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

[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/lo...a-d4f01c968464

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/05/us/id...led/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...-mask-burning/

https://apnews.com/article/brad-litt...76126fe3e43646

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/lo...0-6d36a6f77288

[tkbike]

Originally Posted by ripvanrando

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/240124...ear-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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by tkbike

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]

Originally Posted by 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/lo...a-d4f01c968464

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/05/us/id...led/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...-mask-burning/

https://apnews.com/article/brad-litt...76126fe3e43646

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/lo...0-6d36a6f77288

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]

Originally Posted by ripvanrando

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

[Kirk007]

Originally Posted by 72gmc

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by jamesdak

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/...e-are-for-now/

[tctyres]

Originally Posted by ripvanrando

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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