Wolves vs. Hunters

E

Elkslayer

New member
For those of you who might be wondering how the great little experiment of re-introducing wolves into Yellowstone National Park, Idaho, and Montana is progressing, here is a letter to the editor from the Dec. 2, 2002 Casper Star-Tribune.

Editor:

I see that the Game and Fish (Dept.) wants to raise the cost of elk permits, and I wondered if it is to pay for the equipment they had to use to bury all of those elk carcasses that the wolves kill but don’t eat.

Our hunting party now shares our hunting area with the Gros Ventre pack, and this was the first year we were skunked. We’re not your average road hunters, we spend 6 to 10 hours each day on foot, going where even men on horseback won’t go: 14 tags, nine days, no elk.

Please, at least put those oversized coyotes on the big game list. If we’re supposed to sit back and watch them wipe out our herds that put food on my table, please give me one shot at them. –

Rick, Casper (last name was printed with article)

Please click on this thread for more info and to find out how I really feel about this subject! :mad:

http://www.serveroptions.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=002869
 
I have discussed the wolf reintroduction with people who are very close to the issue until I am blue in the face. Wyoming is the only state involved that hasn't come up with a decent management plan. Dual classification? Who are we kidding.

The problem is really just a pissing match between local, state, and federal politicians. If Wyoming would get it's act together we would be hunting wolves in a couple of years. The problem is not with the Game and Fish, it's with county commissioners and the legislature.

For what it is worth, a wolf will kill on average 1.8 elk per week. Wolves have a viable reproduction of 25 per cent per year. Wolves are filling the niche that human hunters once filled. We are about to the point where we don't need hunting to maintain management goals in certain areas.

Frankly, I think we are missing a real opportunity by not putting wolves and grizzly bears on the trophy game list.
 
>>>>Frankly, I think we are missing a real opportunity by not putting wolves and grizzly bears on the trophy game list.<<<<

Ron,

I think we've had this discussion before... Your suggestion above is of course, the answer to the "problem"!

Wild predators don't have to be a competitor of human hunters, they can be an additional quarry. It seems to work in Alaska and I've never heard any out-of-state hunter complain about conditions here.

With that said, I realize it's an uphill fight to get this past the bunny hugging crowd, but it's a fight that has to be fought nonetheless.
 
The US Fish and Wildlife has spent a little over 5 million trying to introduce the Mexican Grey Wolf into the wilds of Arizona/New Mexico. They presently have 4 or 5 still running around out there. That comes to something like 1 milllion per wolf. Not exactly paying back dividends, is it?

No one that relys on the rural areas for recreating or livelihood likes the idea, as far as I can determine. Only those living in urban areas that go no farther than McDonalds seem for the program.
 
We had some ranchers from out around Van Horn all exercised about reintroduction of the Mexican wolf. Now, that's hardscrabble country. You can run as many cows per section as you get inches of rainfall. That's an average of about six cows per 640 acres.

I suggested they quit the cow bidness and go to eco-tourism. Whazzat? they asked. Well, sez I, you advertise to the Sierra Clubbers that they can come camp on your ranch and listen to wolves howl. Heck, they'll pay $100 a night and bring their own water and firewood!

What if the wolves don't howl? they asked. I sez, that's why God invented tape decks. Set one up a half-mile away; the Sierra Clubbers won't know the difference.

:D, Art
 
Used to be, even in Alaska, getting a good shot at a wolf was a rarity, thanks to their innate intelligience and relative scarcity. Now, most hunters on a 10 day hunt for moose/caribou/sheep get a crack at a wolf or two. This is thanks to the eradication of wolf control programs that hurt the feelings of Californian Sierra Clubbers.

Having been employed in the past as a hunting guide here I still know lots of guides. Fer instance, my old boss didn't even have any moose hunters this year as wolves have eaten most of the moose in his area. His guides saw more wolves than moose in each of the last two years. We used to take about 15-20 moose/year from his area; something that had held steady for about 20 years.

I have relatives in rural Montana, the locals there tell me they have a "shoot, shovel and shut up" policy regarding wolves. I told them we call something like that a "stomper", like an off-license duck you accidentally shot, which you stomp down into the mud.

Wanna legally shoot a wolf? C'mon up, please.
 
I see that the Game and Fish (Dept.) wants to raise the cost of elk permits, and I wondered if it is to pay for the equipment they had to use to bury all of those elk carcasses that the wolves kill but don’t eat.
Click to expand...
I admit I have little experience with wolves since I live in Indiana but why on earth would wolves expend the energy to chase down an elk and then not eat it? Maybe they didn't eat it all and would return or were chased away from the kill by people, but it seems to me that wolves don't have so much food that they can waste it. I am for the introduction of wolves back into their native areas. If for no other reason but to add a game species to the list. I also don't have a problem with ranchers shooting them if they are eating their cows. If there is not enough native wildlife in an area for the wolves to survive on them, they shouldn't re-introduce them.
 
Art - :D


DadofThree - Wolves are one of the few predators that will kill for the sake of killing and not simply to feed themselves. Consequently they aren't a very positive influence on the numbers of any prey the pack encounters...

So, it is simply a matter of time before they start getting into the ranchers sheep or calves around here, then hunting season and permits will be out the window - some ranchers are gonna start shooting 'em and leaving 'em where they lay. Oh yeah, its already happened, but nobody's talkin' and ya ain't gonna see it in the Sierra Clubs news letter. They'll be too busy telling thier people what a success the whole cluster is!! :p
 
Wolves don't "kill just for the sake of killing" except in the rarest of circumstances. One of those circumstances just happens to be among domestic sheep or cattle which tend to be penned up and just don't "act right" when wolves come in.
It's a pretty rare occurence when wolves are dealing with wild game. For some reason, dall and bighorn sheep tend to get slaughtered by wolves in the winter when they get stuck in deep snow moving from one range to another. They're just helpless in that situation and the wolves will often kill all they can catch. I'm sure they come back for weeks to the scene of such a slaughter and help themselves through the lean times. Wasteful? Probably, but it's a rare situation.

If anyone thinks wolves are regularly taking out more than they can eat, they're just wrong. It makes no sense for a predator like a wolf to take out large animals like elk, moose or even caribou unless they really need the meat. Watch any film of wolves taking out a large animal and you'll generally see one or more wolves get injured, some times severely.

The "Too Many Wolves" crowd in Alaska always tend to be around population centers. McGrath is one such place that comes up in the wolf debate regularly. Well, McGrath is a remote village that has grown considerably over the last 20 years or so, and everyone and their cousin is now catering to hunters by running them around the river system on boats, providing lodging, guiding, etc, etc. Well, gee - why are they surprised that there are less moose around when hunting pressure has increased 5 or 10 fold? These guys shoot every wolf they see and encourage their clients to do the same, so how can they claim there are more wolves around than before they turned their area into a hunting circus?

I just don't buy it! When I charter out into areas away from villages (and hunting pressure) I see all the game I can handle. Why do wolves only decimate game in areas with heavy hunting pressure? Does that make sense?

It's probably none of my business whether or not wolves are reintroduced to places in the lower 48. I think that should have been left up to the locals instead of imposed on them by the feds. However, now that the wolves are there, the goal ought to be adding them to the list of game animals so that some sort of controls are placed on their numbers. I suspect shooting at wolves is an excellent way to get them to associate men with trouble - and help keep them from ranchers and livestock. A big wolf is the trophy of a lifetime, certainly more difficult to get than a bear, for example.

Hey, you got a lemon - make lemonade!
 
Keith - yep I agree with ya. You just went into more detail than I cared to...

Sure wolves will only kill healthy animals as they need them cause the healthy animals fight back/run like heck. A pack of wolves are still a very efficient predator to those healthy animals. Sheep, by contrast, just sit around waiting to be slaughtered. Wolves like that. Sheep ranchers don't like wolves liking it...

Can't wait to make some o' that lemonade. Whaddya think a permit will cost? :D
 
Keith, much of the west side of the Alaska Range is being impacted by high wolf populations, not necessarily near population centers. The nearest "population center" to the area I spoke of is Lime Village, which is a far cry from McGrath, let alone Anchorage. The spots we hunted there, which are now almost moose free, are at least an hour Cub ride from Port Alsworth.

The difference is, there used to be aerial wolf shooting, and more trapping, back when fur was worth something, and before the ban on aerial shooting. In short, there was more wolf control, now what there is comes from sport hunters taking one incidental to a moose/caribou hunt.

For instance, a couple of buddies of mine flew out near the Hoholitna to hunt caribou two years ago; one day they each shot a bull. They eached packed the hindquarters of their animals back to camp, planning to return the next morning for the rest. By morning, all that was left was wolf scat, tracks and bone bits. They took pictures to show ADF&G in case a trooper wanted to nail a wanton waste charge on them. Their story is not unusual these days.

I'm not for killing all the wolves, I'm for managing the game, all of it, which includes predators.
 
Yorec, (and others) didn't you read early this spring about the 2 dozen or so head of elk on the Gro Ventre feed grounds who had been hamstrung and had their noses bit off and were still alive when that couple snowshoed in and took pictures of the carnage?

Remember the articale and picture in the paper about all of the dead elk there this spring and how there was a concern by the ranchers of bears hanging around to feed on the carcases?

I beleive a wolf will pursue any animal which will run much like a cat will chase a string just to catch it. Regardless if that is a true statement or not, we still can not dispute the pile of dead elk on that feed ground that was shown on KTWO TV news last spring.

I just wish they had not introduced them as they were already there, remember the guy who shot one and gave it to the feds to identify? The feds had it for 6 months or so before they admitted it was a wolf. Or what aout the rancher from Boulder WY who ROPED one off his snowmobile and put it into his horse trailer and turned it over to the feds and was charged with harassing wildlife?

I don't mind there are wolves out there, hell I saw one back in 1980 in Little Buffalo Basin at 75 yards. Its just that the whole thing was shoved down our (Wyoming, Montana, & Idaho's) throat and now our state has to pay for it from our G&F budget. The monies the G&F gets is only from sportsmen/women but is being spent so that non-hunters can have those wolves.

And they are at the top of the food chain with nothing to check their growth.

I support the dual classification. I don't see anything wrong with having the wolf be a trophy animal in the Y-stone ecosystem as long as all of the ecosystem is included without any open for "hunting as a predator" strips to cut it up. And then being a predator elsewhere.

As far as the feds rejecting our plan, the PLAN can be modified if it doesn't appear to be working out can't it? Nothing says it has to last until the next coming of you know who!
 
Elkslayer,
Or what aout the rancher from Boulder WY who ROPED one off his snowmobile and put it into his horse trailer and turned it over to the feds and was charged with harassing wildlife?
Click to expand...
He roped a wolf??:eek: What was he thinking? I was with a guy riding trails in Brown county state park in Indiana on horseback. We came up on a nice 6 point buck that just stared at us. He didn't run maybe because we were riding and not on foot. So this guy gets out his lariat and ropes the buck. They are not hard to hold if they are trying to get away. They don't weigh near as much as a steer. If they are trying to get away. If on the other hand they charge your horse and start ramming 6 points into your horse's flanks, it makes things get very interesting. His horse was bucking up and down and he was trying to stay on and at the same time kicking the buck in the head to get it away from his horse. It was all the guy could do to stay on his horse and to keep away from the buck. He finally got the buck wrapped around a tree and the rest of us helped get the rope off. After we got done laughing of coarse :D :D Seemed as though it was a lot funnier to us than to him.
I can't imagine roping a wolf although I guess on a snowmobile he could go fast enough to just drag the wolf around until he got tired. Not something I would try.
 
While I don't doubt the "wasted elk" story, I don't think I'd judge all wolf behavior on this one instance. It is pretty much opposite what's been written about wolf behavior since way, way before anybody thought about "bringing back the wolf". Long before there was any political agenda, and a lot of science-folks were far more objective in their conclusions.

After all, that sort of behavior is contra-survival. Keep it up and it gets real hungry out.

The problem ain't the wolf or the grizzly. It's the mix of law-enforcement power, do-goodism, and a lack of concern over individual civil rights.

Art
 
Brian.

One of my favorite caribou hunting areas is Tundra Lake, south of Lime Village. I always see moose.
I would venture to say that if you leave meat in the field overnight, it's generally going to be gone the next morning. Bears, wolves, wolverines - even foxes will make a mess because they'll P all over the meat to claim it. I'd blame that on that stupid "bone-in" rule that makes it difficult to get the meat back to camp and hung up.

There is a lot of wolves in that area, I suspect because of all the caribou. Which brings up a conundrum, if wolves are over-populated in the area, why is the mulchatna caribou herd still growing? That herd is the fastest growing in the state - they've doubled then tripled in size over last 10 - 15 years!

I suspect the boys right around lime village are just taking too many moose and catering to too many hunters.
 
Like the wolf, House cats are the worse for killing just for the fun of it,of course smaller animals, common house cats have put many critters on the extinction list because of it. Cats have been introduced to many parts of the world they would never be if it was not for humans. Some animals just love to kill;) where do we draw the line protecting animals that are reducing other animals numbers and over populating area's. Aim small hit small. RAMbo.
 
Art,

Farley Mowat is a bit too much the New Age Do-Gooder for my tastes! If you want to read the real-deal on wolves and get some truly thoughtful and balanced insight, read Barry Lopez.

In My Humble Opinion, the finest work ever written on mans inter-relationship with nature is Lopez' "Arctic Dreams". He has some passages in there about the state of mind of the hunter/predator that will make your jaw drop. He's interested in how Inuit hunters navigate across featureless terrain in the arctic night, find game when no objective clues can be seen by the modern man, etc. He compares this to how wolves operate in the same conditions and postulates that the great predators (men and wolves) share a sort of sixth sense, and he backs that up with the latest information from neurologists. When you read this you'll remember flashes of insight that have happened to you when you were hunting - things that you may have attributed to coincidence rather than a sixth sense. It's a hoot to read this section of the book, and when you reach down into your guts you just KNOW he's right - that these senses exist and that you've used them.

He has a book on wolves (the title escapes me at the moment) that is excellent as well. He's a wolf admirer, but not one of these New Age nitwits.

Anyway, if you want to read a work that will leave you lying awake at night mulling over things, get Arctic Dreams. I'm sure it's still available through Amazon.com
 
Since the time of the research mentioned in "Never Cry Wolf" was right before WW II, I can't help but find the term "New Age" a bit intriguing :)...Regardless, it was what Mowat learned from the trapper, there at the end of the book, that was interesting.

It worked out that after all the brouhaha over the wolf depleting the caribou herds, the "shortfall" in the caribou population = the product of the number of trappers times the number of weeks in the season. They fed their dogs a caribou a week.

Thanks for the book reference. I'll check it out.

I've never called it "hunter's instinct" by name, but I've always been so at home in woods, desert or swamp that I've never been more than momentarily unsure about direction/location. One of those "I just sorta know" deals, I guess. And Lord knows how many times I "just felt" that something was near. Ever be dozing on a hillside and wake up and there's Bambi? I know darned well I didn't hear him, at 100-150 yards...

Art
 
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