muley69,

I understand the SSS and for elk hunters fed up with the seemingly oblivious course taken by our government it may give them some satisfaction, but here is the part that worries me....

In another thread, over at DeerHunting.com , Stubblejumper who is from Alberta (where our lovely wolves were trapped and imported from) says that they pretty much shoot wolves "on sight" (apparently legally, you can book hunts to go shoot wolves in Alberta & BC) AND it is NOT fazing the wolf populations, sooooo

I'm thinking a bunch of us slinking around like we are criminals (and under threat of federal law) doing the SSS thing isn't going to substantially affect the population growth of these critters. I've seen comments by the FWS folks essentially acknowledging the SSS factor and not being too worried about it. The last time this mess was cleaned up it took more than simple marksmanship to remedy the problem....

I'm thinking "right now" is going to be the "good old days" of elk hunting out west and in 10 to 20 years we'll be moaning about the "good old days" of large elk herds ---- here's food for thought. When the supply of elk gets scarce, like up at Gardiner MT, whose license quotas do you think are going to get shrunk first? Residents or Non-residents? I'm betting non-residents. Colorado is frequently the "safety valve" state for elk hunters that can't draw a license elsewhere or simply didn't plan ahead. I'm predicting in 10-20 years, the wolves won't be the only ones howling; a bunch of tagless non-resident hunters will be tuning up right along with them, just those hunters will be doing their howling from home.