NORMS KIMBER

is anyone killing any of these pest out in wyoming since they are delisted now? if it was not 1900 miles i would be out there everyday shooting them until my barrel melted.I hope everyone in wyoming will do their part in exterminating atleast one of them and saving an elk...and the family pets

SP10

It is a good thing you live 1900 miles away, otherwise you would be paying a lot of fines and maybe doing some jail time. Wolves are not going to go directly from a listed species to an animal with no bag limits and no closed season as you seem to want.

Re-introduction of wolves into Wyomingrepresents a large investment on the part of the Government and is popular with the general public. If any hunting of wolves is eventually allowed it will be throughstrictly managed big game hunts with tags expensive and hard to come by. Furthermore, once wolves become a game animal, the state DFG will have a strong incentive to keep populations healthy to maximize revenue from license and tag sales. The thing they are least likely to tolerate is some yahoo running around shooting every wolf he can find.

MTdrahthaar

Ummm, yes, I have heard they killed 3. All outside of the trophy area, where they are now considered varmints. There are only about 35 wolves suspected outside the trophy area.

MTdrahthaar

Wait, make that 5.

Alsatian

SP10: Sounds like you are wrong. It is time to kill all those bloody wolves in the lower-48 states. They have plenty of freedom and range in Canada and Alaska. They are a scourge and a blight. What a ridiculous boondoggle that was to deliberately reintroduce them back into the lower 48 states. One of the worst examples of misplaced enviro-craziness. "Popular with the general public." Ya, the general public that is about as knowledgeable about these matters as to buy the depiction of the little creatures all living in harmony in Bambi. The wise and affable Mr Owl patiently and jocularly interacting with the rabbits and the grouse, as if he wouldn't swoop down on silent downy wings and sink his talons into the soft flesh of both of those two species, rip the lives out of them, and devour them with relish. Cute wolves. I have no more use for them than I have for coyotes, which isn't much.

wyotimberghost

The wolves they reintroduced aren't even the wolves that were native to this area. The reintroduced wolves have no doubt killed off the remaining native wolves. So even if we were to kill off every one of the vermin we would only be eliminating a non-native species from the ecosystem. I personally don't have a problem with wolves in Wyoming if they let us control their poplution numbers. They're a neat animal and they can serve a purpose in the ecosystem in some areas. They just need to be thinned out a bit (or a lot) before they really screw up elk, moose, and bighorn sheep herds.

As far as how many have been killed, the official reported number was 10 as of today. There are reports of another two unconfirmed kills. All 10 knows kills were in Sublette County. USDA agents also killed another 4 yesterday near the trophy area boundry after they got into a rancher's pen and four or five calves. They had a permit to kill the wolves in the trophy zone, but they ended up finding and killing them in the predator zone.

SP10

Alsatian, I did not say reintroducing wolves into the lower 48 was a good idea. They had been gone for decades and the relevent ecosystem had probably reachednew equilibriums thatare now being disrupted by the introduction of predators that would be unknown to any of the current fauna in the lower 48 states. However, the fact that the Government has a lot invested inthis project and state DFGs will realize new revenues from license and tag sales in the trophy zone will make it very hard toswitch to a policy of wolf extermination.

I agree that the general public knows little about wildlife and their support for the re-indroduction of wolves in the lower 48 is based more on emotion than actual knowledge about the implications of this policy. The problem is that we hunters do not have exclusive ownership of the animals. We may be the biggest stakeholders on this issue but we are not the only shareholders. Wild animals are the property of the state and the state is answerable to the will of the majority of the citizens, as misinformed as this majority might be. I live in California where the issue of mountain lion hunting has twice been the subject ofballot referendums and bothtimes the public, which is largely ignorant on the facts of the issue, voted overwhelmingly to ban sport hunting of mountain lions. Under our form of government the voters, whether informed or not, have the last word. I may not agree with their decision but I do have to abide by it.

hillbillyhunter1

1. It would not be hard for any of the continental states to switch to a predator-shoot on site-policy if they had THEIR way.

2.Tag revenue on wolves would always be paltry in comparison to tag revenue on Elk, deer, sheep, etc...definitely not worth it from an economic standpoint in terms of elk, etclost to wolf predation and a subsequent decrease in allotted elk tags to successfully manage the herd

You missed the big picture here. The states didn't want the wolves but have had the wolves shoved down their throat by the Fed because of a bunch of feel good treehuggers whose outlook on wildlife is described above.

That being said, I'm sure many people in the STATES in questionwouldn't mind having a small number of wolves as long as they were able to be totally managed by the state and hunted by the citizens.

I guarantee you that the USFW dept cares nothing for hunting license revenue in state "x" and lately the motives of the USFW seem to be motivated from the anti-hunting crowd, which should chap every hunter's arse.

Wolf killer

SP 10

When you put the management plan of any wild animal on the ballot, the animal's lose.
I would rather have the wildlife biologist's manage the wildlife, than let emotions take over at the ballot box.

I live in Wyoming & support Wyoming's plan 100%. I plan to shoot any wolf I see in the predator area of the state.

SP10

Wolf killer,
It does make me wonder why we have a California Department of Fish and Game which employs highly trained and experiencedwildlife biologists and then weturn management decisions on a species over to a public with no credentials in this area. I believe the DFG did determine that there were enough mountain lions in California for a sustainable harvest and that is when the animal rights groups managed tomake the issue the subject of ballot referendum. I suppose this is democracy in action but I agree with you that when it comes to highly technical issues likemanaging wildlife and ecosystems it is best to leave it up to the experts rather than an uninformed public.