?

Seems cheaper and more palatable to just pay the ranchers for their losses. A cow is worth about $3000-$4000 each?

So, for about $800,000 everyone should be happy.....no wolves killed, ranchers reimbursed for their losses.

Done...

[mtechnica]

The rednecks in Idaho think they have a god given right to use the land to raise animals and they only care about their profit and livelihood. To them the wolves are just a nuisance and increased cost. They either don’t believe in science or simply don’t care, and will rape the environment and eco system all day every way as long as it makes them a buck. They will kill a wolf like swatting a fly and it means nothing to them, they’ll sleep like a baby that night and dream happily about Christian Conservative hegemony and whatever other crap they typically get off on.

[goonster]

I am familiar with Fish and Game using hunters to do the hard work while collecting huge license and permit fees as they sit comfortably in their offices analysing data.

I don't see the problem. There's a demand for permits, right?

Does the wolf care if it's bagged by a hunter, or culled by the state?

What I've never really understood ....is it really that big of a problem? I would guess that maybe a couple hundred cows, sheep, goats each year?

To be fair, it feels different when they are your sheep or goats.

It's not just an accounting exercise when your livestock is torn up, and you are prevented from doing anything about it. Protecting your flock is pretty primal stuff, actually.

[OtayBW]

^
^ Interesting. It's like Manifest Destiny all over again on an ecological level...:eek:

[ripvanrando]

The rednecks in Idaho think they have a god given right to use the land to raise animals and they only care about their profit and livelihood. To them the wolves are just a nuisance and increased cost. They either don’t believe in science or simply don’t care, and will rape the environment and eco system all day every way as long as it makes them a buck. They will kill a wolf like swatting a fly and it means nothing to them, they’ll sleep like a baby that night and dream happily about Christian Conservative hegemony and whatever other crap they typically get off on.

I suppose they would rebut.....stay in California.

In my area, Coyote population has exploded. Many birds (pheasant, turkey, quail, etc.) are pretty much gone. It makes me a little nervous when I see coyotes in the Hedgegrow not far from the neighbor's little daughter.

Your nasty comment about Christianity is offensive.

[mtechnica]

To be fair, it feels different when they are your sheep or goats.

It's not just an accounting exercise when your livestock is torn up, and you are prevented from doing anything about it. Protecting your flock is pretty primal stuff, actually.

I guess what side of this issue you land on comes down to whether or not you believe people have a right to use the land for their business to any extent they want. If you’re a conservative and believe in small government you’ll probably say let them do whatever they need to make a profit. If you’re on the opposite side of the spectrum you probably believe the government should regulate the situation with conservation in mind, and that raising livestock at all costs isn’t sustainable or the best use of land in all cases.

[JedB]

The farmers do get compensation for the animals that are lost to wolf predation.

[mtechnica]

I suppose they would rebut.....stay in California.

In my area, Coyote population has exploded. Many birds (pheasant, turkey, quail, etc.) are pretty much gone. It makes me a little nervous when I see coyotes in the Hedgegrow not far from the neighbor's little daughter.

Your nasty comment about Christianity is offensive.

I grew up in Eastern WA FWIW so I know all about what goes on in Idaho.

Also I didn’t mean to offend Christians, I’m just saying a lot of these people are basically religious fundamentalists that actually believe they hold dominion over animals and the planet etc... you basically can’t question their beliefs about much of anything from a logical perspective.

“ Religious fundamentalists believe in the superiority of their religious teachings, and in a strict division between righteous people and evildoers (Altemeyer and Hunsberger, 1992, 2004). This belief system regulates religious thoughts, but also all conceptions regarding the self, others, and the world.”

I think that not addressing this issue prevents one from fully grasping the situation.

[Hellgate]

In before the lock.

[JedB]

In before the lock.

What's up, Pete.
:bike:

[mtechnica]

^
^ Interesting. It's like Manifest Destiny all over again on an ecological level...:eek:

This is literally what’s going on

“ Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, is the idea that the United States is destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent.”

If the mods want to lock the thread because someone is posting factual information then go for it but it’s a real snowflake move imo.

[tomato coupe]

In before the lock.
A topic that cleanly splits along political lines getting locked? No way.

[XXtwindad]

A topic that cleanly splits along political lines getting locked? No way.

ripvanrando provided the perspective of a hunter without stating his political preferences, so I don’t necessarily think this splits evenly along political lines. But I’m not an expert in the subject.

[jamesdak]

The rednecks in Idaho think they have a god given right to use the land to raise animals and they only care about their profit and livelihood. To them the wolves are just a nuisance and increased cost. They either don’t believe in science or simply don’t care, and will rape the environment and eco system all day every way as long as it makes them a buck. They will kill a wolf like swatting a fly and it means nothing to them, they’ll sleep like a baby that night and dream happily about Christian Conservative hegemony and whatever other crap they typically get off on.


Well as an old redneck farm boy comments like this just make me laugh and feel sorry for you at the same time.

If only things were so simple......

Not that I necessarily agree with just killing off the wolves but I do respect farmers rights too and know there has to be a balance.

Where I do wholeheartedly agree with a lot of folks from Idaho is the whole "please stay in California" thing. We're fighting the same sickness here in northern Utah. :p

[Dead Man]

kinda feels like the problem is ranchers expect the land to be sanitized of predators so they dont have to take responsibility for protecting their herds. thats how the white man's been doing it for at least a 1500 years, but its lazy and has driven predators to extinction in many corners of the globe which has its own consequences.

seems to me like the solution is to allow shooting of any predator attacking a herd/flock, while keeping "hunting" of wolves prohibited. so sorry that you'll have to guard your stock, i guess

[Clean39T]

For a historical perspective, I suggest Cormac McCarthy’s “The Crossing”..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tomato coupe]

... I don’t necessarily think this splits evenly along political lines.
Seriously?

[bigbill]

Here is some information about the history of reintroducing wolves to Idaho beginning in 1995. The unintended consequences were pretty staggering.

https://idrange.org/range-stories/north-idaho/wolf-reintroduction-in-idaho/

[jamesdak]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/idaho-bill-90-percent-of-wolves-to-be-killed?cmpid=int_org=ngp::int_mc=website::int_src= ngp::int_cmp=amp::int_add=amp_readtherest

It looks like the issue is really a proxy war between ranchers and conservationists, but that might be a simplistic reading.

Anyone live in Idaho or have a better grasp on the subject?

Seems extreme to me and the flip side of that may be getting the wolves relisted.....

[AngryScientist]

The rednecks in Idaho think they have a god given right to use the land to raise animals and they only care about their profit and livelihood. To them the wolves are just a nuisance and increased cost. They either don’t believe in science or simply don’t care, and will rape the environment and eco system all day every way as long as it makes them a buck. They will kill a wolf like swatting a fly and it means nothing to them, they’ll sleep like a baby that night and dream happily about Christian Conservative hegemony and whatever other crap they typically get off on.



If the mods want to lock the thread because someone is posting factual information then go for it but it’s a real snowflake move imo.

There is a fair way to make a point, a civil way and a respectful way, and then there is the idea that you can insult whoever you want to drive your point home with derogatory remarks and wild generalizations.

I guess this snowflake wont lock the thread just yet, but you're done here mtech.

[XXtwindad]

There is a fair way to make a point, a civil way and a respectful way, and then there is the idea that you can insult whoever you want to drive your point home with derogatory remarks and wild generalizations.

I guess this snowflake wont lock the thread just yet, but you're done here mtech.

While I agree Mike could’ve (and should’ve) phrased things much more diplomatically, I think he’s added a lot of valuable insight in the time I’ve been on this Forum. It’s not my call, but I’m hopeful there’s an opportunity for redemption.

[jamesdak]

Here is some information about the history of reintroducing wolves to Idaho beginning in 1995. The unintended consequences were pretty staggering.

https://idrange.org/range-stories/north-idaho/wolf-reintroduction-in-idaho/

I've been reading up and studying on the issue for years and just don't see any easy solution and nothing that will please everyone. It's also hard to sort through all the documentation on what's out there and view it all objectively. I totally get ranchers concerns as well as unwarranted fears. But on the flip side as a nature wildlife photographer I love the idea of more wolves out there for me to work.

Lot's of talk from old rancher friends here in Utah about this also. And yes most of the old boys want them all exterminated. But they are still my friends. Reality is they will be a problem here shortly. Officially they are no wolves in Utah but yeah....they're here. I've seen a black one in an area not 5 miles from the house where there's a high concentration of deer and Elk. Just waiting for the day I see one with a camera in hand.

[Ralph]

The general idea of it being their land to use and they can do anything they want with it kinda bothers me. I used to think this way. But as I got older, I don't think that way anymore. I don't think of myself as a Christian, but seems to me we are part of something bigger. Maybe the native Americans and their view of the land was better. My brothers and I inherited a 100 acre farm in Western NC, and our dad had the view it was his to do what he wanted. My brothers and I think we are just stewards of the land. A heavy topic. Interesting, but keep it respectful.

[fiamme red]

Wolves are controversial in France and northern Spain too.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56530714

[Big Dan]

Remember when they wanted to drain the Everglades......

[Burning Pines]

Wealthy ranchers with subsidized grazing permits on land stolen from tribes crying about having to deal with one or two cattle lost from wolves per year (although they can rarely prove the cause of the deaths) will never not be both funny and infuriating to me.

Unfortunately, like most land use issues in the inter-mountain west, bills like this are a combination of virtue signaling about western heritage and catering to well-off special interests (big game hunters and agribusiness). Nothing new here.

[JedB]

Wealthy ranchers with subsidized grazing permits on land stolen from tribes crying about having to deal with one or two cattle lost from wolves per year (although they can rarely prove the cause of the deaths) will never not be both funny and infuriating to me.

Unfortunately, like most land use issues in the inter-mountain west, bills like this are a combination of virtue signaling about western heritage and catering to well-off special interests (big game hunters and agribusiness). Nothing new here.

That's kind of 93% of my feeling on it.

[Burning Pines]

Yeah I mean there have been "save a deer, smoke a pack a day" billboards and bumper stickers in Montana for decades. Just aggressively ignorant and violent imo.

[Ozz]

...

It's not just an accounting exercise when your livestock is torn up, and you are prevented from doing anything about it. Protecting your flock is pretty primal stuff, actually.
I get that...but say 200 cattle killed in the whole state....how many ranchers? Google says there about 24,000 farms. Not sure how many are "ranches" raising cattle.

But losing a couple cattle every 2-3 years? I get that you don't have to like it, but in the end you don't really suffer a loss.

Sort of like your car getting hit while you are in the grocery store...you are pissed, but your insurance covers it and after the repair you move on...you dream about catching the hit-and-run driver and pounding them to a pulp, but rational people don't really do that.

Also, are the kills mostly on "ranches" or where the cattle are grazing on public lands? Seems to me, the public lands are for all animals, and come with an inherent risk...just saying.

[AngryScientist]

Yeah I mean there have been "save a deer, smoke a pack a day" billboards and bumper stickers in Montana for decades. Just aggressively ignorant and violent imo.

i've seen those when travelling in the rural west myself. agree, pretty ugly for sure.

[Buzz]

Well as an old redneck farm boy comments like this just make me laugh and feel sorry for you at the same time.

If only things were so simple......

Not that I necessarily agree with just killing off the wolves but I do respect farmers rights too and know there has to be a balance.

Where I do wholeheartedly agree with a lot of folks from Idaho is the whole "please stay in California" thing. We're fighting the same sickness here in northern Utah. :p

Thanks for your thoughtful response which is obviously based on a lifetime of real perspective and experience something which seems so lacking in many people these days.

[jamesdak]

What we had happening here two years ago was sort of the same thing only mountain lions. For quite awhile all the social noise was, "leave the cats alone", "they were here first", "we're in their living room". That changed overnight when a local posted a video of one of the mountain lions with someone's white cat in their mouth. Then it was all, "hunt them down", "they're killers", "why won't DWR do something", "protect our kids", etc......

So funny watching people's take on these issues especially when it doesn't affect them directly. But the minute it does, boy do they change.....:rolleyes:

[ripvanrando]

Wolves don't just kill cattle, they kill sheep, domestic dogs, and others in much larger numbers than cattle.

There is a farm near me that requires you to shoot any fox or coyote that you see as privilege of hunting their property. I can't agree to that. Others do.

If the State wants to manage wildlife numbers, they should do it themselves.

Selling outrageously expensive permits to hunters (speaking of NJ) to effect a wildlife policy seems wrong to me, especially if the State gives extraordinary advantage to the so-called hunter, such as the use of night vision, ability to hunt at night, any rifle, use of motor vehicles, etc. This is not fair chase and not fair to the animal. It is just state sponsored killing. That is my objection and it has nothing to do with politics, religious, or one's choice of protein.

[Kirk007]

Some wolves would help keep your coyotes in check....I suppose they would rebut.....stay in California.

In my area, Coyote population has exploded. Many birds (pheasant, turkey, quail, etc.) are pretty much gone. It makes me a little nervous when I see coyotes in the Hedgegrow not far from the neighbor's little daughter.

Your nasty comment about Christianity is offensive.

[Dead Man]

land ownership is a weird concept to me, and ive owned land.

thinking about it from a humanistic approach - basically, because i happen to have the good fortune of abundant resource i can plop a stack of papers that represent calories burned by mostly other people, which i have gained directly or indirectly from exploitation (being an "employer" or working for one), for a piece of land i pay property tax on and a well paid and provisioned group of heavily armed people will help me keep people with significantly less resource off the piece of land ive staked claim to.

the whole thing rubs me wrong. always has - even when i was a somewhat more traditionalist/conservative type, and especially as a literalist bible-studying christian. i always found the character of christ in total opposition to the values most of his contemporary follows espoused. and it eventually got me excommunicated from the church! go figure.

these days, id probably take the position o something like this: land ownership is a construct. but humans are no more "stewards" of the land/earth than bacteria are stewards of our organs. we do possess a level of consciousness and conscience that rather demands- strictly for our own pleasure and survival- that we do what we must to preserve this environment for ourselves, at least for as long as it takes to make the next evolutionary jump to fully synthetic consciousness. the duration of time we are having any notable large scale affect on the environment is a geologic blink of an eye. the planet doesnt care that were here, even if it possessed a consciousness and sensory perception... countless other biological occurrences have changed the atmosphere and surface of the earth WAY beyond anything weve done over the billions of years of its existence. when we have either blown ourselves to extinction or transcended "natural" biology .... in any way, no longer having an effect on the ecosystem ... life and geologic change will go on for hundreds of millions or maybe billions of years yet, likely spawning a number of species that drastically alter things time and time again.

so when i remember all that, i conclude, on the topic of "stewardship," that we need to behave in a way that maintains health and comfort for our species... and in so doing, most of the other species will be impacted less for it. our focus should NOT be on putting ourselves aside for the benefit of other species, rather creating an environment that is in as good o equilibrium as possible, because WE will last longest, happiest that way

seems like when you run predators out, varmint and game explode.. when any population explodes, so do diseases. bovine wasting disease is something that would never exist in an environment with game predators, for instance. kill off smaller predators, like coyotes for another instance, and now you've got little outbreaks of PLAGUE and hantavirus and others.

i let spiders roam free in my home because they eat things that like to **** on my food/countertops and bite me.

just makes logical sense to let nature's soap clean itself.

[ripvanrando]

I know a hiker who was stalked by a mountain lion on the Pacific Crest Trail in California. She ultimately was not attacked but it spooked her so much that she left the trail, ending her Triple Crown quest.

I wouldn't backpack the Bitterroot solo and probably wouldn't do it unarmed although I have no idea if wolves will attack a human. Grizzlies certainly will

[Kirk007]

I am an expert in this sh*t. Been studying and working in wolf ecology/conservation since 1988.

The Idaho bill is pure Western idealogical hate driven, anti-science bullsh*t mostly along political lines where wolves are proxies for the federal government. There is a population segment in the West that simply hates and resents that the federal govenrnment owns and manages so much property and that they can override state fish and game agencies on occasion through the Endangered Species Act (and by the way this bill and similar measures in Montana and Idaho are now driving a scientist lead effort to relist the gray wolf as threatened and endangered - that old law of physics for every action there's a reaction).

Wolves kill very few livestock and those that are killed are as often a result of poor animal husbandry as anything. Some ranchers refuse compensation on political and philosophical grounds. And most of that predation occurs on federal lands - youi know, the ones that everyone has a stake in but locals get to lease for pennies on market value to support their otherwise uneconomically sustainable lifestyles.

Wolves do not, on balance drive down game herds. They may have a localized effect that results in some hunters being pissed off. They do make elk and deer more situationally alert, move them out of riparian areas and perhaps make hunting more difficult - more pissed off hunters.

Wolves do have a general positive impact on ecosytem health as do all large carnivores. One of the reasons we have so many coyotes everywhere is the relative absence of wolves and cougars. If you want to know more on this phenomena google "mesopredator release."

Ecologically, the Idaho bill is caveman stuff which will harm ecosystem resilience throughout the state and make it more difficult for wolves to continue to reclaim habitat in other states from which they were exterpated decades ago. Even the Idaho Fish & Game Dept is against the bill. It allows wolves to be literally run over with ATVs and snowmobiles and killed by any means, at any time of the year. It is mindblowingly stupid and cruel.

In case you can't tell, this stuff makes my blood boil. I will not spend a dollar in Idaho or knowingly doing business with any company in Idaho until they change their policies. The same with Montana and Wyoming (except Dave Kirk since he's a friend). I used to go to Bozeman/Yellowstone area every year. Haven't for the past 7. Their wildlife management policies are abominations and getting worse. My own personal protest to which I've communicated to their agencies and Governor, not that they care what some out of state non-trump supporter thinks.

[Ozz]

I know a hiker who was stalked by a mountain lion on the Pacific Crest Trail in California. She ultimately was not attacked but it spooked her so much that she left the trail, ending her Triple Crown quest.

I wouldn't backpack the Bitterroot solo and probably wouldn't do it unarmed although I have no idea if wolves will attack a human. Grizzlies certainly will
What is your point? Kill all predators in the offhand chance you might go hiking?

A mountain biker was killed not far from where I live a couple years ago by a mountain lion. The animal was sick and starving (for whatever reason) and was probably desperate for easy prey....it was the first human killed by a cougar in the state in 94 years! I thought it was sad and bad luck.

My points: Animal attacks on humans are pretty rare, and wilderness can be dangerous.

[ojingoh]

In my area, Coyote population has exploded. Many birds (pheasant, turkey, quail, etc.) are pretty much gone. It makes me a little nervous when I see coyotes in the Hedgegrow not far from the neighbor's little daughter.

All of those birds are ground nesters. Destruction of suitable natural habitat (farms, suburbs) is causing their demise. Climate change in particular, but so are invasive species are upending their ecology. Then there's domestic cats and glass windows, #1 and #2 causes of bird mortality in the USA.

Not knowing where you live, but knowing coyotes, they're just filling an ecological niche - one often abandoned when we started executing their competitors, including wolves.

If you're concerned with little kids encountering coyotes, and it's a real fear, they are dangerous and sneaky as hell, it would seem to me you'd be in support of the natural apex predator. Coyotes are the invasive species.

[ripvanrando]

What is your point? Kill all predators in the offhand chance you might go hiking?

A mountain biker was killed not far from where I live a couple years ago by a mountain lion. The animal was sick and starving (for whatever reason) and was probably desperate for easy prey....it was the first human killed by a cougar in the state in 94 years! I thought it was sad and bad luck.

My points: Animal attacks on humans are pretty rare, and wilderness can be dangerous.

i don't accept that wilderness has to be as dangerous as it is in some states.

Carry a gun when around dangerous predators.

My point seemed obvious to me.

[ripvanrando]

All of those birds are ground nesters. Destruction of suitable natural habitat (farms, suburbs) is causing their demise. Climate change in particular, but so are invasive species are upending their ecology. Then there's domestic cats and glass windows, #1 and #2 causes of bird mortality in the USA.

Not knowing where you live, but knowing coyotes, they're just filling an ecological niche - one often abandoned when we started executing their competitors, including wolves.

If you're concerned with little kids encountering coyotes, and it's a real fear, they are dangerous and sneaky as hell, it would seem to me you'd be in support of the natural apex predator. Coyotes are the invasive species.

I don't know for sure but suspect over population of deer are more responsible than farming, which has been on a wane for a few generations in Western NJ. If anything, we have preserved more land in the last generation than in the past several.

I do support the apex predator, Man.

I do not support the wanton killing of wolves as an agent of the State. I can't imagine why you think I do not support wolves. It is a question of how wildlife is managed. I do not claim to know that answer other than I detest hunters being used to effect state policy, especially when the hunters are given the right to slaughter in a non-fair chase manner. To me, that is not right. Personally, I only would hunt something that would be eaten and I ain't eating wolf.

[goonster]

If the State wants to manage wildlife numbers, they should do it themselves.



This is not fair chase and not fair to the animal. It is just state sponsored killing.

Sorry, I'm not the most sophisticated of men, but that seems like one heckuva contradiction.

How do you think the State is going to manage the numbers? Encourage them to emigrate?

[Kirk007]

the words wolf (cougar) (in most places but perhaps not everywhere bear) and management creates a bit of an oxymoron at least as "management" is typically used. Most apex predators very effectively self regulate their populations.

There is no state in the lower 48 where an apex predator is anywhere near its ecological capacity or even a level where it can actively fullfill it's niche as a regulator on other species. I think this is also true for most of Alaska where predators are agressively killed to prop up ungulate populations for hunters.

Consider the eastern U.S.: if state game officials really wanted to slow down the ecosystem destruction underway due to the overpopulation of deer they could and should be trying to actively reintroduce, at a miminum, cougars if not eastern timber wolves from Ontario (interestingly coy wolves - often a mix of timber wolf, coyote and dog are evolving into a larger canid species capable of taking down deer). Chronic wasting disease in ungulates, and spreading to domestic stock; the tick explosion and lyme disease - there's a whole laundry list of the bad unintended consequences of our historic "predator management" which treats anything we don't like to eat or that potentially interferes with the domestic production of cattle and ship gets "managed' as vermin.

You might argue that introducing cougars into the populous east coast would create a risk to human life, but cougars walk among all of us who use the outdoors in from the rocky mountains west to the Pacific ocean with very little human user/cougar conflict.

Our limbic systems retain eons old fear of predators from a different time; a time when man actually competed with other predators for food and probably did have more adverse interactions. But the current reality is far different.
But our agrarian focused approach to wildlife management still lingers on with far too strong a hold on state agencies.

Sorry, I'm not the most sophisticated of men, but that seems like one heckuva contradiction.

How do you think the State is going to manage the numbers? Encourage them to emigrate?

[benb]

We don't have any wolves coming back here but the Coyotes have really moved in and the bears are moving back in too.

I don't hunt, I do like to fish. Fishing is kind of futile sometimes in that the fish are all full of Mercury. So far my view on the impact is just that the Coyotes are keeping the balance of deer way back towards normal and that's just fine.

My deer sightings are WAY down since I started sighting Coyotes locally. Hunters can't take deer in the suburban areas but Coyotes can. (There are blocks of land where you can hunt in my town FWIW but it's mostly too developed.)

I did see 10+ deer once this spring all in one sighting, that's the only time I've seen them this year. I used to see them almost every day I was out road cycling. It would be extremely rare to see less than 20 in a week all year round.

I don't see anything wrong with states allowing more lenient hunting techniques/equipment when a population is getting out of control. Hunting is nowhere near as popular as it used to be and it seems like even with relaxed rules and incentives sometimes there are not enough hunters to bring things back under control.

New Hampshire (I lived there for quite a while) has had an exploding Black Bear population to the point they are getting a little out of control and dangerous. No one has wanted to fund wildlife control and the state has basically kept having to lower the limits on what is allowed with respect to hunting and it just has not worked. The bears just keep outreproducing whatever the hunters manage to take. IIRC bear baiting and hunting with dogs has been legal for some time and hasn't helped. There's a lot of perspective that if the bears get too populous they're going to be far more obnoxious & dangerous than wolves.

This whole thing of running a business on the federal wild lands is very complicated.. one thing to keep in mind is most of us especially in the East do not live in states where the Feds "own" almost all the land.

[Wattvagen]

A very interesting OT thread!

I learned a few things I would not have know otherwise being a city slicker myself.

when i first thought about it, my initial question was: is it legal for a farm owner to shoot a wolf on his property if he perceives it is a threat to his livestock, but i never considered that the farmer may be using public land on a use lease to feed his animals, which certainly complicates the question.

anyway, good to hear different perspectives from different areas. enhances the conversation, and it is nice that is is mostly civil.

[reuben]

I am an expert in this sh*t. Been studying and working in wolf ecology/conservation since 1988.

The Idaho bill is pure Western idealogical hate driven, anti-science bullsh*t mostly along political lines where wolves are proxies for the federal government. There is a population segment in the West that simply hates and resents that the federal govenrnment owns and manages so much property and that they can override state fish and game agencies on occasion through the Endangered Species Act (and by the way this bill and similar measures in Montana and Idaho are now driving a scientist lead effort to relist the gray wolf as threatened and endangered - that old law of physics for every action there's a reaction).

Wolves kill very few livestock and those that are killed are as often a result of poor animal husbandry as anything. Some ranchers refuse compensation on political and philosophical grounds. And most of that predation occurs on federal lands - youi know, the ones that everyone has a stake in but locals get to lease for pennies on market value to support their otherwise uneconomically sustainable lifestyles.

Wolves do not, on balance drive down game herds. They may have a localized effect that results in some hunters being pissed off. They do make elk and deer more situationally alert, move them out of riparian areas and perhaps make hunting more difficult - more pissed off hunters.

Wolves do have a general positive impact on ecosytem health as do all large carnivores. One of the reasons we have so many coyotes everywhere is the relative absence of wolves and cougars. If you want to know more on this phenomena google "mesopredator release."

Ecologically, the Idaho bill is caveman stuff which will harm ecosystem resilience throughout the state and make it more difficult for wolves to continue to reclaim habitat in other states from which they were exterpated decades ago. Even the Idaho Fish & Game Dept is against the bill. It allows wolves to be literally run over with ATVs and snowmobiles and killed by any means, at any time of the year. It is mindblowingly stupid and cruel.

In case you can't tell, this stuff makes my blood boil. I will not spend a dollar in Idaho or knowingly doing business with any company in Idaho until they change their policies. The same with Montana and Wyoming (except Dave Kirk since he's a friend). I used to go to Bozeman/Yellowstone area every year. Haven't for the past 7. Their wildlife management policies are abominations and getting worse. My own personal protest to which I've communicated to their agencies and Governor, not that they care what some out of state non-trump supporter thinks.

Well, I was going to stay out of this thread, which is rife with misinformation, anecdote, and bias, but Kirk007 speaks the truth. And yes, wolves in Montana and Wyoming are thought of the same way.

What's not often mentioned is that a lot of the land used by ranchers is actually owned by the federal government.

Too many deer? Worried about Lyme disease, your vegetables, your flowers, your car? Well, that's what you get for killing off the wolves, coyotes, cougars, etc., down to miniscule percentages of their historical populations. Other species are suffering the same fate - birds, frogs...

We return now to your regularly scheduled https://forums.thepaceline.net/picture.php?albumid=143&pictureid=830

[tctyres]

the words wolf (cougar) (in most places but perhaps not everywhere bear) and management creates a bit of an oxymoron at least as "management" is typically used. Most apex predators very effectively self regulate their populations.

There is no state in the lower 48 where an apex predator is anywhere near its ecological capacity or even a level where it can actively fullfill it's niche as a regulator on other species. I think this is also true for most of Alaska where predators are agressively killed to prop up ungulate populations for hunters.

Consider the eastern U.S.: if state game officials really wanted to slow down the ecosystem destruction underway due to the overpopulation of deer they could and should be trying to actively reintroduce, at a miminum, cougars if not eastern timber wolves from Ontario (interestingly coy wolves - often a mix of timber wolf, coyote and dog are evolving into a larger canid species capable of taking down deer). Chronic wasting disease in ungulates, and spreading to domestic stock; the tick explosion and lyme disease - there's a whole laundry list of the bad unintended consequences of our historic "predator management" which treats anything we don't like to eat or that potentially interferes with the domestic production of cattle and ship gets "managed' as vermin.

You might argue that introducing cougars into the populous east coast would create a risk to human life, but cougars walk among all of us who use the outdoors in from the rocky mountains west to the Pacific ocean with very little human user/cougar conflict.

Our limbic systems retain eons old fear of predators from a different time; a time when man actually competed with other predators for food and probably did have more adverse interactions. But the current reality is far different.
But our agrarian focused approach to wildlife management still lingers on with far too strong a hold on state agencies.

Ecosystem destruction and fragmentation on the East Coast is a different magnitude from the Rockies or West Coast, but in general, I agree with you.
NJ: Population 8.9 million people, 8.7 thousand sq miles, ~1022 residents/sq mile (0 wild wolves, 0 wild wolves per sq mile)
ID: Population 1.8 million people, 83.6 thousand sq miles, ~21 residents/sq mile (1,556 wild wolves, 0.02 wolves per sq mile)

Fragmentation results from a number of factors, but the most deadly, perhaps in both states, is development: homes and highways.

Another problem is perception of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ESA only says when the population of animals is critically low to cause extinction. It does not say what a healthy population is or even if being delisted means that the population is healthy or sustainable.

Not only do apex predators control ungulates, but they require large areas and corridors so that there is a trickle-down effect in conservation. When the apex predators are protected, any other species that uses a part of that biome is benefitted.

[benb]

I mentioned being OK with relaxing hunting rules if things are out of control.

Note I was not implying Idaho is overflowing with wolves and they're out of control.

Who knows how many wolves it takes for it to get to the point hunters can't even hope to control their numbers with normal rules.. it doesn't seem any part of the US is anywhere near that.

1500 Wolves in Idaho seems like nothing... 1500 wolves in a state as big as Idaho seems like nothing. Our black bear density is 10x that in New England, but Wolves seem to have a reputation problem that bears maybe deserve and just don't seem to have.

edit: Regarding Lyme.. haven't seen a tick once since the Coyotes arrived either. I'm still super paranoid about them but they seem way down since the deer became scarce.

[Kirk007]

yep. In part why we are pushing a federal widlife corridors act (and state acts - passed in Virginia, resolution pending in Pa, passed. (twice in New Hampshire). This is my daily bread of policy work: https://wildlandsnetwork.org/policy/


Ecosystem destruction and fragmentation on the East Coast is a different magnitude from the Rockies or West Coast, but in general, I agree with you.
NJ: Population 8.9 million people, 8.7 thousand sq miles, ~1022 residents/sq mile (0 wild wolves, 0 wild wolves per sq mile)
ID: Population 1.8 million people, 83.6 thousand sq miles, ~21 residents/sq mile (1,556 wild wolves, 0.02 wolves per sq mile)

Fragmentation results from a number of factors, but the most deadly, perhaps in both states, is development: homes and highways.

Another problem is perception of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ESA only says when the population of animals is critically low to cause extinction. It does not say what a healthy population is or even if being delisted means that the population is healthy or sustainable.

Not only do apex predators control ungulates, but they require large areas and corridors so that there is a trickle-down effect in conservation. When the apex predators are protected, any other species that uses a part of that biome is benefitted.

[tctyres]

yep. In part why we are pushing a federal widlife corridors act (and state acts - passed in Virginia, resolution pending in Pa, passed. (twice in New Hampshire). This is my daily bread of policy work: https://wildlandsnetwork.org/policy/

This is great.
Thread drift ...

One of the things that is coming out of what has recently been labelled the climate crisis, is that the fastest way forward is to put a price on greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide or carbon dioxide equivalent units. For example, methane is many times more amplifying of climate warming than carbon dioxide, so its price would be a multiplier. The only place in the US that has put a price on carbon dioxide in the US is California through cap and trade. The advantage of doing this is that, immediately, banks can estimate risk and cost associated with climate change.

The European Central Bank has included the cost of biodiversity in its climate guidance, but a similar pricing scheme has not been developed

[thew]

And most of that predation occurs on federal lands - youi know, the ones that everyone has a stake in but locals get to lease for pennies on market value to support their otherwise uneconomically sustainable lifestyles.

This really gets at the core of what's going on here. Despite the rhetoric its not about private property rights, it's about how public lands are managed. There's a significant subset in the rural west who think federal lands should belong to them or, barring that, should be managed for the enrichment of a few rather than the greater ecological, social or even economic good. Think Cliven and Ammon Bundy.

Wolves do not, on balance drive down game herds. They may have a localized effect that results in some hunters being pissed off. They do make elk and deer more situationally alert, move them out of riparian areas and perhaps make hunting more difficult - more pissed off hunters.

Wolves do have a general positive impact on ecosytem health as do all large carnivores. One of the reasons we have so many coyotes everywhere is the relative absence of wolves and cougars. If you want to know more on this phenomena google "mesopredator release."

These ecological benefits have economic value. Its estimated that wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone created ~$35 million/year in value (tourism) and cost ~$60,000/year in livestock depredation and ~2.9 million/year in impacts on hunting. (https://defenders.org/sites/default/files/publications/wolves_and_people_in_yellowstone.pdf) So opposition to wolves isn't even about their overall economic impact--it's about the ability of a few to control public lands for some very specific extractive uses.

[XXtwindad]

What we had happening here two years ago was sort of the same thing only mountain lions. For quite awhile all the social noise was, "leave the cats alone", "they were here first", "we're in their living room". That changed overnight when a local posted a video of one of the mountain lions with someone's white cat in their mouth. Then it was all, "hunt them down", "they're killers", "why won't DWR do something", "protect our kids", etc......

So funny watching people's take on these issues especially when it doesn't affect them directly. But the minute it does, boy do they change.....:rolleyes:

Isn’t that always the case.

[XXtwindad]

I am an expert in this sh*t. Been studying and working in wolf ecology/conservation since 1988.

The Idaho bill is pure Western idealogical hate driven, anti-science bullsh*t mostly along political lines where wolves are proxies for the federal government. There is a population segment in the West that simply hates and resents that the federal govenrnment owns and manages so much property and that they can override state fish and game agencies on occasion through the Endangered Species Act (and by the way this bill and similar measures in Montana and Idaho are now driving a scientist lead effort to relist the gray wolf as threatened and endangered - that old law of physics for every action there's a reaction).

Wolves kill very few livestock and those that are killed are as often a result of poor animal husbandry as anything. Some ranchers refuse compensation on political and philosophical grounds. And most of that predation occurs on federal lands - youi know, the ones that everyone has a stake in but locals get to lease for pennies on market value to support their otherwise uneconomically sustainable lifestyles.

Wolves do not, on balance drive down game herds. They may have a localized effect that results in some hunters being pissed off. They do make elk and deer more situationally alert, move them out of riparian areas and perhaps make hunting more difficult - more pissed off hunters.

Wolves do have a general positive impact on ecosytem health as do all large carnivores. One of the reasons we have so many coyotes everywhere is the relative absence of wolves and cougars. If you want to know more on this phenomena google "mesopredator release."

Ecologically, the Idaho bill is caveman stuff which will harm ecosystem resilience throughout the state and make it more difficult for wolves to continue to reclaim habitat in other states from which they were exterpated decades ago. Even the Idaho Fish & Game Dept is against the bill. It allows wolves to be literally run over with ATVs and snowmobiles and killed by any means, at any time of the year. It is mindblowingly stupid and cruel.

In case you can't tell, this stuff makes my blood boil. I will not spend a dollar in Idaho or knowingly doing business with any company in Idaho until they change their policies. The same with Montana and Wyoming (except Dave Kirk since he's a friend). I used to go to Bozeman/Yellowstone area every year. Haven't for the past 7. Their wildlife management policies are abominations and getting worse. My own personal protest to which I've communicated to their agencies and Governor, not that they care what some out of state non-trump supporter thinks.

It’s insights like this that make the “GD” part of this Forum so great.

[XXtwindad]

land ownership is a weird concept to me, and ive owned land.

thinking about it from a humanistic approach - basically, because i happen to have the good fortune of abundant resource i can plop a stack of papers that represent calories burned by mostly other people, which i have gained directly or indirectly from exploitation (being an "employer" or working for one), for a piece of land i pay property tax on and a well paid and provisioned group of heavily armed people will help me keep people with significantly less resource off the piece of land ive staked claim to.

the whole thing rubs me wrong. always has - even when i was a somewhat more traditionalist/conservative type, and especially as a literalist bible-studying christian. i always found the character of christ in total opposition to the values most of his contemporary follows espoused. and it eventually got me excommunicated from the church! go figure.

these days, id probably take the position o something like this: land ownership is a construct. but humans are no more "stewards" of the land/earth than bacteria are stewards of our organs. we do possess a level of consciousness and conscience that rather demands- strictly for our own pleasure and survival- that we do what we must to preserve this environment for ourselves, at least for as long as it takes to make the next evolutionary jump to fully synthetic consciousness. the duration of time we are having any notable large scale affect on the environment is a geologic blink of an eye. the planet doesnt care that were here, even if it possessed a consciousness and sensory perception... countless other biological occurrences have changed the atmosphere and surface of the earth WAY beyond anything weve done over the billions of years of its existence. when we have either blown ourselves to extinction or transcended "natural" biology .... in any way, no longer having an effect on the ecosystem ... life and geologic change will go on for hundreds of millions or maybe billions of years yet, likely spawning a number of species that drastically alter things time and time again.

so when i remember all that, i conclude, on the topic of "stewardship," that we need to behave in a way that maintains health and comfort for our species... and in so doing, most of the other species will be impacted less for it. our focus should NOT be on putting ourselves aside for the benefit of other species, rather creating an environment that is in as good o equilibrium as possible, because WE will last longest, happiest that way

seems like when you run predators out, varmint and game explode.. when any population explodes, so do diseases. bovine wasting disease is something that would never exist in an environment with game predators, for instance. kill off smaller predators, like coyotes for another instance, and now you've got little outbreaks of PLAGUE and hantavirus and others.

i let spiders roam free in my home because they eat things that like to **** on my food/countertops and bite me.

just makes logical sense to let nature's soap clean itself.

And this...

[jamesdak]

There's a significant subset in the rural west who think federal lands should belong to them or, barring that, should be managed for the enrichment of a few rather than the greater ecological, social or even economic good.

.

Maybe that subset exist out here became the feds control so much more of the state lands out here.

The two ends of the spectrum:

Nev-85%
Utah-65%

New York-.03%
Iowa - .03%

Maybe, just maybe, people out west have a justified reason for feeling like they do? :rolleyes:

[buddybikes]

Live in RI on a cove within Narragansett Bay. We have viewed coyotes within 30 feet of us (we behind fence) and the eaten leftovers of a Canadian goose in our driveway. Here is probably the guilty party And we live in densely populated area (as most of shoreline is).

1698024271

[Ozz]

i don't accept that wilderness has to be as dangerous as it is in some states.

So take the "wild" out of wilderness....got it. ;)

Seriously though, the wilderness is what it is...if you go there, be prepared and knowledgeable and you will be fine. More people die in the wilderness from getting lost or other stupidity (e.g. taking selfies at the Grand Canyon) than are eaten by animals.

Carry a gun when around dangerous predators.

I am around the most dangerous predators on the planet everyday....well, at least I was pre-COVID.....and I never feel the need to carry a gun. ;)

Depending on where you are, I do not wholeheartedly disagree with this. Fishing remote rivers in Alaska or Montana, where surprising a grizzly could be bad news. A gun makes sense...see "be prepared" above.

With mountain lions though, if they are healthy, you never see them coming.

My point seemed obvious to me.

My bad....I was being snarky. Sorry.

Most animals (including grizzlies, black bear, cougar, wolves, etc) make a point of avoiding humans. Surprising them, getting between them and cubs or food is another matter. The reality is, animal attacks are humans are incredibly rare (What animals kill the most humans)
(https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-most-humans.html)

Wolves kill about 10 per year (#14). Grizzly, black bear and cougar don't even make the this list!

[jamesdak]

Live in RI on a cove within Narragansett Bay. We have viewed coyotes within 30 feet of us (we behind fence) and the eaten leftovers of a Canadian goose in our driveway. And we live in densely populated area (as most of shoreline is).


They're so soft and fluffy it makes you just want to snuggle them to death!

https://pbase.com/jhuddle/image/93335727.jpg



;);)

[reuben]

Depending on where you are, I do not wholeheartedly disagree with this. Fishing remote rivers in Alaska or Montana, where surprising a grizzly could be bad news. A gun makes sense...see "be prepared" above.

No, bear spray is far more effective. If you think that you can hit a target that's coming at you at 30mph and bouncing up and down, you're wrong. Point the spray at the ground in front of you, and your odds of survival increase dramatically. That's for brown bears.

Black bears are much easier to deal with, but again, bear spray is much more effective.

[ripvanrando]

Sorry, I'm not the most sophisticated of men, but that seems like one heckuva contradiction.

How do you think the State is going to manage the numbers? Encourage them to emigrate?

You haven't fully characterized my position and I am not going to repeat it.

If the state has caused a problem, it is incumbent upon them to fix it. I am pretty sure I stated several times, they should do their own dirty work aka killing or slaughtering.

[thew]

Maybe that subset exist out here became the feds control so much more of the state lands out here.

The two ends of the spectrum:

Nev-85%
Utah-65%

New York-.03%
Iowa - .03%

Maybe, just maybe, people out west have a justified reason for feeling like they do? :rolleyes:

I also don't think we should assume that everyone in the west feels the same way :). Speaking as someone who works in natural resource management and lived out west for many years (though I don't currently.)

I don't deny that that people have reasons for opposing active federal land management in the west, in that there are deep historical and cultural reasons for this opposition. That said the reality is that western communities and economies are diversifying, the environment is changing, and our collective values towards nature at a societal level are shifting.

[Ozz]

No, bear spray is far more effective. If you think that you can hit a target that's coming at you at 30mph and bouncing up and down, you're wrong. Point the spray at the ground in front of you, and your odds of survival increase dramatically. That's for brown bears.

Black bears are much easier to deal with, but again, bear spray is much more effective.
A friend of mine went guided fishing up in Alaska, and they were all given guns. The guide told them that if they saw a grizzly to fire up into the air...hitting the grizzly would just piss it off. Not sure if he was joking or not...

I always like the joke: How can you tell whether bear scat is from a black bear or grizzly bear? Black bear droppings are smaller and often contain berries, leaves, and possibly bits of fur. Grizzly bear droppings tend to contain small bells and smell of pepper.

[chrismoustache]

Anyone interested in this topic should definitely check out Coyote America by Dan Flores. I, for one, did not realize that the US Department of Ag's Wildlife Service spends a lot of money to fly around in helicopters and kill coyotes for ranchers.

[benb]

A friend of mine went guided fishing up in Alaska, and they were all given guns. The guide told them that if they saw a grizzly to fire up into the air...hitting the grizzly would just piss it off. Not sure if he was joking or not...

I always like the joke: How can you tell whether bear scat is from a black bear or grizzly bear? Black bear droppings are smaller and often contain berries, leaves, and possibly bits of fur. Grizzly bear droppings tend to contain small bells and smell of pepper.

It generally seems the people who live in these areas are very very very sure they want the guns with them.

I think there has been some whitewashing of some of these predators... back when the woods were exploding with them even on the east coast the accounts of their behavior were very different.

I recently read "A Libertarian Walks into a Bear" about Grafton, NH, the stories in that book are pretty illuminating and there's a pretty decent collection of historic accounts from New England colonial days.

You have to assume every historical account from colonial times is 100% false and a lie to buy into the modern stories that Bears in particular will stay away by default.

Also even the idea they can take down deer & moose seems to have had to be "rediscovered".

Coyotes/Coywolves seem like they are not doing much damage though.

I have no idea how many we have.. it seems like they haven't got a count.

I live right in the central village in my town, 15 miles west of Boston. I've seen a Coyote right on my street which is considered "densely populated".

A couple years ago I had something killed in my yard, the entrails were left behind and it was a nasty mess for me to clean up. That's plus the disappearance of deer is basically the only effect that can be seen.

It's interesting how politicized the wolves are in Idaho given it sounds like Idaho (from a quick google search) has 20x more bears than wolves. Bears can certainly take livestock, pets, etc.. too.

[ripvanrando]

No, bear spray is far more effective. If you think that you can hit a target that's coming at you at 30mph and bouncing up and down, you're wrong. Point the spray at the ground in front of you, and your odds of survival increase dramatically. That's for brown bears.

Black bears are much easier to deal with, but again, bear spray is much more effective.

Do you any experience to back that statement? Most discussions and internet posts are by people who know little and are centered on handguns. A 9mm won't dent a brown bear and even a 10 loaded hot with 220 grain hardcast is a crapshoot and it requires a CNS shot.

I would personally be much more comfortable with a semi-automatic shotgun with a rifled barrel with an extended tube full of particular slugs and an Eotech holographic sight on top. Other members of the party can spray pepper.

A Weatherby 460 Magnum will knock almost any bear right onto its ass or more properly stated stop it in its tracks. I have been up close and personal with a Cape Buffalo and I did not have a firearm (it was in the land cruiser). If I had it, I would have pulled the trigger. I am lucky.

Spray is 33% effective on charging Brown Bears and firearms are 85% effective.

https://www.outsideonline.com/2401248/does-bear-spray-work

[Clean39T]

Spray is 33% effective on charging Brown Bears and firearms are 85% effective.



100% effective is bringing along a friend who can't run as fast as you..

[Kirk007]

It's interesting how politicized the wolves are in Idaho given it sounds like Idaho (from a quick google search) has 20x more bears than wolves. Bears can certainly take livestock, pets, etc.. too.

For a great read on this by a great author I recommend the late Barry Lopez's book "Of wolves and Men." Read it in College over winter break on year and it steered me into policy and out of biological field work (well actually Farley Mowat's account of being a wolf biologist "marking" his territory in Alaska convinced my that law school had more "interesting social prospects" than being a wolf biologist ; )

[Kirk007]

.

I have been up close and personal with a Cape Buffalo and I did not have a firearm (it was in the land cruiser). If I had it, I would have pulled the trigger. I am lucky.


https://www.outsideonline.com/2401248/does-bear-spray-work

My second most ass puckering wildlife moment: napping in a landcruiser on a 112 degree afternoon along the Zambezi river when this big bull elephant decided he wanted to graze the acacia tree we were parked under. I'm the tall guy without much hair on the back seat. Guide in the front seat had his hand on the trigger of his "elephant" gun that went everywhere with him. It was a moment of absolute stillness and acceptance that there was nothing we could do if the elephant decided to move us out of the way. The elephants tusks were over the hood of the truck, close enough that the front passenger could have touched them if she hadn't had her head turned and eyes closed. An amazing moment in time not to be forgotten. Lucky for everyone the elephant moved on. Most ass puckering - staring match with 12 foot tiger shark. Looking at those eyes all I could think of was that it's primordial brain was calculating whether I was food or foe
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210506/0487bcea2e4a5fa49fb813bb3bf775f8.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bigbill]

It generally seems the people who live in these areas are very very very sure they want the guns with them.

True about the guns. I have friends up in Alaska and they'll carry a 44 magnum revolver in the woods or while fishing.

[HenryA]

Selective shooting is probably much more humane than this:

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/12/06/EPA-approves-coyote-killing-cyanide-bombs-for-five-states/1791575589679/

And safer for other critters and kids.

[reuben]

Do you any experience to back that statement?

Yes. Mostly black bears due to my location. But as mentioned, they're generally easier to deal with. Friends who live in Montana, Wyoming, etc. also take spray but no guns, and have done so for decades. The same is true for other acquaintances who backpack in various locations.

One guy takes a gun once per year - for his annual elk hunt.
.

[Llewellyn]

Why do humans think they have an inalienable right to destroy anything (either flora or fauna) that gets in it's way :mad::mad:

No wonder the world is FUBAR.

[Clean39T]

Why do humans think they have an inalienable right to destroy anything (either flora or fauna) that gets in it's way :mad::mad:

No wonder the world is FUBAR.


Certain humans, with certain myths they live by..

Others, not quite as much. At least historically. And to an extent today.

[reuben]

Why do humans think they have an inalienable right to destroy anything (either flora or fauna) that gets in it's way :mad::mad:

No wonder the world is FUBAR.

Heck, we do it to ourselves! Other civilizations, cultures, races, religions...

[Tickdoc]

I love to hunt, and we used to ranch, so coyotes are kill on site for me, mostly. As a kid I always had a loaded 30-30 In our ranch truck just in case. We have a ton here and while they are awful cute, they are cunning little killers.

Take one home and adopt it if you don’t believe me.

I hunt pheasant every year in South Dakota and received a nice bottle of whiskey from the guide for taking one out while hunting last year.

I can only imagine wolves would be the same for me if they were still here.

I’m curious what people in say, Montana or Wyoming think about wolves. I understand their reintroduction to the park has been hugely beneficial, and that Is great, but I don’t think I would feel the same if my ranch bordered the park.

Also curious what some of you who ride mtb in bear infested areas think?

Hot button issue for sure.

[reuben]

I’m curious what people in say, Montana or Wyoming think about wolves.

As you might imagine, it's a highly divisive topic.

[rnhood]

Thinning the herd is part of wildlife management. When I lived in Idaho, we would shoot prairie dogs. Farmers would ask us to come thin them down, as they dig holes and when cattle step in one, it often breaks their leg. With regards to the wolves, I would have to research it to pass judgement, or an opinion. There is often far more to a story than what one article might paint.

[Ozz]

Thinning the herd is part of wildlife management. When I lived in Idaho, we would shoot prairie dogs. Farmers would ask us to come thin them down, as they dig holes and when cattle step in one, it often breaks their leg. With regards to the wolves, I would have to research it to pass judgement, or an opinion. There is often far more to a story than what one article might paint.

"Debunking Prairie Dog Myths" (https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/archive/assets/pdfs/wildlife/prairie_dog/prairie-dogs-and-cattle.pdf) - yeah, it's from the Humane Society....but that does not make it wrong.

If only there were more coyotes to eat the prairie dogs?:rolleyes:

[Kirk007]

Thinning the herd is part of wildlife management.

yep that's what wolves do if you let them. Wolf packs are self regulating and don't need thinning. The most frequent cause of wolf mortality is wolf on wolf killing. They are ruthless in their territoriality. The problem wolf who starts taking live stock in the exception to the rule. That doesn't stop the manifest destiny mindset though. Another cool read sorta on point on this topic: William Kittredge's essays in "Owning it All" particularly the namesake essay.

For those unfamiliar: "William Kittredge grew up on a cattle ranch in southeastern Oregon and farmed there until he was 33, after which he studied at the University of Iowa. He taught Creative Writing at the University of Montana for 29 years and retired as Regents Professor of English and Creative Writing. His many previous books include Next Rodeo, The Nature of Generosity and the Best Short Stories of William Kittredge. He died in December 2020."

[Llewellyn]

I love to hunt, and we used to ranch, so coyotes are kill on site for me, mostly. As a kid I always had a loaded 30-30 In our ranch truck just in case. We have a ton here and while they are awful cute, they are cunning little killers.

Take one home and adopt it if you don’t believe me.

I hunt pheasant every year in South Dakota and received a nice bottle of whiskey from the guide for taking one out while hunting last year.

I can only imagine wolves would be the same for me if they were still here.

I’m curious what people in say, Montana or Wyoming think about wolves. I understand their reintroduction to the park has been hugely beneficial, and that Is great, but I don’t think I would feel the same if my ranch bordered the park.

Also curious what some of you who ride mtb in bear infested areas think?

Hot button issue for sure.

Shakes head.

[rnhood]

You might be right Kirk, and I applaud you providing more reading information relevant to the matter. I think the NG article is not well written - in that it seems very one sided - and very partisan to boot. I am not claiming it contains falsehoods, just that I would want to read more from other sources.

[Dead Man]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdEufIke4XE

heres the pro-kill-em-wolves arguments

(not my position, just sharing)

[ripvanrando]

I love to hunt, and we used to ranch, so coyotes are kill on site for me, mostly. As a kid I always had a loaded 30-30 In our ranch truck just in case. We have a ton here and while they are awful cute, they are cunning little killers.

Take one home and adopt it if you don’t believe me.

I hunt pheasant every year in South Dakota and received a nice bottle of whiskey from the guide for taking one out while hunting last year.

I can only imagine wolves would be the same for me if they were still here.

I’m curious what people in say, Montana or Wyoming think about wolves. I understand their reintroduction to the park has been hugely beneficial, and that Is great, but I don’t think I would feel the same if my ranch bordered the park.

Also curious what some of you who ride mtb in bear infested areas think?

Hot button issue for sure.

With a guide once, a certain predator appeared. I did not feel threatened but this rancher, part time guide, shouted to shoot it. I balked. He grabbed my son's gun and shot it offhand from 150 yards as it was running rather fast.

He knew I objected, so, he showed me the nasty wounds his one dog suffered from one of those predators. His attitude was shoot on sight. You're riding in the back of the pickup and see one, you start shooting. I also doubt anyone was compensating him for lost cattle or sheep.

Edit: forgot to mention, this was not in the USA, so, Manifest Destiny was not a factor......just a farmer protecting his....property

[Dead Man]

Edit: forgot to mention, this was not in the USA, so, Manifest Destiny was not a factor......just a farmer protecting his....property

is the country colombia, the predator human, and the property coca?

[Louis]

is the country colombia, the predator human, and the property coca?

Or maybe this:

https://www.moviequotesandmore.com/wp-content/uploads/predator-2018-3.jpg

[ripvanrando]

is the country colombia, the predator human, and the property coca?

Very funny.

The point being. Farmers and ranchers are protective, this is not an american thing.

Property is land, animals, machinery, crops, etc. Cattle and sheep mostly. The dog was a Jack Russell. It got killed eventually on the ranch (next year). It doesn't really matter what the predator was. Could have been a lion, leopard, hyena, baboon, wild dog, croc, etc., etc. Farmers shoot predators.

[tkbike]

Very funny.

The point being. Farmers and ranchers are protective, this is not an american thing.

Property is land, animals, machinery, crops, etc. Cattle and sheep mostly. The dog was a Jack Russell. It got killed eventually on the ranch (next year). It doesn't really matter what the predator was. Could have been a lion, leopard, hyena, baboon, wild dog, croc, etc., etc. Farmers shoot predators.

Being that man is commonly acknowledged as the worst predator since the beginning of time...

[Vientomas]

I live in Idaho. The answer is - it's a poltical backwater. Can't wait to move away...

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/208/idaho-gov-little-beef-nonexistent-biden-policy/277-0459a9b3-e829-4dd8-985a-d4f01c968464

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/05/us/idaho-legislator-accuser-identity-revealed/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/07/idaho-mask-burning/

https://apnews.com/article/brad-little-medical-marijuana-legislation-referendums-marijuana-07b9ff1a14e886819176126fe3e43646

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/208/idaho-lt-gov-mcgeachin-forms-taskforce-protect-students-scourge-critical-race-theory-socialism-communism-and-marxism/277-bf53d7b1-8a2b-4f60-baf0-6d36a6f77288

[tkbike]

Do you any experience to back that statement? Most discussions and internet posts are by people who know little and are centered on handguns. A 9mm won't dent a brown bear and even a 10 loaded hot with 220 grain hardcast is a crapshoot and it requires a CNS shot.

I would personally be much more comfortable with a semi-automatic shotgun with a rifled barrel with an extended tube full of particular slugs and an Eotech holographic sight on top. Other members of the party can spray pepper.

A Weatherby 460 Magnum will knock almost any bear right onto its ass or more properly stated stop it in its tracks. I have been up close and personal with a Cape Buffalo and I did not have a firearm (it was in the land cruiser). If I had it, I would have pulled the trigger. I am lucky.

Spray is 33% effective on charging Brown Bears and firearms are 85% effective.

https://www.outsideonline.com/2401248/does-bear-spray-work

I have been to the Alaska back country 9 times(so not an expert), but have never felt the need to carry a firearm. I have spent probably more than1000 nights in grizzly/wolf/mountain lion country and have never felt the need to carry a firearm.
I carry bear spray and unfortunately have had to deploy it twice, once for a rogue mountain goat in Montana and once for a moose in Idaho. I have had several grizzly sightings/encounters and numerous black bear encounters and never felt threatened enough to go ‘oh **** I need a gun to protect myself ‘

Please don’t quote outside magazine, no one who spends anytime in the outdoors takes them seriously! Taking money from gun manufacturers may skew their opinion!

[jamesdak]

I love to hunt, and we used to ranch, so coyotes are kill on site for me, mostly. As a kid I always had a loaded 30-30 In our ranch truck just in case. We have a ton here and while they are awful cute, they are cunning little killers.

Take one home and adopt it if you don’t believe me.

I hunt pheasant every year in South Dakota and received a nice bottle of whiskey from the guide for taking one out while hunting last year.

I can only imagine wolves would be the same for me if they were still here.

I’m curious what people in say, Montana or Wyoming think about wolves. I understand their reintroduction to the park has been hugely beneficial, and that Is great, but I don’t think I would feel the same if my ranch bordered the park.

Also curious what some of you who ride mtb in bear infested areas think?

Hot button issue for sure.

Always two sides to these things. I grew up on a horse farm in VA.. For me it was ground hogs in the field. They were always kill on site. Never bothered too much with them until the time I was out there galloping Rambler and his front hoof came down right by a burrow hole. A couple on inches and he'd have been destroyed and I could have been seriously injured. Almost flipped the truck once too while rounding the horses up with it. As I was turning I dropped a front tire in a burrow and pretty near rolled the truck. Foxes and raccoons also caused problems but the worse were the weasels. Man, let one of those killing machines in the chicken coop. They go berserk and kill everything. Nothing let but dead chickens with little holes chewed in their necks and blood all over the walls.
I killed a lot of animals on the farm for very good reasons and 30 years later I still have no problem with that.

Everyone loves their KFC or Popeyes Chicken but how many have watched their own free range chickens devour a brand new litter of barn kittens?

I'm not a hunter and love wildlife, My passion is my wildlife photography. But having grown up on a farm and seeing what I've seen I can understand both sides of these things.

Heck the things I've seen doing my photography....

Watched a weasel one morning raid a nest of young rabbits. One by one he'd kill one, bring it out, dump it, and go back in to kill another. So many have a simplistic view of animals that come from having no real experience in their world.

[HenryA]

Anthropomorphism helps people make sense of the world around them but it is not necessarily correct — its largely fictional. A construct made up. It especially causes lots of misunderstanding when people project or attribute things to animals that are not there.

[ripvanrando]

I have been to the Alaska back country 9 times(so not an expert), but have never felt the need to carry a firearm. I have spent probably more than1000 nights in grizzly/wolf/mountain lion country and have never felt the need to carry a firearm.
I carry bear spray and unfortunately have had to deploy it twice, once for a rogue mountain goat in Montana and once for a moose in Idaho. I have had several grizzly sightings/encounters and numerous black bear encounters and never felt threatened enough to go ‘oh **** I need a gun to protect myself ‘

Please don’t quote outside magazine, no one who spends anytime in the outdoors takes them seriously! Taking money from gun manufacturers may skew their opinion!

If you read the two sentinel studies and gave serious thought, you would realize the bear spray argument vs a firearm is based on flimsy evidence at best. I think Outside did a decent job explaining it and please don't tell me what to say or not say. You are free to carry bear spray. If I were backpacking or fishing in some very select areas, as I stated, I would only be in a group and only if there were a couple firearms within the group.

Black Bears are sissies. Just make some noise and they are gone. Up a tree.

[jamesdak]

I live in Idaho. The answer is - it's a poltical backwater. Can't wait to move away...

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/208/idaho-gov-little-beef-nonexistent-biden-policy/277-0459a9b3-e829-4dd8-985a-d4f01c968464

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/05/us/idaho-legislator-accuser-identity-revealed/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/07/idaho-mask-burning/

https://apnews.com/article/brad-little-medical-marijuana-legislation-referendums-marijuana-07b9ff1a14e886819176126fe3e43646

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/208/idaho-lt-gov-mcgeachin-forms-taskforce-protect-students-scourge-critical-race-theory-socialism-communism-and-marxism/277-bf53d7b1-8a2b-4f60-baf0-6d36a6f77288

Yet some would call that a political stronghold and wave happily when you leave. Two sides to every story! ;)

[benb]

*** jinxed myself in this thread with the mentions of predators reducing deer numbers and several people talked about Lyme disease.

I pulled a deer tick off myself this morning when I went to shower. It definitely got me. I did get it off without killing it though, nothing broke off inside and it’s crawling around sealed up in a bag in case it needs to be tested.

Going to call the doctor shortly. I had been lucky the last 20+ years riding/hiking through the woods.

[nighthawk]

If you read the two sentinel studies and gave serious thought, you would realize the bear spray argument vs a firearm is based on flimsy evidence at best. I think Outside did a decent job explaining it and please don't tell me what to say or not say. You are free to carry bear spray. If I were backpacking or fishing in some very select areas, as I stated, I would only be in a group and only if there were a couple firearms within the group.

Black Bears are sissies. Just make some noise and they are gone. Up a tree.

I spent 2 years living and working (Fed wildlife biologist) in remote Alaska in habitat for one of the most dense populations of coastal brown bears. Saw bears daily, hiked around them, biked around them, hunted around them, worked around them. Had a bear walk by my office window one day during a staff meeting. We were required by agency policy to carry firearms (12 gauge, extended tube, magnum bear slugs) in the field and work with atleast one other person at all times. We also had to pass firearms accuracy qualifications, shooting at a moving target and hitting center mass with 3/5 shots. We also had to carry one form of less-lethal round or deterrent, like bear spray (though accuracy was greatly diminished by high winds across the tundra) or bean bag rounds or cracker shells.

FWIW, research at the time indicated that bear spray had a higher probability of ending a bear/human interaction without injury/death to the human participant. I remember reading the research paper at the time, but sorry don’t have the citation or a link.

Being around bears enough you learn to read their behavior to understand risk, but more importantly you learn to read the landscape and that heightened situational awareness more often than not allows one to avoid interactions. Wild animals are still wild and unpredictable though and on a few occasions found myself uncomfortably close to them.

Just adding my experience, not trying to contradict or support any particular point of view. Living and working in bear (or wolf or lion) habitat is a choice and chosen method of self preservation is a personal decision. No right or wrong, just choices and assumed risk.

Also FWIW, of the 4 bear caused fatalities that occurred while I was in AK, 2 were from black bears.

[72gmc]

The rednecks in Idaho think they have a god given right to use the land to raise animals and they only care about their profit and livelihood. To them the wolves are just a nuisance and increased cost. They either don’t believe in science or simply don’t care, and will rape the environment and eco system all day every way as long as it makes them a buck. They will kill a wolf like swatting a fly and it means nothing to them, they’ll sleep like a baby that night and dream happily about Christian Conservative hegemony and whatever other crap they typically get off on.

If this was a bar, I’d buy your next round.

[Kirk007]

If this was a bar, I’d buy your next round.

I'd by y'all the next.

[benb]

Yah don't screw around with Black Bears thinking they are not dangerous just cause they're smaller.

I've seen one charge and it was very scary. They can absolutely wreck you if they want to.

[soulspinner]

I am an expert in this sh*t. Been studying and working in wolf ecology/conservation since 1988.

The Idaho bill is pure Western idealogical hate driven, anti-science bullsh*t mostly along political lines where wolves are proxies for the federal government. There is a population segment in the West that simply hates and resents that the federal govenrnment owns and manages so much property and that they can override state fish and game agencies on occasion through the Endangered Species Act (and by the way this bill and similar measures in Montana and Idaho are now driving a scientist lead effort to relist the gray wolf as threatened and endangered - that old law of physics for every action there's a reaction).

Wolves kill very few livestock and those that are killed are as often a result of poor animal husbandry as anything. Some ranchers refuse compensation on political and philosophical grounds. And most of that predation occurs on federal lands - youi know, the ones that everyone has a stake in but locals get to lease for pennies on market value to support their otherwise uneconomically sustainable lifestyles.

Wolves do not, on balance drive down game herds. They may have a localized effect that results in some hunters being pissed off. They do make elk and deer more situationally alert, move them out of riparian areas and perhaps make hunting more difficult - more pissed off hunters.

Wolves do have a general positive impact on ecosytem health as do all large carnivores. One of the reasons we have so many coyotes everywhere is the relative absence of wolves and cougars. If you want to know more on this phenomena google "mesopredator release."

Ecologically, the Idaho bill is caveman stuff which will harm ecosystem resilience throughout the state and make it more difficult for wolves to continue to reclaim habitat in other states from which they were exterpated decades ago. Even the Idaho Fish & Game Dept is against the bill. It allows wolves to be literally run over with ATVs and snowmobiles and killed by any means, at any time of the year. It is mindblowingly stupid and cruel.

In case you can't tell, this stuff makes my blood boil. I will not spend a dollar in Idaho or knowingly doing business with any company in Idaho until they change their policies. The same with Montana and Wyoming (except Dave Kirk since he's a friend). I used to go to Bozeman/Yellowstone area every year. Haven't for the past 7. Their wildlife management policies are abominations and getting worse. My own personal protest to which I've communicated to their agencies and Governor, not that they care what some out of state non-trump supporter thinks.

Thanks for chiming in here. I found the thread interesting having spent so much time in areas where these animals exist. Its hard these days to ferret out peoples personal views from facts.

[tctyres]

Yet some would call that a political stronghold and wave happily when you leave. Two sides to every story! ;)

I think I'd want to be on Vientomas's side of history on this one:
Racists, rapists, neonazis? No thanks!
https://idahocapitalsun.com/2021/05/05/thats-not-who-we-are-idaho-might-be-exactly-who-we-are-for-now/

[tctyres]

If you read the two sentinel studies and gave serious thought, you would realize the bear spray argument vs a firearm is based on flimsy evidence at best. I think Outside did a decent job explaining it and please don't tell me what to say or not say. You are free to carry bear spray. If I were backpacking or fishing in some very select areas, as I stated, I would only be in a group and only if there were a couple firearms within the group.

Black Bears are sissies. Just make some noise and they are gone. Up a tree.

And you're the fellow who's camping with an elephant gun? I think the black bear might have a different opinion on who the sissy is.

[buddybikes]

*** jinxed myself in this thread with the mentions of predators reducing deer numbers and several people talked about Lyme disease.

I pulled a deer tick off myself this morning when I went to shower. It definitely got me. I did get it off without killing it though, nothing broke off inside and it’s crawling around sealed up in a bag in case it needs to be tested.

Going to call the doctor shortly. I had been lucky the last 20+ years riding/hiking through the woods.

Possums gobble ticks up like m&m's, people kind of don't like them because they are ugly but massively worthwhile animal

Some doc's like to give a 1 double shot of doxy after initial exposure, not sure if this is std protocol now

[jamesdak]

And you're the fellow who's camping with an elephant gun? I think the black bear might have a different opinion on who the sissy is.

Oh yeah, we're getting personnel now. Won't be much longer until this one is locked. :banana:

It's been pretty good for the most part though.

[AngryScientist]

Oh yeah, we're getting personnel now. Won't be much longer until this one is locked. :banana:

It's been pretty good for the most part though.

I agree. it's a pretty interesting topic, let's try and stay away from personal attacks' if we want to keep this open.

[jds108]

Yeah I mean there have been "save a deer, smoke a pack a day" billboards and bumper stickers in Montana for decades. Just aggressively ignorant and violent imo.

An entire billboard? Where are these billboards? I'm in MT and haven't seen such a billboard but would like to.

[72gmc]

Wolves sure do seem to be effective fulcrums for the seesaw battle between resource extractionists and ecosystem preservationists.

I tend to see this issue as myth vs reality, but I'm not a rancher, and I don't have a lot of my personal self-worth wrapped up in that lifestyle and its trappings. I am a person who loves these areas of the West and believes in the concept of public lands for the public good.

Is there good evidence of sustainable livestock grazing that isn't dependent on use/abuse of public lands, or a billionaire's ability to privatize huge tracts o' land?

[tctyres]

A Weatherby 460 Magnum will knock almost any bear right onto its ass or more properly stated stop it in its tracks.

Oh yeah, we're getting personnel now. Won't be much longer until this one is locked. :banana:

It's been pretty good for the most part though.

I've been out with grizzlies with zero problems with bear spray, and never needed a Weatherby 460 magnum, which is an elephant gun. YMMV.

Also, take your complaints about personnel to HR.:D

[ripvanrando]

I've been out with grizzlies with zero problems with bear spray, and never needed a Weatherby 460 magnum, which is an elephant gun. YMMV.

Also, take your complaints about personnel to HR.:D

As I said, I'd be fine with a semi-auto like a 12 ga Beretta A400 and solid copper slugs in an extended tube, IF in a area with Brown and/or Grizzly Bears and only if I was with others. I would like a holographic sight on it. Most of the comments about firearms not being effective relate to handguns. A rifle with the proper projectile carrying at least 4,500 ft⋅lbf of energy will stop a Grizzly. This is about 10 times the energy of many handgun rounds and around 4 times the muzzle energy of a 44 magnum.

There has never been any valid research conducted comparing the effectiveness of bear spray to a firearm.

I doubt many of us have experience with wolves in the wild. I don't. I don't think there should be a surprise that farmers and ranchers would object to the introduction of wolves. Historically, wolves have killed thousands of people. I certainly wouldn't want them on or near my property and would kill them.

[verticaldoug]

As I said, I'd be fine with a semi-auto like a 12 ga Beretta A400 and solid copper slugs in an extended tube, IF in a area with Brown and/or Grizzly Bears and only if I was with others. I would like a holographic sight on it. Most of the comments about firearms not being effective relate to handguns. A rifle with the proper projectile carrying at least 4,500 ft⋅lbf of energy will stop a Grizzly. This is about 10 times the energy of many handgun rounds and around 4 times the muzzle energy of a 44 magnum.

There has never been any valid research conducted comparing the effectiveness of bear spray to a firearm.

I doubt many of us have experience with wolves in the wild. I don't. I don't think there should be a surprise that farmers and ranchers would object to the introduction of wolves. Historically, wolves have killed thousands of people. I certainly wouldn't want them on or near my property and would kill them.

I'm more worried about the top alpha predator in the US called the automobile.

I think it is just about impossible to see a healthy wolf in the wild, hence Idaho is allowing all sorts otherwise frowned upon methods- helicopters, night visions, snares, trapping, atv/snowmobile chasing, etc etc. I don't see much sport in this except for blood lust.

I heard the timber wolves in northern minnesota in the winter, but the only chance you had to see one was to make a trip to Isle Royale back in the late 70's -early 80's when the packs were still strong. The wolf study has been going for 50 years. https://isleroyalewolf.org/

Since antiquity, wolves have maybe killed 1000s of people, but in the US, the only recent incidents almost always involved a rabid animal, or an animal held in capitivity.

Right now with the over population of Elk/deer, I think a wolf would not bother with a human.

I have nothing against a cull, but 90% seems extreme. Besides, if you kill the wolf packs, the coyotes will just filled the void by preying on livestock.

Growing up, I'd shoot anything legal or not. Now, I really don't see the point.

[ojingoh]

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/bill-to-kill-up-to-90-of-idaho-wolves-signed-by-governor/

[Kirk007]

Historically, wolves have killed thousands of people. I certainly wouldn't want them on or near my property and would kill them.

ok, here I have to draw a line. This is myth. There are very, and I mean very few documented killings of humans by wolves in North America.

And the fact (and yes these are documented facts) is that there is very little loss to livestock from wolves =- less than 1% of the mortalities in areas with wolves, many more livestock lost to poor husbandry, bad luck, etc. etc.

The hatred of wolves in the West is rooted in a mindset that everything not "useful" either as private property or that poses even a minor risk to private property should be fair (cynical use) game for killing. I have some, limited tolerance for this mindset on private property (it is still very much a short term, unecological view of the world), but no tolerance at all when it controls how wildlife is "managed" on our public lands, and even on private property it is in many ways wrongheaded. What do you get when you kill a coyote - more coyotes. The more you shot the more prolific they are. Similar with wolves, which is why wolves and coyotes survived most culling attempts until the killers (use) turn to the indiscriminate use of poisons.

The wanton killing of carnivores, particulalry on public property, which is where most of the wolves live and the killing occurs in the U.S., NOT on private property, is scientifically indefensible and dehabilitating to ecosystem resilience. The use of public funds - your and my tax dollars, to pay federal wildlife services to chase down wolves with helicopters, anywhere, but most insultingly perhaps in wilderness areas like in Idaho, is an indefensible waste of our money. So too is the poisoning of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other species to prop up public land grazing or to futher subsidize agriculture. The waste continues at the state level. Washington state wastes millions killing packs of wolves in the same little corner of the state EACH YEAR to placate one asshole rancher who refuses to run his underweight (yes he let's them out on public lands underweight making it harder for the calves to defend themselves) in an area that is so remote and rocky that he cannot (or is simply to cheap) to hire range riders to protect his herd. His "lifestyle" costs the rest of us citizens a hell of a lot of money, and the area is so wild wolves come back year after year after year and the state engages in the insane practice of killing them each year.

At to raising cattle/sheep: Cattle and sheep raised on public lands in the West contributes a very minor percentage of the food raised in this country. It could disappear completely and the market wouldn't register a blip. There would be an impact to some individual families of course, and some communities. But the fact remains it is largely unsustainable economically but for federal subsidies. We prop us the rugged individualist rancher mythology with federal dollars, perhaps to keep the romantic notion of the ranching west alive in our psyche. I'm sure my relatives who have been displaced by the closure of manufacturing in Pennsylvania or any person whose profession goes away due to economic realities wishes the federal government would be similarly as generous, keeping dead industries alive for the few on the backs of many. And ironically many of these recipients of federal largess in the West are also staunchly anti-federal government.

Our treatment of wildlife in this country is arrogant, ignorant and propped up by hubris of no nothings that think every other species under the sun is here solely for our unfettered use. It is humans that are the locusts, consuming everything in our path, until there's nothing left, and then we too shall pass.

[Louis]

Our treatment of wildlife in this country is arrogant, ignorant and propped up by hubris of no nothings that think every other species under the sun is here solely for our unfettered use. It is humans that are the locusts, consuming everything in our path, until there's nothing left, and then we too shall pass.

+ a whole bunch.

[FlashUNC]

There's really no good reason to kill a wolf unless you're Liam Neeson at the end of The Grey. Even then, eh, if you beat the wolf you're still probably not making it out of the wilderness.

[reuben]

Possums gobble ticks up like m&m's

Also guinea hens.

[reuben]

+ a whole bunch.

+ more

[morrisericd]

"We prop us the rugged individualist rancher mythology with federal dollars, perhaps to keep the romantic notion of the ranching west alive in our psyche. I'm sure my relatives who have been displaced by the closure of manufacturing in Pennsylvania or any person whose profession goes away due to economic realities wishes the federal government would be similarly as generous, keeping dead industries alive for the few on the backs of many. And ironically many of these recipients of federal largess in the West are also staunchly anti-federal government."

Wow, just wow!

[jamesdak]

It is humans that are the locusts, consuming everything in our path, until there's nothing left, and then we too shall pass.

So why do I get so much hate when I say we should let covid run it's course. Maybe it's nature striking back?

[tctyres]

Wow, just wow!

Ranching on BLM land is pretty dour. This is the land that has low water and nutrient content that we, as taxpayers, turn over to ranchers at ultra low rental rates.

The result is that beef raised on that land takes extra effort and is farther from the ultimate market. On top of that, cattle has a high greenhouse gas footprint from both land degradation and methane emissions. Essentially, it's an environmentally intensive product that has a large transport cost associated with it for these remote areas.

The key here is that biodiversity has very little real economic value, aside from ecotourism. The US is just learning to put real value on greenhouse gases, but Idaho (as well as Wyoming and Montana) lags behind the other states in realizing this. (the NE and Pacific States are, in general, ahead on GHG valuation).

Wolves are extremely valuable as an apex predator for numerous reasons, but importantly they lead to conservation of all other species in their biomes along the corridors they use.

Our treatment of wildlife in this country is arrogant, ignorant and propped up by hubris of no nothings that think every other species under the sun is here solely for our unfettered use. It is humans that are the locusts, consuming everything in our path, until there's nothing left, and then we too shall pass.

I'd also like to echo Kirk007's comment here. There is a loose term called the Abrahamic concept of land or animals, and that stems from the Biblical reference to dominion over the land and its animals. It can be problematic when viewed from as rigid license for humans to do whatever they want because "God said so" or some similar argument.

[Louis]

So why do I get so much hate when I say we should let covid run it's course. Maybe it's nature striking back?

Here's a start: two to a bed in a hospital in India - and these are the lucky ones, who were able to get a bed and oxygen. There are other less fortunate ones lying gasping for air in the hospital courtyards.

https://cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/XHE7R6RMX5PAXCL43SPIKE4FFE.jpg

[tctyres]

So why do I get so much hate when I say we should let covid run it's course. Maybe it's nature striking back?

I think we should probably keep covid comments off this forum, and the mods have been pretty good at shutting them down.

I will say that there is a large conservation issue there, too: Pangolins are the most trafficked wild animal in the world. We went from wild pangolins and bats being sold at a wet market to a global catastrophe.

[jamesdak]

Here's a start: two to a bed in a hospital in India - and these are the lucky ones, who were able to get a bed and oxygen. There are other less fortunate ones lying gasping for air in the hospital courtyards.



Yet that proves my point about other's comments above about humans being the true scourge. We say that until we are faced with negative consequences and then we change our tune. Exactly the point I was making.

[sipmeister]

In summary, moving to Idaho will make a person do one of two things: become a local, metamorphosis and all, or move back out. The green pasture that it appeared to be, was a mirage after all. :eek:

[jamesdak]

I think we should probably keep covid comments off this forum, and the mods have been pretty good at shutting them down.

I will say that there is a large conservation issue there, too: Pangolins are the most trafficked wild animal in the world. We went from wild pangolins and bats being sold at a wet market to a global catastrophe.

Wait, aren't you the "refer me to HR guy"? Oh the tangled webs we weave, LOL!

[Louis]

Yet that proves my point about other's comments above about humans being the true scourge. We say that until we are faced with negative consequences and then we change our tune. Exactly the point I was making.

I think there are better ways to reduce the negative effect humans are having on the planet. Allowing the population to be wiped out by pandemics is not the way to go.

[tctyres]

Wait, aren't you the "refer me to HR guy"? Oh the tangled webs we weave, LOL!

Actually, I referred myself just to keep us out of the hot mess that is covid. :eek:

[jamesdak]

Actually, I referred myself just to keep us out of the hot mess that is covid. :eek:

Cool, I'll do the same.

Sitting here right now looking for my wolf videos to share. The problem with 6 TB of digital wildlife work is that my organization sucks. LOL!

[T-Crush]

Sorry, a feeble attempt to restore some levity to a cycling forum.

So far, I've been insulted over --

My religious beliefs
Where I live (SoCal, told to stay out of 'your' state)
My political position (small government), and
My preferred protein, although I've cut way back for health reasons.


It's Friday and the weekend forecast, at least around here, looks good for a ride. I've enjoyed this thread and learned some things. Things that will inform my opinion, promote further reading and in the end likely impact my vote on relevant topics.

Thanks for that. Well, most of it.

[jamesdak]

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/bill-to-kill-up-to-90-of-idaho-wolves-signed-by-governor/


May wind up being a good thing and cause the feds to relist them. Or a bad thing....according to which side you're on.

[Kirk007]

"We prop us the rugged individualist rancher mythology with federal dollars, perhaps to keep the romantic notion of the ranching west alive in our psyche. I'm sure my relatives who have been displaced by the closure of manufacturing in Pennsylvania or any person whose profession goes away due to economic realities wishes the federal government would be similarly as generous, keeping dead industries alive for the few on the backs of many. And ironically many of these recipients of federal largess in the West are also staunchly anti-federal government."

Wow, just wow!


Why the wow? Read up on welfare ranching. I'm not making this stuff up, it has been the reality in much of the West for decades.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kirk007]

So why do I get so much hate when I say we should let covid run it's course. Maybe it's nature striking back?


Covid aside you'll get no dispute from me that nature bats last. Jared Diamond - biologist turned popular author has a book that touches on this if I recall correctly. And yeah viral transfers from wet markets in China and bush meat in Africa - not good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jamesdak]

Why the wow? Read up on welfare ranching. I'm not making this stuff up, it has been the reality in much of the Wrst for decades.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well, I know for certain that dairy farmers in VA when I was growing up there were subsidized too. It's not just a western rancher thing.

[Tickdoc]

Sorry, a feeble attempt to restore some levity to a cycling forum.

So far, I've been insulted over --

My religious beliefs
Where I live (SoCal, told to stay out of 'your' state)
My political position (small government), and
My preferred protein, although I've cut way back for health reasons.


It's Friday and the weekend forecast, at least around here, looks good for a ride. I've enjoyed this thread and learned some things. Things that will inform my opinion, promote further reading and in the end likely impact my vote on relevant topics.

Thanks for that. Well, most of it.

Don’t forget darth Vader....he had it right as well.

[Kirk007]

Well, I know for certain that dairy farmers in VA when I was growing up there were subsidized too. It's not just a western rancher thing.


True and I'm sure my uncle's small dairy/pig farm in Pennsylvania gets ag subsidies - virtually all ag producers do but I think there's a special irony to both virtually giving away federal public lands for grazing, and then using federal tax dollars for predator management on public lands for the same ranchers, when public opinion polls show overwhelming support for leaving predators alone and protecting biodiversity on our public lands, and the return on investment for the public is further degraded public lands, and a marginalized food product produced much more efficiently on private lands closer to markets. (How's that for a run on sentence).
The only winners are the ranchers who often view proximity to public lands as conferring greater rights to those lands than other Americans.

But the war on wolves in Idaho and Montana isn't driven only by ranchers. There's a portion of our citizenry that just likes to kill things. And I'm not talking about fair chase hunting. My first big purchase as a kid was not a bike, rather a Remington wingmaster shotgun when I was 11. I grew up hunting and fishing. It was my gateway to the outdoors. Along the way I traded guns for a camera but I am not antihunting, at least not how I was taught. No I'm talking about folks like the ones bitching that wolves are driving elk deeper into the wild, which is mighty inconvenient when your preferred hunting method is using the rail on the bed of your truck to steady your rifle, and those that find it fun to literally run a wolf to death with a snowmobile. Honestly I would not shed a single tear for any of those folks upon whom nature extracted revenge. Karma and all that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk poo

[Louis]

and those that find it fun to literally run a wolf to death with a snowmobile

I'm not big on believing in retribution in some afterlife, but I sure do hope that something like karma can get this ^^^ type of person in this life.

https://creativityboostonline.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/karma.jpg

[Vientomas]

Yet some would call that a political stronghold and wave happily when you leave. Two sides to every story! ;)

I've been here since 1976, we had some true statesmen in the past and a healthy balance of power. You may elect to read up on the political history of the state. Now we have Yeehawdists. I don't want to share space with the Taliban. Those who do, come on down and you can pay top dollar for my house. I'll be the one waving and smiling as I see you in my rear view mirror. :banana:

[FlashUNC]

I think there are better ways to reduce the negative effect humans are having on the planet. Allowing the population to be wiped out by pandemics is not the way to go.

I wonder if some folks know Thanos was the villain in those Avengers movies.

[XXtwindad]

Ranching on BLM land is pretty dour. This is the land that has low water and nutrient content that we, as taxpayers, turn over to ranchers at ultra low rental rates.

The result is that beef raised on that land takes extra effort and is farther from the ultimate market. On top of that, cattle has a high greenhouse gas footprint from both land degradation and methane emissions. Essentially, it's an environmentally intensive product that has a large transport cost associated with it for these remote areas.

The key here is that biodiversity has very little real economic value, aside from ecotourism. The US is just learning to put real value on greenhouse gases, but Idaho (as well as Wyoming and Montana) lags behind the other states in realizing this. (the NE and Pacific States are, in general, ahead on GHG valuation).

Wolves are extremely valuable as an apex predator for numerous reasons, but importantly they lead to conservation of all other species in their biomes along the corridors they use.


I'd also like to echo Kirk007's comment here. There is a loose term called the Abrahamic concept of land or animals, and that stems from the Biblical reference to dominion over the land and its animals. It can be problematic when viewed from as rigid license for humans to do whatever they want because "God said so" or some similar argument.

The depth of knowledge and insight on this thread is really astonishing. Thanks for posting. And to Kirk007, JamesDak, ripvanrando, etc. Really great stuff.

[Llewellyn]

ok, here I have to draw a line. This is myth. There are very, and I mean very few documented killings of humans by wolves in North America.

And the fact (and yes these are documented facts) is that there is very little loss to livestock from wolves =- less than 1% of the mortalities in areas with wolves, many more livestock lost to poor husbandry, bad luck, etc. etc.

The hatred of wolves in the West is rooted in a mindset that everything not "useful" either as private property or that poses even a minor risk to private property should be fair (cynical use) game for killing. I have some, limited tolerance for this mindset on private property (it is still very much a short term, unecological view of the world), but no tolerance at all when it controls how wildlife is "managed" on our public lands, and even on private property it is in many ways wrongheaded. What do you get when you kill a coyote - more coyotes. The more you shot the more prolific they are. Similar with wolves, which is why wolves and coyotes survived most culling attempts until the killers (use) turn to the indiscriminate use of poisons.

The wanton killing of carnivores, particulalry on public property, which is where most of the wolves live and the killing occurs in the U.S., NOT on private property, is scientifically indefensible and dehabilitating to ecosystem resilience. The use of public funds - your and my tax dollars, to pay federal wildlife services to chase down wolves with helicopters, anywhere, but most insultingly perhaps in wilderness areas like in Idaho, is an indefensible waste of our money. So too is the poisoning of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other species to prop up public land grazing or to futher subsidize agriculture. The waste continues at the state level. Washington state wastes millions killing packs of wolves in the same little corner of the state EACH YEAR to placate one asshole rancher who refuses to run his underweight (yes he let's them out on public lands underweight making it harder for the calves to defend themselves) in an area that is so remote and rocky that he cannot (or is simply to cheap) to hire range riders to protect his herd. His "lifestyle" costs the rest of us citizens a hell of a lot of money, and the area is so wild wolves come back year after year after year and the state engages in the insane practice of killing them each year.

At to raising cattle/sheep: Cattle and sheep raised on public lands in the West contributes a very minor percentage of the food raised in this country. It could disappear completely and the market wouldn't register a blip. There would be an impact to some individual families of course, and some communities. But the fact remains it is largely unsustainable economically but for federal subsidies. We prop us the rugged individualist rancher mythology with federal dollars, perhaps to keep the romantic notion of the ranching west alive in our psyche. I'm sure my relatives who have been displaced by the closure of manufacturing in Pennsylvania or any person whose profession goes away due to economic realities wishes the federal government would be similarly as generous, keeping dead industries alive for the few on the backs of many. And ironically many of these recipients of federal largess in the West are also staunchly anti-federal government.

Our treatment of wildlife in this country is arrogant, ignorant and propped up by hubris of no nothings that think every other species under the sun is here solely for our unfettered use. It is humans that are the locusts, consuming everything in our path, until there's nothing left, and then we too shall pass.

Thank you.

[Black Dog]

No, bear spray is far more effective. If you think that you can hit a target that's coming at you at 30mph and bouncing up and down, you're wrong. Point the spray at the ground in front of you, and your odds of survival increase dramatically. That's for brown bears.

Black bears are much easier to deal with, but again, bear spray is much more effective.

This. I spend and have spent a lot of time in and around bears and wolves here in Canada. Part of my research was looking at wolf predation in the arctic. I have had many years where I slept more nights in a tent than a house. The only time a gun was on my person for protection was when I was in polar bear country. Wolf deaths in Canada have not been documented for well over 100 years (except for one instance with captive wolves). Bears are more deadly but research shows that bear spray is more effective than firearms.

Also, since Humans are great at fear and terrible at risk we tend to over exaggerate the latter because of the former. Wilderness is not inherently dangerous nor are the animals that live in it. Surviving in any setting is a function of skills and knowledge. Think about how dangerous crossing a busy street would be if you had neither in that setting. We are far more likely to die or be maimed on the drive to a wild place than we will be once we get there. Personally, having been to wild places all over the world I only feel safer once I am far from the most deadly and unpredictable animal: humans. As was stated earlier, wilderness deaths and injury are overwhelmly due to user error; incompetence or overconfidence usually. When I was guiding wilderness canoe expeditions in the arctic I often had to spend some time helping people deal with being "bearanoid" and afraid of wolves. Once I explained how more people die eating egg salad sandwiches than bears and wolves combined things calmed down and more so after the umpteenth sightings of both species.

As for wolf and wildlife "management" others have said in detailed and nuanced ways how I see the issue and I want to say thank you. This forum is wonderful and even more so when we have adult discussions that are nuanced and involve the word sorry when someone goes a bit too far with another. There is a open spot at my camp fire for all of you.

[ripvanrando]

The average yearly consumption of eggs in the USA is around 300 per person.

There are a handful of listeria deaths per year.

Conclusion, eggs are more dangerous than bears.

Studies have shown this. Eggs bad. Bears good.

There are about 1 motor vehicle fatality per 100 million miles driven.

This means you are more at risk driving to taking on a Class 5 rapid or a 5.11 climb.

Studies show this.

[jds108]

Yeah I mean there have been "save a deer, smoke a pack a day" billboards and bumper stickers in Montana for decades. Just aggressively ignorant and violent imo.

Still wish somebody could tell me where these billboards are located. In a couple of days I'll be driving from Bozeman to Portland and back... I'm beginning to think this isn't true. And that's not possible since this is the internet.

[jamesdak]

Still wish somebody could tell me where these billboards are located. In a couple of days I'll be driving from Bozeman to Portland and back... I'm beginning to think this isn't true. And that's not possible since this is the internet.

I can't help you. I'm up in Montana every year and I've never seen them.

Now if you want to know where Bigfoot hangs out just shoot me a PM.... ;)

[tkbike]

I can't help you. I'm up in Montana every year and I've never seen them.

Now if you want to know where Bigfoot hangs out just shoot me a PM.... ;)

Have to agree, I’ve been up in Montana 3 times this year backpacking and I haven’t seen them either!

Shhhh...Idaho doesn’t need anymore visitors looking for Bigfoot.

[jds108]

Now if you want to know where Bigfoot hangs out just shoot me a PM.... ;)

Big fish = yes. bigfoot = no :beer:

[William]

I can't help you. I'm up in Montana every year and I've never seen them.



I've crossed the State numerous times and I can't say I've ever seen them either. All I will say is crossing through Montana is one long haul.




W.

[David Kirk]

I've crossed the State numerous times and I can't say I've ever seen them either. All I will say is crossing through Montana is one long haul.




W.

I've lived in Montana for over 20 years and have traveled to all four corners of our state and I've never seen said billboard.

dave

[jamesdak]

I've crossed the State numerous times and I can't say I've ever seen them either. All I will say is crossing through Montana is one long haul.

W.

I made a trip through once back I guess it was the 90's when the still had like a $5 max speeding fine if I remember correctly. All I know is I spent a lot of time well north of 100 mph and made short work of the trip from Utah to Glacier. As I think of it would have been 91-93 sometime. One thing that old Spirit R/T could do was go fast in a straight line! :banana:

Of course that was pretty much pre-internet days for me so my info was more rumor/word of mouth about the speed limit.

[Kirk007]

Just listened to Zoom presentation of Forestry expert (PhD Yale School of Forestry) re forest management in Maine: "overbowsing by deer is an epidemic doing more damage to our forests than climate change will."

Bring back the wolf and cougar!

[reuben]

Just listened to Zoom presentation of Forestry expert (PhD Yale School of Forestry) re forest management in Maine: "overbowsing by deer is an epidemic doing more damage to our forests than climate change will."

Bring back the wolf and cougar!

Yeah, well, we more or less declared war on bears, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, etc., so what the hell do you expect?

Collectively, humans are idiots. The proof is in the history.

[tctyres]

Yeah, well, we more or less declared war on bears, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, etc., so what the hell do you expect?

Collectively, humans are idiots. The proof is in the history.
Fear is a powerful motivator, particularly when people have a firearm: shoot first and ask questions later.

[XXtwindad]

https://www.outsideonline.com/2423817/yvon-chouinard-wants-protect-point-reyes?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WYM-05152021&utm_term=what_you_missed

On a related note: the founder of Patagonia weighs in on how ranching and dairy interests are affecting Point Reyes National Park.

It’s really becoming abundantly clear that one of the best things you can do for the environment is eat less beef. It’s really hard for me to get there, though. Sweets and booze are no problem. But carne asada is hard to pass up.

[tctyres]

[
It’s really becoming abundantly clear that one of the best things you can do for the environment is eat less beef. It’s really hard for me to get there, though. Sweets and booze are no problem. But carne asada is hard to pass up.
In general, smaller animals eat less, grow faster, and have a smaller environmental footprint.

That said, I love me a steak. I'm not much of a burger guy.
If you're going to eat beef:
1. Limit or cut back your consumption
2. Buy cuts that you won't waste
3. Buy meat from sustainable growers.

It's really that simple.

[Dead Man]

give me ribeye or give me death

theres cattle milling and then theres cattle ranching - buy responsibly and theres NOTHING wrong with eating all the red meat you want (personal health aside)

[Dead Man]

and if anyone in the PNW wants a source o local, sustainably raised, grass fed beef, i know a guy based in longview washington. good prices on bulk cuts of great meat

[reuben]

if anyone in the PNW wants a source o local, sustainably raised, grass fed beef, i know a guy based in longview washington. good prices on bulk cuts of great meat

FWIW, this is where I get my beef. 100% of their lives are lived on the prairie. No corn, no "finishing", no feed lot.

https://wildideabuffalo.com/

Dan didn't start out trying to raise buffalo or sell meat. He started out trying to regenerate the prairie. Well, a small part of the prairie. Rather unexpectedly, buffalo, with their sharp hooves, turned out to be great for the local/natural/indigenous grasses, not to mention the fowl that make their nests in the ground (not a whole lot of trees in that area).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9wfyLPDIF8

[ti_or_die]

I remember following this thread back in the spring…and it is related despite being Idaho and Utah.

It is a neat story that I will share with my students tomorrow.
“Pando (Latin for "I spread") is actually 47,000 genetically identical stems that arise from an interconnected root network. This single genetic individual weighs around 6 million tonnes. By mass, it is the largest single organism on Earth.” Think about that…6 million tonnes of living entity. 🤯

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/world/deer-eating-pando-forest-partner-scn/index.html

[fiamme red]

Excellent op-ed in the Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/17/opinion/wolves-endangered-yellowstone.html

A slaughter of wolves is underway in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming that has no precedent in the past 100 years.

Hunters in Idaho can shoot or trap as many as they like year-round on private land. They can lure wolves within gun range by putting out bait, run them down to exhaustion using A.T.V.s and snowmobiles and stalk them after dark using night vision technology…

[XXtwindad]

Excellent op-ed in the Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/17/opinion/wolves-endangered-yellowstone.html

Really makes a compelling argument. One thing that caught my eye: why are two senators from largely urban Northeast states leading the charge on an issue largely pertaining to sparsely populated Western states?

“A group of 21 U.S. senators led by Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, and Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, recently wrote to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland urging an emergency relisting of the wolf on the federal threatened and endangered species list. Mr. Booker said that the policies “in states like Idaho and Montana, if continued unabated, will result in the deaths of hundreds of gray wolves and pose a significant risk to the species’ survival.”

[Gummee]

No, bear spray is far more effective. If you think that you can hit a target that's coming at you at 30mph and bouncing up and down, you're wrong. Point the spray at the ground in front of you, and your odds of survival increase dramatically. That's for brown bears.

Black bears are much easier to deal with, but again, bear spray is much more effective.Explain to me how bear spray works into a headwind

G'head. I'll listen

M

[jamesdak]

Really makes a compelling argument. One thing that caught my eye: why are two senators from largely urban Northeast states leading the charge on an issue largely pertaining to sparsely populated Western states?

“A group of 21 U.S. senators led by Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, and Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, recently wrote to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland urging an emergency relisting of the wolf on the federal threatened and endangered species list. Mr. Booker said that the policies “in states like Idaho and Montana, if continued unabated, will result in the deaths of hundreds of gray wolves and pose a significant risk to the species’ survival.”

Yep, this is an ongoing issue out west. Is this a democracy, should the western states be represented by the politicians elected by folks back east that know nothing of the lifestyle out here? Basic state rights debate that's been going on for ever. Maybe the Idaho and Montana Senators should "write a letter" interfering in the gambling at Atlantic City? Is there a difference?

[saab2000]

Explain to me how bear spray works into a headwind

G'head. I'll listen

M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3yNci9bsGU

[jamesdak]

Explain to me how bear spray works into a headwind

G'head. I'll listen

M

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344517681_An_Investigation_of_Factors_Influencing_ Bear_Spray_Performance

[nighthawk]

Really makes a compelling argument. One thing that caught my eye: why are two senators from largely urban Northeast states leading the charge on an issue largely pertaining to sparsely populated Western states?

“A group of 21 U.S. senators led by Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, and Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, recently wrote to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland urging an emergency relisting of the wolf on the federal threatened and endangered species list. Mr. Booker said that the policies “in states like Idaho and Montana, if continued unabated, will result in the deaths of hundreds of gray wolves and pose a significant risk to the species’ survival.”

While I can’t answer the question as to why they are leading the charge, I don’t have issue with it as the survival of wolf species and the perpetuation of a healthier ecosystem (with wolves allowed to fill their niche) are not state specific issues. Historic species ranges and ecological impacts aren’t limited to state boundaries. Those making state legislation and policy around the species are likely weighing local economic factors more heavily than the bigger picture and more long term effects of these policies. I’m not against hunting (I am a hunter) but sustainable yield seems to be a forgotten term for these policy makers.

And FWIW, the Northeast (of which Michigan is not)… has some pretty remarkable natural areas. It’s not one big paved parking lot.

[jamesdak]

While I can’t answer the question as to why they are leading the charge, I don’t have issue with it as the survival of wolf species and the perpetuation of a healthier ecosystem (with wolves allowed to fill their niche) are not state specific issues. Historic species ranges and ecological impacts aren’t limited to state boundaries. Those making state legislation and policy around the species are likely weighing local economic factors more heavily than the bigger picture and more long term effects of these policies. I’m not against hunting but sustainable yield seems to be a forgotten term for these policy makers.

And FWIW, the Northeast (of which Michigan is not)… has some pretty remarkable natural areas. It’s not one big paved parking lot.

So isn't it hypocrisy (Sp?) then? How many predator species back east have been eliminated over the years by man? Do they still have wolves in their backyards killing off cattle and such? Is this the pot calling the kettle black? Just playing Devil's Advocate...

[fiamme red]

So isn't it hypocrisy (Sp?) then? How many predator species back east have been eliminated over the years by man? Do they still have wolves in their backyards killing off cattle and such? Is this the pot calling the kettle black? Just playing Devil's Advocate...From the op-ed:

"Wolf depredation on livestock has been minimal. In 2015, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming had 1,602,100 cattle in counties where both cattle and wolves were present; there were 1,904 wolves. They killed 148 cattle: about 0.01 percent, or approximately one out of every 10,000 cows. All three states compensate livestock owners for proven losses to wolves."

[XXtwindad]

While I can’t answer the question as to why they are leading the charge, I don’t have issue with it as the survival of wolf species and the perpetuation of a healthier ecosystem (with wolves allowed to fill their niche) are not state specific issues. Historic species ranges and ecological impacts aren’t limited to state boundaries. Those making state legislation and policy around the species are likely weighing local economic factors more heavily than the bigger picture and more long term effects of these policies. I’m not against hunting (I am a hunter) but sustainable yield seems to be a forgotten term for these policy makers.

And FWIW, the Northeast (of which Michigan is not)… has some pretty remarkable natural areas. It’s not one big paved parking lot.

Good response. Obviously, my geography is lacking.

[nighthawk]

Good response. Obviously, my geography is lacking.

Wasn’t judging your geographical knowledge, just (poorly) making the point that the request to emergency list the species came from politicians representing a greater slice of the country than just the Northeast. I get your point though that it has the appearance of one region trying to make decisions that affect another region. My opinion is that the policies affect us all and are poorly developed and short sighted.

[verticaldoug]

I think Idaho, Montana, Wyoming are being singled out here, when even in Wisonsin, they like to massacre wolves.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/27/wolves-winsconsin-massacre-environment-conservation

https://wausaupilotandreview.com/2021/12/23/wolf-advocates-build-momentum-with-court-ruling-reward-offers/

I'd think conservationists in Idaho, Wyoming should follow the Wisconsin Conservationists lead and see if they can tie up the wolf kill in court,
At this point, probably the most effective way forward in the short term.

Minnesota has a comprehensive plan going back to the 1970's when the state tried to protect the gray wolf in the arrowhead region.
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/wolves/index.html

There is a lot of talk on the thread about coyotes. Coyotes are a much bigger problem because they are so much more versatile around humans.
There is also a hybrid now call the Coywolf.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66uOL60edYs


Finally, there is a group of people who just like to kill things. I don't understand the mindset of someone like the Minnesota dentist that killed Cecil the Lion a few years ago.

[jamesdak]

From the op-ed:

"Wolf depredation on livestock has been minimal. In 2015, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming had 1,602,100 cattle in counties where both cattle and wolves were present; there were 1,904 wolves. They killed 148 cattle: about 0.01 percent, or approximately one out of every 10,000 cows. All three states compensate livestock owners for proven losses to wolves."

LOL, you're missing the point. How many livestock were killed back east over the years by the large predators to call for their elimination back there? Why are they not being reintroduced back their also?

Always two sides to everything.

https://idrange.org/range-stories/north-central-idaho/unforeseen-impacts-caused-by-wolves-in-idaho/

[ripvanrando]

Farmers in the East kill predators like coyotes and fox. They just do it quietly.

[verticaldoug]

LOL, you're missing the point. How many livestock were killed back east over the years by the large predators to call for their elimination back there? Why are they not being reintroduced back their also?

Always two sides to everything.

https://idrange.org/range-stories/north-central-idaho/unforeseen-impacts-caused-by-wolves-in-idaho/

Wolves have already been natural reintroduced into Wisconsin and Michigan from the original Minnesota population. The same subspecies- Canis Lupis Lycoan also roams the northern side of the border in Canada. Wolves have been shot in the Adirondacks recently, and there is discussion to reintroduce the Minnesota Gray. The Wyoming, Idaho and Montana wolves are a different subspecies - the wolves were brought down from Jasper and are larger than the wolves around the great lakes.

There is a lot of variation in the wolf genome, and all wolves are not created equal.

https://mountainjournal.org/montana-hunting-laws-put-yellowstone-wolves-in-the-crosshairs

[jamesdak]

Farmers in the East kill predators like coyotes and fox. They just do it quietly.

Yep, happens everywhere including out here. Between growth and the ranchers I now have a hard time finding active fox dens out here in the spring. Years ago I could usually figure on being able to work 3 or 4 different dens for several weeks in spring. No more.....

https://pbase.com/jhuddle/image/170557753.jpg

[jamesdak]

Wolves have already been natural reintroduced into Wisconsin and Michigan from the original Minnesota population. The same subspecies- Canis Lupis Lycoan also roams the northern side of the border in Canada. Wolves have been shot in the Adirondacks recently, and there is discussion to reintroduce the Minnesota Gray. The Wyoming, Idaho and Montana wolves are a different subspecies - the wolves were brought down from Jasper and are larger than the wolves around the great lakes.

There is a lot of variation in the wolf genome, and all wolves are not created equal.

And yet.....no one answers my guestion.....LOL! When's ol' Corey gonna reintroduce Wolves and mountain lions into N.J.? ;)

[ripvanrando]

And yet.....no one answers my guestion.....LOL! When's ol' Corey gonna reintroduce Wolves and mountain lions into N.J.? ;)

We have a huge population of Cougars down the Shore.

[Toddtwenty2]

And yet.....no one answers my guestion.....LOL! When's ol' Corey gonna reintroduce Wolves and mountain lions into N.J.? ;)

Gary Peters introduced the legislation to introduce more wolves into Isle Royale National Park in Michigan, and was also part of the group that stopped the addition of a rider to remove their federally protected status in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Wyoming.

The wolves in Michigan were largely killed off well before his tenure in office, and he has been a relatively consistent and reasonable senator, imho. I see you're taking the easier pot shot with Booker there...

[Toddtwenty2]

To be fair, I do get your point. It's a bit like the US pushing to retain the rainforest because we already cut down and financially exploited all of our old growth forests...

[verticaldoug]

And yet.....no one answers my guestion.....LOL! When's ol' Corey gonna reintroduce Wolves and mountain lions into N.J.? ;)

There is only one state park large enough to hold a wolf territory and that's Wawayanda and it could probably only hold one or two packs. That is not enough to create a viable population.

Adirondacks and Green Mountains upstate NY, Vermont into NH and then Maine could actually be a large enough corridor to hold a viable population. You need room for wolves to be able to roam to form new packs and keep the population viable.

[Black Dog]

So isn't it hypocrisy (Sp?) then? How many predator species back east have been eliminated over the years by man? Do they still have wolves in their backyards killing off cattle and such? Is this the pot calling the kettle black? Just playing Devil's Advocate...

That is doomed logic. The people form the east did not eliminate the wildlife from their areas, that was done long before they were born. If they were still actively killing predators then it would be hypocrisy. And just because some bad things were done by some in a different place does not excuse the same actions by others in another place. Removal of apex creditors has serious negative effects on ecosystems. Also, research headed by some ranchers is showing that shooting/killing is not the most cost effective way to manage herd losses on ranches.

[verticaldoug]

Gary Peters introduced the legislation to introduce more wolves into Isle Royale National Park in Michigan, and was also part of the group that stopped the addition of a rider to remove their federally protected status in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Wyoming.

The wolves in Michigan were largely killed off well before his tenure in office, and he has been a relatively consistent and reasonable senator, imho. I see you're taking the easier pot shot with Booker there...

Isle Royale is an interesting population study. L. David Mech started it in 1958.
https://isleroyalewolf.org/

Basically, the wolves were victims of climate change. Because the lake does not freeze as often, there are not enough chances for wolves to travel to the isle from the shore. With no new genetic diversity introduced into the pack, the pack became inbred and essentially died out.

There are also problems with the park service not allowing forest fires on the isle. The forest can not replensih itself, making it less abundant for foraging moose. It's all in various studies.
https://isleroyalewolf.org/data/data/home.html

[bigbill]

Maybe it's been discussed. Introducing wolves into an area dominated by ranching is far different than doing so in other parts of the country. Ranchers developed their methods of producing cattle and sheep to send to market and that is all upset by the introduction of wolves. Wolves look to be beneficial in Yellowstone, but you can't put a game fence around a National Park.

I have fly fished a few times in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley. Across the river there is typically a herd of buffalo, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. On the hillside above the buffalo there are usually wolves looking for opportunities on the edges of the herd. I would rather wolves take down buffalo than force the park into a cull because of overpopulation, but the wolves get out and hunt domestic livestock because they're an easier prey.

[jamesdak]

We have a huge population of Cougars down the Shore.

Good answer! :)

[jamesdak]

That is doomed logic. The people form the east did not eliminate the wildlife from their areas, that was done long before they were born. If they were still actively killing predators then it would be hypocrisy. And just because some bad things were done by some in a different place does not excuse the same actions by others in another place. Removal of apex creditors has serious negative effects on ecosystems. Also, research headed by some ranchers is showing that shooting/killing is not the most cost effective way to manage herd losses on ranches.

Yet the wolves were also eliminated out here. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If there's no room back east than take the land back and give the wolves room to roam. Oh wait, can't do that but we can tell the people out west what to do and damn their population problems. ;)

[.RJ]

To be fair, I do get your point. It's a bit like the US pushing to retain the rainforest because we already cut down and financially exploited all of our old growth forests...

perhaps its an effort to not repeat the mistakes of the past, but given how closely we have collectively responded to covid compared to the 1918 flu, i'm not very optimistic.

[verticaldoug]

Maybe it's been discussed. Introducing wolves into an area dominated by ranching is far different than doing so in other parts of the country. Ranchers developed their methods of producing cattle and sheep to send to market and that is all upset by the introduction of wolves. Wolves look to be beneficial in Yellowstone, but you can't put a game fence around a National Park.

I have fly fished a few times in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley. Across the river there is typically a herd of buffalo, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. On the hillside above the buffalo there are usually wolves looking for opportunities on the edges of the herd. I would rather wolves take down buffalo than force the park into a cull because of overpopulation, but the wolves get out and hunt domestic livestock because they're an easier prey.

I think the idea they hunt livestock because it is easier is not necessarily the true driver of the behavior. What's actually happening is younger wolves can leave the pack to move into new territory. Once a pack is set up and claims a territory it is usually going to stay put unless something happens to the game.So when a new pack forms and moves out because of population density, it sets up a new territory encompasses some ranchland and presto, human wolf conflict.

To be fair, the park probably needs to do a better job managing the park wolf population to cut down on the dispersion.

Like you said, you can't put a fence around it.

[jamesdak]

What's actually happening is younger wolves can leave the pack to move into new territory. Once a pack is set up and claims a territory it is usually going to stay put unless something happens to the game.So when a new pack forms and moves out because of population density, it sets up a new territory encompasses some ranchland and presto, human wolf conflict.


Umm... yeah. Honestly that's not how pack dynamics work at all in relation to territory but....

[Black Dog]

Yet the wolves were also eliminated out here. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If there's no room back east than take the land back and give the wolves room to roam. Oh wait, can't do that but we can tell the people out west what to do and damn their population problems. ;)

Well you are correct that human population density is too high in some locations out east to reintroduce. Why should that stop remediation anywhere else? This is about the wolves and the ecosystem not some bickering between groups of people. The reality os that the reintroduction of wolves is not going to get anyone killed or cause financial hardship to the people out west.

By the way...your wildlife photography is amazing.

[verticaldoug]

Umm... yeah. Honestly that's not how pack dynamics work at all in relation to territory but....

you sure about that?

https://www.wolfworlds.com/wolf-territorial-behavior-and-dispersion/

https://wolf.org/wolf-info/factsvsfiction/economically-savvy-wolves-wolf-packs-choose-size-of-territory-based-on-the-costs-and-benefits/

if it is different, how does it work?

If the pack has ample prey, and it is not driven off by a rival pack, will it move?

Isn't pack on pack conflict driven by density?

If it's different, then educate me. How else can there be any meaningful discussion?

[jamesdak]

you sure about that?

https://www.wolfworlds.com/wolf-territorial-behavior-and-dispersion/

https://wolf.org/wolf-info/factsvsfiction/economically-savvy-wolves-wolf-packs-choose-size-of-territory-based-on-the-costs-and-benefits/

if it is different, how does it work?

If the pack has ample prey, and it is not driven off by a rival pack, will it move?

Isn't pack on pack conflict driven by density?

If it's different, then educate me. How else can there be any meaningful discussion?

Actually this is a better response than what you put above. Hence my comments. :)

[jamesdak]

Just for the record by the way. I'm all for the wolves and the reintroduction program personally. There's just so much B.S. and all that get's spewed about these things and there's also never a black and white answer.


And anyone that thinks those eastern politicians are bringing this up for anything more than political gain are living with their heads in the sand. ;)

[zmudshark]

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/jan-8-protecting-cattle-from-wolves-without-killing-shark-antibodies-to-fight-coronaviruses-and-more-1.6304132/this-alberta-rancher-has-been-called-a-wolf-lover-for-using-no-kill-methods-to-protect-cattle-1.6304134

[Black Dog]

Just for the record by the way. I'm all for the wolves and the reintroduction program personally. There's just so much B.S. and all that get's spewed about these things and there's also never a black and white answer.


And anyone that thinks those eastern politicians are bringing this up for anything more than political gain are living with their heads in the sand. ;)

You are 100% correct. On both points here. Politics has degraded to universal self-service that it is silly to assume anything else. Doing the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing still happens but not very often.

[Bud]

i am an expert in this sh*t. Been studying and working in wolf ecology/conservation since 1988.

The idaho bill is pure western idealogical hate driven, anti-science bullsh*t mostly along political lines where wolves are proxies for the federal government.

...

^^^ this

[Kirk007]

Really makes a compelling argument. One thing that caught my eye: why are two senators from largely urban Northeast states leading the charge on an issue largely pertaining to sparsely populated Western states?
[/I]

Because most Western Senators care more about their own hides politically than anything that pertains to biology, humanity, ethics, science, long-term human survival, etc., etc.

[Kirk007]

So isn't it hypocrisy (Sp?) then? How many predator species back east have been eliminated over the years by man? Do they still have wolves in their backyards killing off cattle and such? Is this the pot calling the kettle black? Just playing Devil's Advocate...

Nope. The laws don't allow reitntroduction; wovles kill much less than 1% of total livestock deaths; this ain't about predation on livestock it's much more visceral, power-driven, hate the feds, hate science, manifest destiny and any ole other motto that folks want to hang their hates on to kill wolves.

The east needs carnivores but good luck getting them back. People shoot the red wolf in North Carolina, the few that are there and they don't eat livestock at all. So why kill. 'em? Pissed of that a federal court banned nighttime spotlight shooting of coyotes cause too many wolves (highly endangered and therefore protected) were being poached. Yep, let's not interfere with yahoos taking all the sport out of hunting by freezing an animal in a spotlight, shooting it and leaving it in the field to rot.

The biggest hope for culling the ridiculous size of the white tail deer herd that's decimating eastern forests is a coywolf (coyote/eastern timber wolf hybrid) that could more easily take deer, and the recovery of cougars - but they need to come from the Dakotas and can't get through the killing fields of those states, Nebraska, Iowa etc where every cougar sited is run up a tree and shot to prevent the defenseless human children in the state from being eaten. Humans are f*cked up.

[Kirk007]

Come on, predators were eliminated from almost the entire country by a manifest destiny mentality in the 1800s that has no place here today.
They aren't being reintroduced in the east because those opposed to the purpose of the ESA have effectively eviscerated the statute to where it is largely a paper tiger. Moreover human density is a huge problem particulalry as the most abundant prey base, whitetail deer, prefer fields and even folks back yards where the food is abundant. They've overbrowsed the forests so bad that the food supply even in places like Great Smoky NP is minimal of ungulate species. So deer in suburaban back yards, what do you think follows? Coyotes are already there and considered a problem.

You can't compare today's situation to one hundreds of years ago and say what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Westerners already drove most predators to regional extinction once; but nature is remarkable and they're coming back.

The question is whether we will let them. Please tell me one good reason why we should deny them their existence in natural habitat that they. can occupy with minimal impact to humans?

LOL, you're missing the point. How many livestock were killed back east over the years by the large predators to call for their elimination back there? Why are they not being reintroduced back their also?

Always two sides to everything.

https://idrange.org/range-stories/north-central-idaho/unforeseen-impacts-caused-by-wolves-in-idaho/

[Kirk007]

Maybe it's been discussed. Introducing wolves into an area dominated by ranching is far different than doing so in other parts of the country. Ranchers developed their methods of producing cattle and sheep to send to market and that is all upset by the introduction of wolves. Wolves look to be beneficial in Yellowstone, but you can't put a game fence around a National Park.

I have fly fished a few times in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley. Across the river there is typically a herd of buffalo, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. On the hillside above the buffalo there are usually wolves looking for opportunities on the edges of the herd. I would rather wolves take down buffalo than force the park into a cull because of overpopulation, but the wolves get out and hunt domestic livestock because they're an easier prey.

But the world is changing. PRivate ranching in the West provides a pittance of the percentage of beef in this country. It's a lifestyle more than an industry. And, the wolves were there first until they were extirpated. MY opinion - if you get to subsidize your industry with virtually free food from public lands, then you take those public lands. with. the encumbrances favored by all Americans as we own. them. And the vast. majority. of Americans favor wolves presence.

[Kirk007]

Bookers not so bad. At. least he gives a **** about wildlife even if. it. is politically expedient. And by the way the State of New Jersey is doing some very good things with wildlife crossings, corridors, species protection - it's not all the Superfund parody that we make it out to be.

[zmudshark]

All the likes I have to give to Kirk007.

[pbarry]

In no way an expert here but the northeast, outside of Maine, (large tracts of privately-timber co owned land), and a few areas in way upstate NY, there’s nowhere that could support a pack.

[Louis]

In no way an expert here but the northeast, outside of Maine, (large tracts of privately-timber co owned land), and a few areas in way upstate NY, there’s nowhere that could support a pack.

How many acres would a typical pack need?

[jamesdak]

Come on, predators were eliminated from almost the entire country by a manifest destiny mentality in the 1800s that has no place here today.
They aren't being reintroduced in the east because those opposed to the purpose of the ESA have effectively eviscerated the statute to where it is largely a paper tiger. Moreover human density is a huge problem particulalry as the most abundant prey base, whitetail deer, prefer fields and even folks back yards where the food is abundant. They've overbrowsed the forests so bad that the food supply even in places like Great Smoky NP is minimal of ungulate species. So deer in suburaban back yards, what do you think follows? Coyotes are already there and considered a problem.

You can't compare today's situation to one hundreds of years ago and say what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Westerners already drove most predators to regional extinction once; but nature is remarkable and they're coming back.

The question is whether we will let them. Please tell me one good reason why we should deny them their existence in natural habitat that they. can occupy with minimal impact to humans?

LOL, if you're going rag on me read all my comments at least. :) Oh and this country is all about taking what happened 100 years ago and trying to apply it to today when it serves certain groups agenda. So why should this be any different? LOL!

[rallizes]

why do i open these threads

[Kirk007]

How many acres would a typical pack need?


Depends on prey base density and pack size so kinda hard to say in the east but I think Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario would be comparable. And by the way, wolf management in Wisconsin has gone off the deep end just like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

The only reason there's a tenable effort to relist under the ESA is the political structure of state wildlife management where in most states the professionals (the agency) is dictated to by a politically appointed Commission which historically are dominated by hunting, fishing and agricultural interests. In politically divisive timesike these the commissions can be "taken over" by the loudest andost politically driven constituents which is what has happened in Idaho, Montana and Wisconsin. The new Idao and Montana laws are contrary to the state game agency's own recommendations.

Predator control, wolves in particular is largely divorced from science, indeed from reality.

Livestock predation can be managed through compensation and proved animal husbandry. Some ranchers have adopted such practices and market their beef as wolf friendly. Is it more work for ranchers than it was in the 1950s and 1960s - absolutely. But there seems to be a mentality in some segments of the ranching community that they have a multigenerational, lifetime entitlement to the way things were rather than the way things are.

But the ranchers for the most part aren't the problem. It's the anti-government, anti-science crowd driving this train (not that a lot of ranchers and hunters aren't happy to tag along).


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[Kirk007]

LOL, if you're going rag on me read all my comments at least. :) Oh and this country is all about taking what happened 100 years ago and trying to apply it to today when it serves certain groups agenda. So why should this be any different? LOL!


Hey I'm with you - bring 'em back east, and to the Midwest, but first place them in protected status everywhere so it's a level playing field and bring back the appropriate species - expand the red wolf reintroduction program - they may do best although not great deer predators. More cougars - the four legged kind. I know cougars aren't too popular with some folks in Utah - could probably get some donated from your home state. [emoji41].

Maybe give the Eastern timberwolf a shot in the NE - they're not real popular in Ontario and Quebec - I bet the provinces would be happy to let us have some.

I'm trying to keep up - Just that I was responding in sequence and the posts were so fast and furious.....



Ya know years ago Ted Turner released some cougars in Georgia. Didn't go well. But I have friends who often talk about this strategy and not just in jest. One's a former Navy Seal who used to do covert "extractions" - he swears he's up for it!


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[tomato coupe]

Livestock predation can be managed through compensation and proved animal husbandry.
Can you explain that second part?

[thwart]

And by the way, wolf management in Wisconsin has gone off the deep end just like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.


Sad but true.

[fa63]

...

[Kirk007]

Can you explain that second part?


Wolves hate human conflict and presence. Having a range Rider with a herd will do much to dissuade a wolf. As will the right type of dog, "Flannery" which is plastic flagging surrounding a herd at night, helping cattle relearn herding behavior - think of the pictures of Muskox arranged in a circle facing a predator. Problems arise when ranchers let their cattle free range without human presence particularly in habitat where it is hard to keep a herd together - thick forests, rugged country like NE Washington state - great for wolves to pick off an easy stray. Some ranchers release their Cattle onto the range underweight - small animal is less able to defend itself.

So why don't ranchers just do these things? $$$. Any of these operations would go under without federal assistance. They live close to the margin. I had one rancher in New Mexico tell that if she lost one cow to a wolf she'd be bankrupt. Well, this demonstrate s to me two things - truly marginal economics plus many take predation personally which I get - but at the same time they can't or won't spend the money to properly protect their animals. One sheep rancher let his flock range over a 300 mile area in Idaho, unattended to, and then was pissed when he lost a bunch - which he of course blamed on wolves. Strange entitlement thinking.


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[Kirk007]

Oh and this country is all about taking what happened 100 years ago and trying to apply it to today when it serves certain groups agenda. LOL![/QUOTE]

Well that's true. When I attended the University of Virginia in the 1980s I quickly learned that "the war of Northern aggression" was still being fought. Fast forward to MLK day in 2022 and it's clear that battle has never ended.


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[tctyres]

All the likes I have to give to Kirk007.

+1

Also, NJ has black bears in every county except maybe Hudson, and NJ probably has coyotes in every county. Neither of these are packs of wolves, and only the northern border areas with NY could possibly support a pack.

That said, there is a lot of effort to preserve both woodlands and farmlands from further development in NJ.

If western senators abdicate their duty to provide oversight to government lands, I see no problem with eastern senators stepping in.

[ripvanrando]

Bookers not so bad. At. least he gives a **** about wildlife even if. it. is politically expedient. And by the way the State of New Jersey is doing some very good things with wildlife crossings, corridors, species protection - it's not all the Superfund parody that we make it out to be.

How bout you keep your Washington state politics where it belongs?

[ripvanrando]

+1

Also, NJ has black bears in every county except maybe Hudson, and NJ probably has coyotes in every county. Neither of these are packs of wolves, and only the northern border areas with NY could possibly support a pack.

That said, there is a lot of effort to preserve both woodlands and farmlands from further development in NJ.

If western senators abdicate their duty to provide oversight to government lands, I see no problem with eastern senators stepping in.

We have an abundance of coyotes in NJ. Ask any hunter.

And you are correct, there are massive private and public efforts to preserve land in NJ but the 100-500 acre farms that are preserved cannot support larger predators. My town buys a lot of land and there are conservation groups also buying land. The deer herds have been cut back over the past decade although in the urban areas (such as Union, Essex, Middlesex counties), that is not the case.

[Big Dan]

How bout you keep your Washington state politics where it belongs?

Refer to post #161.

[ripvanrando]

Refer to post #161.

I wouldn't read the NYT or vote for Booker if you paid me. :)

This is a state's rights issue.

If NJ continues to want black bears in urban areas, that is our right. Or, when the powers to be determine more hunting permits are needed to cull the bear population, that is also NJ's right. Personally, I don't like seeing yotes around little kids, which probably why the state of NJ has very lenient hunting rules on coyotes. I would not want wolves or cougars introduced in NJ. Similarly, western states should manage their own critters.

[.RJ]

In another 200 years, Idaho will look like New Jersey anyways and it wont matter

[Big Dan]

I wouldn't read the NYT or vote for Booker if you paid me. :)

This is a state's rights issue.

If NJ continues to want black bears in urban areas, that is our right. Or, when the powers to be determine more hunting permits are needed to cull the bear population, that is also NJ's right. Personally, I don't like seeing yotes around little kids, which probably why the state of NJ has very lenient hunting rules on coyotes. I would not want wolves or cougars introduced in NJ. Similarly, western states should manage their own critters.

State rights? I see.....

[charliedid]

I wouldn't read the NYT or vote for Booker if you paid me. :)

This is a state's rights issue.

If NJ continues to want black bears in urban areas, that is our right. Or, when the powers to be determine more hunting permits are needed to cull the bear population, that is also NJ's right. Personally, I don't like seeing yotes around little kids, which probably why the state of NJ has very lenient hunting rules on coyotes. I would not want wolves or cougars introduced in NJ. Similarly, western states should manage their own critters.

What about the Yotes who live and vote in NY but Summer in NJ and hunt in Pennsylvania?

[XXtwindad]

Depends on prey base density and pack size so kinda hard to say in the east but I think Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario would be comparable. And by the way, wolf management in Wisconsin has gone off the deep end just like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

The only reason there's a tenable effort to relist under the ESA is the political structure of state wildlife management where in most states the professionals (the agency) is dictated to by a politically appointed Commission which historically are dominated by hunting, fishing and agricultural interests. In politically divisive timesike these the commissions can be "taken over" by the loudest andost politically driven constituents which is what has happened in Idaho, Montana and Wisconsin. The new Idao and Montana laws are contrary to the state game agency's own recommendations.

Predator control, wolves in particular is largely divorced from science, indeed from reality.

Livestock predation can be managed through compensation and proved animal husbandry. Some ranchers have adopted such practices and market their beef as wolf friendly. Is it more work for ranchers than it was in the 1950s and 1960s - absolutely. But there seems to be a mentality in some segments of the ranching community that they have a multigenerational, lifetime entitlement to the way things were rather than the way things are.

But the ranchers for the most part aren't the problem. It's the anti-government, anti-science crowd driving this train (not that a lot of ranchers and hunters aren't happy to tag along).


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Such an absolute pleasure to read your posts throughout this thread. Really insightful and well-written. Thanks.

[AngryScientist]

i think this one is wrapped up.