Originally Posted by
Gromky
Why don't you just tell me? Either there are now lots of "late season cow hunts" because the wolves have eaten them all, therefore you need to go cull the herd even more, or there are no longer any "late season cow hunts" because populations have stabilized to reasonable levels, and as you've said the guides can no longer take the people from out of state to go shoot that giant trophy cow elk they've always wanted.
I'm sorry but I can not make any sense out of that post.
Anyway, I don't think anyone can dispute the fact that the introduction of wolves has a detrimental effect on the animals they (the wolves) typically hunt when it comes to population numbers. That's not saying that the wolves don't have a place in a given ecosystem, although these specific wolves introduced in the American West are not the same as the ones that were once here. They are their bigger canadian cousins.
I don't think that there would be as big an outcry from hunters against these wolves if the states were allowed to manage them according to the population goals originally set by the introduction plan, which have now been exceded. That control would of course come through hunting.
The wolf itself is not the problem here. It, like many other issues now-days, is just a symptom of the problem. The problem is the federal government imposing its will againt the people who have to live with the consequences . This particular problem is also laced with the emotion of anti-hunting, fuzzy-hugging, lawsuit- bringing, disney-watching crowd, who have little objectivity when it comes to the natural world.
You may say that many hunters are guided by emotion on this issue to...and you'd be correct, but I believe that the lion's share of that emotion is caused when the clowns don't stick to the original introduction plan put forth...meanwhile the prolific wolves keep doing what they do uninhibited.
Fact is the wolves have reached their goals (and then some). Let the states manage them according to those set goals and ongoing objective poplulation surveys. What in the heck is so hard about that???